Here’s the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean 4. The film opens with Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow dropping anchor in New York harbor. He descends on Wall Street with his mates and, after a quick costume change at Brooks Brothers, storms the boardrooms of Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and other major firms. They don’t need… Continue reading Our Pirates and Theirs
Last week, shortly after being inaugurated, President Barack Obama ended the “global war on terror” (GWOT). Or so The Washington Post reported. The new president countermanded the Bush administration’s extralegal approaches by mandating the closure of Guantánamo within a year, outlawing the use of torture in interrogations, and putting the CIA out of the secret… Continue reading GWOT’s End
Mladen Miljanovic, who won the prestigious Bell Award in 2007 as the best young visual artist in Bosnia Herzegovina, grew up during the wars that split apart Yugoslavia. He lived in the area of Bosnia that became Republika Srpska. His home was near one military base, his school near a second. More than once he… Continue reading Postcard from Banja Luka
According to the British historian Eric Hobsbawm in The Age of Extremes, the 20th century didn’t truly begin until 1914. World War I, with its new technologies of violence and effective termination of several empires, brought what Hobsbawm called the “long 19th century” to a close. Those with a more scientific bent might date the… Continue reading Inaugural Mulligan
He was focused on domestic issues. He promised a “compassionate conservatism.” In a 2000 presidential debate with Al Gore, he recoiled from the image of an arrogant United States offending the rest of the world. “If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us,” he said. “If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us.”… Continue reading Bush’s Path from ‘Humility’ to ‘Bring it On’
The United States is the largest exporter of arms in the world. Imagine what would happen if we became the largest exporter of the arts instead. This is just one of the ways that an art stimulus package could be used to change the way America relates to the world. By turning swords into paintbrushes,… Continue reading From Arms to Art
Early on in his administration, George W. Bush decided not to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Did the president consider the problem too difficult to solve? No, that wasn’t quite it. Too much of a domestic hot potato? Wrong again. Instead, the 43rd American president had his eyes on the prize. And not in a… Continue reading Lame Legacy
Japan: The Price of Normalcy John Feffer In the early 1990s, the Japanese military adopted a cute mascot by the name of Prince Pickles. He’s a little guy with a big head and big eyes who lives in a tranquil country bordering on some pretty dangerous territory. In three action-packed comic books aimed at young… Continue reading Japan: The Price of Normalcy
There is a deep affinity between the United States and Israel. I’m not talking about the Israel Lobby, which concentrates its influence in Washington. Or the connections between neoconservatives and the Israeli right wing. Or the rhapsodizing of fundamentalist Christians, who embrace Israel as part of their scenario for the Apocalypse. The affinity runs deeper:… Continue reading Israel: Mini-Me?
Korean Quarterly, Winter 2009
Review of Theodore Jun Yoo, The Politics of Gender in Colonial Korea: Education, Labor, and Health, 1910-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), pp. 316 It is the unusual academic book that begins with a double suicide. Playwright Kim U-jin and singer Yun Sim-dok are the tragic lovers who open Theodore Jun Yoo’s new… Continue reading The Politics of Gender in Colonial Korea (Review)
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2009
Gastronomica, Fall 2009
“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)
I wasn’t there to hear horror stories. The refugees that gathered in the living room of the house in this small village outside of Sarajevo were participants in a community garden project. In urban plots throughout Bosnia, families from different faiths and backgrounds coaxed vegetables from the ground and rebuilt relationships shattered by war. The… Continue reading Speak Memory
After the attacks in Mumbai last week, should the United States bomb suspected terrorist cells in India? Send the Marines to Kashmir where one of the suspected groups behind the attacks — Lashkar-e-Taiba — originates? Or initiate regime change in Pakistan, which has provided support for several terrorist outfits operating in South Asia? These are,… Continue reading Bomb India?
During his campaign, Barack Obama the candidate played it safe. He gave careful answers in the debates. He didn’t provide detailed foreign policy proposals. He spoke of the need for change, but stressed decisions he made in the past — like voting against the invasion of Iraq — rather than the decisions he planned to… Continue reading Foreign Policy for Obama Should Be Approached with a Broad Vision
George Fernandes, the Indian socialist trade union leader and politician, was a prominent opponent of nuclear weapons. That is, until he became India’s Defense Minister in 1998. That year, India detonated its first nuclear bomb and officially entered the nuclear club. Fernandes, the former peacenik, had become the country’s number-one nukes booster. Do appointments shape… Continue reading Not-So-Pearly Gates
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is nosediving in the polls, its gaffe-prone prime minister Taro Aso has acquired a reputation as his party’s funeral director, and a pivotal election may transform the Japanese political landscape before September. Particularly at stake is the country’s military and foreign policy. Currently, Japan is caught between its “peace… Continue reading Aiming for Middle Power Status
(Editor’s note: The author presented a different version of this paper at the International Symposium on North Korean Human Rights, sponsored by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, in Seoul in October.) In the evolving U.S. policy toward North Korea, human rights considerations and national security concerns have competed for precedence. During President George… Continue reading Engaging Pyongyang on Human Rights
The world isn’t flat. When it comes to the global economy, the world slopes upward. The 190-odd countries in the world, roped together in various-sized groups, are groping their way toward the top of this mountain. The summit — and now you know why they are called “economic summits” — is shrouded in mist. The… Continue reading Group Grope