Albert Beveridge was a promising politician in his 30s when he stood up to speak in favor of war and the promotion of democracy to his peers in the U.S. Senate. A historian, Beveridge unabashedly called for the United States to remake the globe. “We will not renounce our part in the mission of our… Continue reading American Foreign Policy Is Broken
Back in September 2002, Maher Arar was passing through JFK airport in New York. He was expecting a simple transit. A Syrian-born Canadian citizen and wireless technology consultant, Arar was traveling home to Ottawa after a vacation with his family in Tunis. The stopover in New York was the best deal he could get with his frequent… Continue reading Can We Pursue Terrorists without Becoming Like Them
Thanks to all of you who contributed last week, we’re halfway to our goal of raising $5,000 to qualify for our matching gift. For those of you who merely thought about giving a year-end, tax-deductible donation, go on and take the plunge. Time is running out–we need to meet our goal by December 19. Don’t stand on the… Continue reading Take the Plunge
The foreign teachers at the Chinese university were frank. Teaching English and computer science was a means to the end. They wanted to save souls. In 1998, I spent a day at a university tucked into the corner of northeast China. The evangelical Christians who built the Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST) catered… Continue reading Spreading the Word
A special place is reserved in Dante’s inferno for false prophets and fraudulent advisors. The heads of those who pry into the secrets of the future are twisted around so that they can only look into the past. Those who give lousy advice earn their own personal sheath of fire. It’s not a very nice… Continue reading Eighth Circle of Hell
The all-you-can-eat lunch buffet at the hotel in Pusan had only a couple dozen pieces of the long strips of dark red sushi. I managed to snag one piece before it ran out. My first experience of whale meat was not chewy at all. It tasted like an especially rich piece of raw tuna. Whale… Continue reading Whale of a Meal
Okay, you Hollywood types are busy, so I’ll cut to the pitch. You all know the Left Behind series? Exactly: the bestsellers about the Apocalypse. You haven’t read them? Here’s a quick summary. Just as Russia launches an attack against Israel to take over the Middle East, the Rapture takes place. Israel’s enemies are mysteriously defeated. All… Continue reading Right Behind
Ataka’s party car. Photo by Don Russell You can find anti-Turkish and anti-Roma slogans spray-painted on the walls of Sofia, in Bulgaria, just as you can elsewhere in the Balkans. But in Bulgaria, the slogan has moved up a level to appear on the side of cars. Like its Balkan neighbors, Bulgaria has significant… Continue reading Postcard from Sofia
Early Sunday morning after a marathon session, Congress put a blue ribbon on the immense hog known as the defense budget and declared it a winner. Just before going on their August vacation, the House approved the 2008 defense appropriations bill of $459 billion. The vote was 395 to 13. With the nearly full support… Continue reading Whole Hog
At the YouTube-CNN debate with the Democratic presidential candidates, Barack Obama boldly said that he would, in his first year as president, speak with the leaders of Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Iran “without preconditions.” Rival Hillary Clinton pounced on the answer by declaring Obama’s approach “irresponsible and frankly naive.” Forget liberal vs. conservative… Continue reading Talk to the Hand
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s first visit to the United States comes at a time of great uncertainty for both Japan and Asia. The North Korean nuclear crisis remains suspended between crisis and resolution. The free trade agreement between the United States and South Korea, still unratified, will have an unclear impact on the rest… Continue reading China Remains Main Concern for U.S.,Japan
Before the age of colonialism, India was a world power. Now, like China, it is returning to the global stage. With economic growth topping 9 percent in 2007, an acknowledged nuclear capability, and a growing role in international relations, it has attained the status of “emerging power.” What still remains unclear, however, is India’s capacity… Continue reading India: Modest Global Power
According to Starbucks, all the world’s a cafe, and all the men and women merely imbibers. “Geography is a flavor,” the conglomerate proclaims. In the store, customers can choose coffee beans from three regions of the world: Africa/Arabia, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. It is part of a marketing strategy designed to educate consumers to treat… Continue reading Geography Is a Flavor
Far East Economic Review, June 2007
International Politik, Winter 2007
<p><b>Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the United States and North Korea bridged their differences and produced a preliminary agreement to resolve their outstanding conflicts. The accord is not exactly a declaration of love. It’s not even a bunch of roses and big box of chocolates. But it’s the friendliest the two countries have… Continue reading North Korean Nuclear Agreement: Annotated
Although only 4 percent of its territory lies in Europe, Turkey has long been anchored in the West. It is a major U.S. military ally and pivotal member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It has been a full member of the Council of Europe since 1949 and an associate member of the… Continue reading Long Anchored in the West, Turkey Looks East
Review of Hyejin Kim, Jia, A Novel of North Korea (San Francisco: Midnight Editions, 2007) During the famine that struck North Korea in the mid-1990s, thousands of hungry refugees poured into northeast China in search of food and work. They often brought with them little more than the clothes on their backs. But they… Continue reading Jia: A Novel of North Korea (Review)
Japan was not the first country to realize the strategic importance of Central Asia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it took Tokyo three years to open embassies in the region. Several more years passed before Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto inaugurated a new “Silk Road” diplomacy. Today, however, Japan has engaged the five… Continue reading After Slow Start, Japan Engages Central Asia
This year the Association of Southeast Asian Nations celebrates its 40th birthday, and it has big plans. After four decades of being largely a political and security alliance, ASEAN is accelerating its plans for economic integration. The ASEAN leaders are so eager to pull together into an economic community that they recently decided to move… Continue reading South-East Asia: Democratic Deficit Growing
After an intense round of six-sided talks, negotiators are bringing home a deal on North Korea’s nuclear program. Of course the plan has flaws. It’s only the first step in stuffing North Korea’s nuclear genie back into the bottle and ending six decades of hostility between Washington and Pyongyang. It’s way too early for champagne… Continue reading Promising Start with North Korea
<p><b>China is everywhere you turn: the label on your sweater, every second item on the shelf at Wal-Mart, the computer on which you read this essay, the weather satellite zapped out of the sky in January by a ballistic missile. Unlike Britney Spears, however, China is not merely ubiquitous. It is an essential part of… Continue reading China the Indispensable?
Courtiers once collected special tastes for the infamous banquets of the Roman emperors “in every corner of the Empire from the Parthian frontier to the Straits of Gibraltar.”[1] The Chinese emperors, too, demanded a succession of unusual and exotic treats from the far-flung lands opened up by the Silk Road. Today, this tradition still lives… Continue reading Global Tastes
They don’t look alike. One is tall and thin, the other short and pot-bellied. If they ever meet for a summit, they could pose for photos as the Blues Brothers of international relations. But it’s not likely that George W. Bush and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will face the cameras together any time… Continue reading George and Jong
Advocates of eating locally grown food argue that you can save the world by buying tomatoes from a local garden, cage-free eggs from a nearby farm, and locally baked bread. The eat-local movement has been very popular in Europe for some time. Locavores – as these eaters are also called – are gaining strength in… Continue reading Eat Local, Think Global
Northeast Asia is a high voltage environment. In other words, an enormous gap in power separates the strongest and the weakest countries currently negotiating in the six-party process. Over the last two decades, this gap in power has sustained the Cold War in the region. It has both justified the maintenance of the huge U.S.… Continue reading South Korea Can Play the Role of Transformer
Two years ago, the ‘Tulip Revolution’ pushed Kyrgyzstan off the path of dictatorship. The subsequent direction the small Central Asian country has taken, and whether the revolution can serve as a model for the region, remain controversial. And now, with the opposition gearing up for mass demonstrations in April, the most politically lively country in… Continue reading Kyrgyzstan: Exporting the Tulip Revolution
People power does not just trouble the sleep of dictators. It can also introduce an element of unpredictability and uncertainty into the security debate in pluralist societies. People, to put it bluntly, can be a problem for the military because civilians frequently come between a military and its objectives. “In the short term, making governments… Continue reading People Power vs. Military Power in East Asia
Americans have an almost fetishistic attitude toward leadership. Like a magic wand, “leadership” is to be waved over the problems that affect the body politic as well as the seemingly intractable flaws of U.S. foreign policy. We search the horizon for a magical leader in the same way that the hapless clowns of Beckett’s play… Continue reading Picturing the President
Southeastern Europe is bracing for one final aftershock from the break-up of former Yugoslavia. The largely Albanian enclave of Kosovo is poised to declare its independence from Serbia after multi-party talks failed to reach a compromise by the UN deadline of December 10. Around the epicenter of Kosovo, the tectonic plates of geopolitics threaten to… Continue reading A Return to Diversity in the Balkans