There are several types of missing persons. Some missing people are missed so publicly that their absence is a presence. Vanished children reappeared on milk cartons and then later in amber alerts. American soldiers, killed in action or MIA, look out at us from rows of photos like headstones in the newspaper on Memorial Day.… Continue reading The Missing
Imagine an international event sometime in the near future known as the Apology Games. It is held every four years and features teams of professional diplomats, politicians, and conflict resolution specialists (with a few actors thrown into the mix). There are many rules in this Olympics, but one trumps all the others: contestants can only… Continue reading The Apology Olympics
The fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the most dramatic events of the 20th century. It happened suddenly on the evening of November 9, 1989 when thousands of East Germans decided to take history into their own hands and pour over the border into the West. Although the Soviet Union wouldn’t disintegrate for… Continue reading Before/After
In June 1998, the business tycoon Chung Ju-Yung drove 500 cattle across the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea. Then, leaning on a cane, the frail founder of the Hyundai conglomerate hobbled across the border himself. He was the first civilian to make the crossing without government escort in over half a century. The… Continue reading Women’s Delegation to Cross the DMZ
To: John Brennan, Langley HQ From: Operative 650, McMurdo Sound Re: Politics 2.0 Greetings from Antarctica. It’s not so bad here, as long as you like tinned peas and snow blindness. But seriously, thanks to several months of sunless winter, I’ve been able to learn Urdu, top my previous high score in Spider Solitaire, and… Continue reading Robot-in-Chief
NORTH KOREA IS NOT the information black hole it’s so often made out to be. It’s more like Alpha Centauri, a star several light years from Earth. We can remotely acquire a wealth of information about this distant location, even though there’s always a frustrating time lag. It’s not the speed of light, but the… Continue reading Strange News from Another Star
It was only a couple years ago that I was bemoaning Obama’s failure to fulfill his promise to resolve major confrontations in the world diplomatically. “Smart power,” in the Obama lexicon, had largely been window dressing on the same old exercise of hard power — the widespread drone strikes, the surge in Afghanistan, the intervention… Continue reading Obama’s Triple Crown
It’s time for a confession. I have worked as a “foreign agent.” When I lived and traveled in Asia and Eastern Europe, I was an employee of U.S.-based NGOs. I was paid by these organizations to promote social change in those parts of the world. I worked hand-in-hand with groups that often criticized their own… Continue reading Foreign Agents
The full-page ad in this week’s Washington Post portraying President Obama as history’s favorite whipping boy, Neville Chamberlain, was wrong in nearly every one of its many strident particulars. It was wrong in suggesting that a nuclear agreement with Iran is appeasement. It was wrong in comparing Iran with Nazi Germany. It was wrong to argue… Continue reading Iran: Deal or No Deal?
The new talking point for the Republican Party — actually, it’s an old talking point in expensive new clothing — is “America is in retreat.” That’s the title of a recent book by Bret Stephens, a Wall Street Journal columnist who believes that he’s discovered a virus of “neo-isolationism” infecting the White House. His book… Continue reading The Retreatniks
Negotiators are rushing to meet an end-of-March deadline to reach a nuclear framework deal with Iran. The Obama administration and its P5+1 partners (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) are willing to lift economic sanctions as long as Iran agrees to substantially curb its nuclear program for at least 10… Continue reading North Korea, Iran, and a Congress that Says No
In traditional Japanese culture, a samurai without a master is known as a ronin. The most popular tale featuring these leaderless samurai is the 18th-century Chusingura. It tells of a feudal lord who must commit ritual suicide after assaulting the court official who had insulted him. Of the lord’s several hundred retainers, 47 loyal samurai… Continue reading The 47 Republican Ronin
We were nearing the end of dinner when the eminent personage leaned in my direction and began yelling at me. Up to that point, the argument among the five of us at the end of the long table at the restaurant had been heated but at a conversational volume. The fact that we were arguing… Continue reading The Kremlin’s Kool-Aid
The description of the death of Robert-Francois Damiens, the man who attempted to kill Louis XV, is not for the faint-hearted. On March 2, 1757, in front of a crowd of spectators, Damiens was drawn and quartered, which means that his limbs were tied to four horses that were then urged to gallop toward the… Continue reading The Comparative Politics of Atrocity
In the ads in the back of old comic books, a skinny little kid is hanging out at the beach when a bully comes along and kicks sand in his face. The little kid, who weighed 97 pounds at the time, was Angelo Siciliano. He hightailed it to the gym, where he worked out until… Continue reading Is Japan’s Prime Minister the Next Putin?
Animals caught in a trap will often chew off a limb to escape. Even the occasional human being has resorted to this nightmare option, as the hiker Aron Ralston did when a boulder pinned his arm in a remote area of Utah wilderness. He’d run out of food, water, and time. What he did have… Continue reading Can Ukraine Gnaw Its Way out of Trouble
During the Cold War, science fiction writers and politicians like Ronald Reagan imagined that the threat of an invasion from outer space could break down ideological barriers and unify the world. The arrival of giant bug-eyed creatures bent on death and destruction would prompt world leaders to set aside their petty rivalries for the higher… Continue reading ISIS Unites the World
The world of today appears to be a great deal more dangerous than the one that President Obama inherited on taking office in 2009. The Islamic State (ISIS or IS) has remade the map of a large chunk of the Middle East. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is any more stable or peaceful despite the formal… Continue reading Obama’s Last National Security Strategy
Greek voters have decisively repudiated the economics of austerity by handing an overwhelming victory to the left-wing party Syriza in their recent parliamentary elections. This was not a big surprise. Greece has been suffering from high levels of unemployment, including a rate higher than 50 percent for young people. The standard of living for much… Continue reading Greece and the Unlearned Lesson of 1990
I was waiting to buy a ticket to see the new film American Sniper when the guy next to me provided a capsule review. It was a fantastic movie, he told me. The main character, Chris Kyle, was a great guy, and the film really showed what the war over there was like. “And the… Continue reading Furriners
Europe won the Cold War. Not long after the Berlin Wall fell a quarter of a century ago, the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States squandered its peace dividend in an attempt to maintain global dominance, and Europe quietly became more prosperous, more integrated, and more of a player in international affairs. Between 1989 and… Continue reading The Collapse of Europe?
The cyberattack on Sony Pictures last month was a classic whodunit. The FBI, playing the role of Sherlock Holmes, visited the virtual crime scene, gathered up the evidence, and tried to piece together the motives of the potential culprits. As a result of the FBI investigation, the Obama administration declared that North Korea was the… Continue reading North Korea: Spyware vs. Spyware
You know that a TV show has hit a bad stretch when the producers bring in a controversial guest star to boost ratings. A reality show about a two-year-old beauty pageant star is tanking in the ratings? Bring in Sarah Palin to serve as her life coach. Saturday Night Live on a long spiral downward?… Continue reading Special Guest Star: Bibi!
Neanderthals generally get a bad rap. If history is written by the winners, they are the world’s very first losers. After all, Neanderthals came out on the wrong end of the great evolutionary battle with our Homo Sapiens ancestors. Ever since, they have been portrayed as big, stupid, artless, lumbering brutes. Our smarter forebears wiped… Continue reading A Neanderthal Foreign Policy
In the first Crusade, on their way to fight the Muslim infidels in Jerusalem, the armed pilgrims asked themselves a provocative question: Why should we trek so far to kill people we barely know when we can just as well massacre infidels closer to home? And thus the crusaders of the 11th century embarked on some… Continue reading Europe’s Coming Battle
The recent attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which left a dozen editors, cartoonists, and policemen dead, has renewed concerns that blowback from the latest round of fighting in Syria and Iraq is finally reaching Europe. In a September 2014 video, the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) called on its militants and sympathizers around the… Continue reading Charlie Hebdo: Middle East Blowback?
Review of Blaine Harden, The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot (Viking, 2015), 290 pages The cover of Blaine Harden’s new book both literally and symbolically reproduces the map of the divided Korean peninsula. The top half is dominated by the face of Kim Il Sung against a dark background. The Yalu River… Continue reading The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot (Review)
In bidding farewell to 2014, most of us gave the year a swift kick in the rear end as it exited the calendar. On foreign policy in particular, few people had nice things to say about the recently departed. After all, it was a banner year for all manner of evils. The Ebola outbreak in… Continue reading Why 2014 Wasn’t So Terrible
Cuba and North Korea share a great deal in common. They are both led by dynastic rulers. They retain their nominal affiliation to revolutionary Communism. They suffer under U.S. embargoes that have been in place for decades. And although they registered significant economic and social progress in the 1960s, they have become increasingly impoverished as… Continue reading Carrots for Cuba, Sticks for North Korea
You are a customs official. It’s the early 1980s. You are living in a grim East European country. Your job is to check the documents of visitors, immigrants, and returning citizens. You need the job because times are tight, and several of your family members are sick. Every day the rules change regarding the paperwork… Continue reading The Games of Our Lives