In the Maldives, the cabinet strapped on scuba gear and met under water to emphasize the risk of global warming to their island nation. In Nepal, the ministers put on oxygen tanks and conducted their business high up on Mt. Everest to focus attention on the impact of climate change on the world’s highest peak.… Continue reading Crapshoot in Copenhagen
Here’s the premise: an entire region is up for auction. “Mark your calendars for an opportunity of a lifetime,” reads the ad copy. “In a bold step towards the future of global real estate, Nayruz invites you to bid for the ultimate luxury: the Middle East.” In her “corporate intervention,” entitled The Equity Is in… Continue reading Why Dubai?
It’s bad enough when a person drowns in debt. Shockwaves multiply when a corporation teeters on the verge of failure. The economy becomes even more agitated when a country declares bankruptcy, as Iceland did in 2008 and Hungary and Latvia almost did in 2009. But Dubai? The global economy is obviously still in bad shape… Continue reading Bye-Bye Dubai
Back in 2003, when Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) put together the collection of essays Power Trip on the emerging foreign policy of the Bush administration, our big debate was over continuity versus change. Was the aggressive unilateralism of George W. Bush and his cohort a wholly new creation? Or was it simply business as… Continue reading Exceptional or Exceptionalism
Imagine finding yourself in the driver’s seat of a car heading directly at a brick wall. You panic: What to do? Fortunately, there are three people in the car with you, and they all have very firm advice. The person in the passenger seat tells you to push the pedal to the metal. Right behind… Continue reading Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
Critics of the Obama administration were delighted at the images from the president’s recent trip to Asia. There was the deep bow before Emperor Akihito. There was the group photo with the head of the Burmese junta. There was the deferential press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao. “There is no reason for an American… Continue reading Obama Takes a Bow
The traffic circles in Tirana, the capital of Albania, are a free-for-all. There are no lanes. There are no signs. There are no rules. On a visit to Tirana several days ago, I drove into the swirling chaos with all my senses alert, relieved that the rental car came with insurance. If driving was a… Continue reading Europe’s Wild East
No, it’s not a joke. Albanians think highly enough of George W. Bush to name a café after him. There’s even a George W. Bush Street in the capital of Tirana, albeit a rather short, crooked one. Bush received a warm welcome when he became the first U.S. president to visit the country in 2007.… Continue reading Postcard from Tirana
President Obama has talked a lot about ridding the world of nuclear weapons. He won a Nobel Peace prize largely on the strength of those words. Now, he needs to translate words into actions and vindicate the Nobel committee’s decision. When he goes to Japan this month, the president should make an unprecedented visit to… Continue reading Obama: Visit Hiroshima
Russia is disappearing. So is Japan. Europe is next to go. It’s not the rising waters of global warming that threaten these parts of the world. The problem is more basic. The Russians and Japanese, as well as large numbers of Europeans, are not having enough children to replace themselves. The birth rates across a… Continue reading New Neighbors, New Economy
At the recent off-the-record meeting between U.S. and North Korean representatives at a conference in California, journalists were eager for any crumb of information about what the two interlocutors said to each other. The dialogue was “useful,” according to the North Korean representative. The U.S. side remarked that the mood was “better than we’ve seen… Continue reading North Korea: Journalists vs. Diplomats
This year in Istanbul, the flags on Republic Day seemed extra large. It wasn’t a special anniversary year. Turkey was celebrating its 86th year as a modern secular state. Nevertheless, the sheer number of flags – 60,000 hanging from government buildings, draped across skyscrapers, dominating squares – was unprecedented. The display of 48,000 fireworks over… Continue reading Reading Ramadan in Istanbul
The bottle looks beautiful. It sports an old-fashioned spring-top stopper. The red, diamond-shaped label features an elegant font. From a distance, the silhouetted landscape on the label looks exotic. It is, like all fine gourmet water, “bottled at source.” Even the French name of the water suggests elegance: B’eau Pal. But wait: B’eau Pal? That… Continue reading Lords of Misrule
In the game of geopolitics, South Asia is the big swing region. It commands the very center of the vast Eurasian heartland, which the founders of geopolitics identified as pivotal to control of the globe. This preoccupation with the world’s most populous region — which brings together India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and several… Continue reading Swing Region
We’re close to our spending limit on the nation’s credit card. The bank bailout, the stimulus package, the Iraq War and the overall military budget: each is costing more than $500 billion. Now the Obama administration is looking at two more hefty charges: a national health care plan and a surge in Afghanistan. It’s time… Continue reading Obama Must Pick Gurneys Over Guns
When I recently visited Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, a young girl on our tour of the house raised her hand tentatively during the docent’s remarks about the enslaved people who worked the plantation. “Did Jefferson treat his slaves better than other slave-owners?” she asked.The docent responded, wisely, that slavery is slavery, however brilliant or benevolent the… Continue reading Toward a More Perfect Nobel
A mixed metaphor lurks behind the Obama administration’s foreign policy. On the one hand, there’s Obama’s “open hand” approach that rewards the unclenched fist with a handshake. On the other hand there’s the other hand, the one that Obama keeps close to his chest. This “hand” is the set of cards that Obama the gambler… Continue reading The Hand of Obama
Celebrating its 60th birthday this year, NATO is looking peaked and significantly worse for wear. Aggressive and ineffectual, the organization shows signs of premature senility. Despite the smiles and reassuring rhetoric at its annual summits, its internal politics have become fractious to the point of dysfunction. Perhaps like any sexagenarian in this age of health-care… Continue reading Afghanistan: NATO’s Graveyard
I never much liked the idea of arms control. During the Cold War, we managed our nuclear arsenals rather than reduced them. We treated our nukes like huge, dangerous animals. We restricted their movements but gave them ample care and feeding. Until recently, getting rid of the animals altogether was not part of the political… Continue reading Carbon Disarmament
The Vietnam War ruined everything. It not only destroyed Vietnam and killed a huge number of its inhabitants. It not only killed so many American soldiers and destroyed the futures of so many veterans. It not only spread into Cambodia and Laos and wrecked those countries for generations. The Vietnam War also killed the Great… Continue reading Good War vs. Great Society
Last week, I inadvertently found myself back in second grade. This is how it happened. I recently published an essay on the tradition of suicide missions in the West that generated a lot of letters, some of them negative. But even the detractors generally respected the norms of polite discourse. Then, last week, several conservative… Continue reading Lies and Misdemeanors
At the edge of Europe, in Ireland’s Shannon Airport, they conduct surveillance on the U.S. empire. ShannonWatch, a group of a dozen or so peace activists led by a former Irish commandant and peacekeeper, scrutinizes the commercial and military planes that pass through Ireland to bring troops and hardware to Afghanistan. Such transports take place… Continue reading Europe 3.0
Last November, shortly after Election Day, I met with a legislator from the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Kuniko Tanioka was in town to see the usual Washington types. But she also wanted a front-row seat to watch Barack Obama’s historic win. After all, Obama was the reason she’d thrown her hat in the ring… Continue reading The Other Democratic Party
Japan has been a one-party oligarchy for a very long time. This may not be a polite thing to say about a democracy and a U.S. ally. But Japan has been ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for the last 54 years, except for a few nanoseconds after the Cold War when the ruling… Continue reading Revolution in Japan
To: Leon Panetta, Langley HQ From: Operative 650, Shanghai office Re: Memo XE1250 Leon: I just received the memo on the latest Blackwater scandal. Talk about embarrassing! Why did we outsource assassination to those bozos? Remember in 2006 when a Blackwater guy, drunk as a skunk, killed the Iraqi vice president’s bodyguard? And we were… Continue reading Chinese Assassination Squads
The “sunshine generation” is coming to an end. In South Korea, Kim Dae-Jung’s death comes hard on the heels of Roh Moo-Hyun’s suicide. In North Korea, meanwhile, Kim Jong-Il has been planning for his own succession. These three men were responsible for two inter-Korean summits and a host of agreements, exchanges, and political breakthroughs. As… Continue reading After the Sunshine Generation
We endure, ignore, or fall prey to as many as 20,000 ads a day. That’s one ad every three seconds of our waking hours. We wear ads on our shirts, forward commercials via email, sing jingles with our friends, and even brand corporate icons on our bodies. We’ve developed vaccines to address this particular virus.… Continue reading Global Spin Doctors
The end of the Cold War ushered in a new period of unipolar American power. In this country, liberals and conservatives alike celebrated the triumph of market democracies under the leadership of the United States. The Clinton administration attempted to consolidate America’s geoeconomic power. The Bush administration attempted to consolidate America’s military and geopolitical power.… Continue reading Review: The Future of Global Relations
Jimmy Carter, the saying goes, was destined to be a great former president. The jury is still out on Bill Clinton, but he certainly accomplished his mission to Pyongyang quickly and successfully. Last week, Clinton flew to North Korea, met with Kim Jong Il, and brought home Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two journalists… Continue reading Bill’s Excellent Adventure
The actor Will Smith is no one’s image of a suicide bomber. With his boyish face, he has often played comic roles. Even as the last man on earth in I Am Legend, he retains a wise-cracking, ironic demeanor. And yet, surrounded by a horde of hyperactive vampires at the end of that film, Smith… Continue reading Their Martyrs and Our Heros