“Detractors of Hillary,” World Beat, December 23, 2008 “China/US: Rivals, Partners in Asia,” Inter Press Service, December 17, 2008 “No More Axes,” World Beat, December 16, 2008 “Review: Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic,” Foreign Policy In Focus “Speak Memory,” World Beat, December 9, 2008 “Bomb India?” World Beat, December 2, 2008 “Tackling the Global Military Industrial… Continue reading 2008 Archives
The headlines coming out of East Asia have been rather positive – compared to the horrors of Iraq and Afghanistan, melting glaciers, and plummeting stock markets. The Six Party Talks have been making progress toward ending the confrontation between the United States and North Korea and denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. Over the summer, North Korea… Continue reading Tackling the Global Military Industrial Complex
After suffering through an abusive relationship, many people will fall in love “on the rebound.” They finally escape the clutches of an ogre only to jump, often without looking, into the embrace of another person, any other person. This leap of love is sometimes a lucky one, sometimes not. The last seven years of the… Continue reading Rebounding with Obama
In Aesop’s famous fable, a shepherd boy amuses himself by crying out wolf just to watch his fellow villagers rush up to the pasture to defend the sheep. There’s no wolf; the villagers are furious. The boy does this several times until finally when the wolf really does appear, his cries for help go unheeded.… Continue reading Crying Terrorism
John McCain’s choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin for his vice-presidential candidate – an American heartthrob for the position one heartbeat away from the presidency – is the perfect expression of an anti-foreign policy. While Barack Obama was desperate to shore up his standing by pulling a foreign policy wonk onto his ticket, McCain was… Continue reading Heartthrob, Heartbeat
I feel like I have a hangover when I’m reading the proceedings of international economic organizations. My hands start to tremble when I open a document from the G8 or the World Trade Organization. I start to read and my head hurts. My mouth is dry. I have an upset stomach. The language of the… Continue reading Hair of the Dog
The vehemence of the hard-line opposition to the Bush administration’s North Korea policy suggests that, after seven years of blunders and miscues and outright war crimes, Washington has finally done the right thing on a foreign policy issue. I know: it’s really hard to keep the knee from jerking. Heck, I wrote a whole book… Continue reading Bush Gets One Right?
We were promised change, and when it comes to U.S. domestic policy we will likely get it. The Obama administration is readying a huge economic stimulus package. The president-elect recently announced that his nominee for secretary of labor is Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), who is great on both labor and environmental issues. And maybe, just… Continue reading Detractors of Hillary
In Poland, in the first years after the fall of communism, the architects of its “shock therapy” economic reforms often compared their program to cutting the tail off a cat. If, for some reason, you were given the assignment of removing the unfortunate creature’s tail with an ax, it was best that you did it… Continue reading No More Axes
The United States wasn’t the only country transformed by the social activism of the 1960s. Peace activists, Greens, and cultural hippies practically turned Germany upside down. And the man who has symbolized this thoroughgoing change more than any other German is Joschka Fischer. As Paul Hockenos details in Joschka Fischer and the Making of the… Continue reading Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic (Review)