South Korean President Park Geun-hye meets President Obama on Tuesday in Washington. The South Koreans created a slogan for the summit, “Bound by trust, forward together,” the first time they have adopted an English language motto for an event of this sort. During her visit, Park may talk about “the most successful alliance in history”—the mutual defense pact turns 60 […]
Never in the history of written communication could 140 characters have the impact that they can have now. Two weeks ago, after gaining access to the Associated Press’s main Twitter account (@AP), the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) posted a fake tweet reporting two explosions in the White House and the injury of President Barack Obama. Within seconds, […]
The United States will remain the world’s most powerful nation for years to come, but the Obama administration and U.S. lawmakers are now focused on debt, immigration, guns and growth. A war-weary, under-employed American public wants results at home, leaving U.S. officials to look for allies willing to share costs and risks abroad. Unfortunately, it’s not easy […]
The “caution” flag is up when it comes to President Barack Obama deciding the validity of claims that Syrian forces loyal to Bashar Al Assad have used chemical weapons. Perhaps it is good for all of that Obama was at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Centre. I hope Obama visited the “Decision […]
In the West, Xi’s assumption of power has largely been covered as an economic and political drama: Can he keep China’s booming markets on track? Will he tame the country’s toxic levels of official corruption before demands for political reform derail him? Is he a reformer at all? What these accounts often miss are Xi’s […]
George W. Bush, who united almost all Republicans during most of his time in national politics, now divides them. Most Republicans view his presidency favorably, and cheer his recent rise in the public’s esteem. A vocal group of conservatives, though, thinks of the Bush presidency as a wrong turn — a turn toward big government that […]
More than two years after the Arab uprisings began, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that U.S. policy toward the Middle East is more or less the same as it was before. Whether it is Secretary of State John Kerry effusively praisingregimes and failing to muster even a sentence of criticism; the unwillingness to condition economic […]
So has the time finally come when America and its allies will take action, send in the bombers, declare a no-fly zone? It seems not. For there is a matching shout from the West: “It’s Iraq all over again.” Indeed, if there are any polls suggesting intervention would be a vote-winner, governments across the world […]
The White House finally made it official last week: Yes, the civil war in Syria is a slippery slope and yes the US is on it. Nobody in the Obama administration actually used those words, of course, but if you paid attention to what officials said, it was clear that President Barack Obama has reluctantly […]
George W. Bush’s low standing among academics reflects, in part, the rise of partisan scholarship: the use of history as ideology and as a political weapon, which means the corruption of history as history. Bush may not have been a great president; he may even be considered an average or below-average president, but he and […]
looking beyond borders 