On the small, spectacular island of Jeju, off the southern tip of Korea, indigenous villagers have been putting their bodies in the way of construction of a joint South Korean–US naval base that would be an environmental, cultural and political disaster. If completed, the base would hold more than 7,000 navy personnel, plus twenty warships […]
North Korea’s improving missile capability cast a shadow on political campaigns in two of its neighbors, heightening focus on a potential threat that may prompt Japan to stiffen its defense posture and provide a bump to South Korea’s conservative candidate. North Korea yesterday deployed a communications satellite from a rocket eight months after a previous attempt failed, […]
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was supposed to mark both the “end of history” and the birth of an international community founded on the universal acceptance of Western values — a world in which “market democracy” was the norm. Instead, the West has suffered a litany of disappointments — from costly wars […]
Three major forces will be looming behind the headlines, driving events in 2013: the crisis of the Western democratic model, rising sectarian strife in the Middle East, and worries about American withdrawal from the world. The Obama administration must realize that no “foreign policy” issue will matter as much to global economic, political, and ultimately […]
The U.S. presidential election campaign, particularly as it entered its final months, sucked up much of the oxygen in the news universe, meaning that a number of small international developments that might have otherwise drawn greater attention escaped notice. Under normal circumstances, the issues that had been overlooked would have gotten a closer look once […]
The news that several manufacturing giants are planning to bring some of their production back to the United States has dominated the headlines in recent months. Perhaps that’s because Americans see it as a bellwether of economic recovery, or perhaps it simply reflects their collective yearning for America’s past industrial dominance. Either way, the interest in these moves demonstrates the unique […]
In mid-2010, thousands of centrifuges, enriching uranium at Iranian nuclear research facilities, spun out of control. The instruments were mysteriously reprogrammed to operate faster than normal, pushing them to the breaking point. Iranian computer systems, however, inexplicably reported that the centrifuges were operating normally. This incident, it was later revealed, was the work of the […]
On the eve of India’s founding, no one could have imagined how successfully it would come to navigate the international system. At that time, there were legions of skeptics who believed that the half-life of this new country would be measured in years, perhaps decades at most. The question of when India would split apart […]
It was an interesting November for spectators on the island of Taiwan. Taiwan’s media has been paying close attention to the results of the U.S. presidential election and the recently-concluded 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Taiwan is awkwardly positioned between two giants, having close relations with the U.S. and an undetermined political […]
Anyone seeking to understand Afghanistan in general, the flaws in the United States’ effort there, or life on the ground as a political advisor in the midst of a counterinsurgency, should read The Valley‘s Edge by Daniel Green. The book is a detailed, first-hand account of how a team of U.S. soldiers and civilians, focused on improving […]
looking beyond borders 