The Koreas: Sanctions Effectiveness Watch
The most informative development in the Korean ship-sinking case this week is the silence of China on the matter, something South Korea’s press has addressed in pointed fashion. The Chinese announced...
View ArticleObama Needs a Korea Strategy Focused on Liberation, Not Engagement
It’s fascinating to see the ideological blinders slipping a bit in the Obama administration. First the president had to acknowledge that his efforts to reach out to Iran were going nowhere; now a...
View ArticleWhat Real Threats Look Like
There is a set of realities identified by the American left as threats to national, if not global, security. These include things like the U.S.’s own nuclear arsenal, the stationing abroad of some...
View ArticleRealists Become Neocons
Richard Haass, the self-described “realist” who has come around to favor regime change in Iran and warned Obama to get over his obsession with the Middle East ”peace process,” reviews the list of...
View ArticleFlotsam and Jetsam
Gen. Stanley McChrystal took the blame. But he isn’t the problem, says Jackson Diehl: “If anyone deserves blame for the latest airing of the administration’s internal feuds over Afghanistan, it is...
View ArticleReading (and Misreading) Kim
Now and then a media theme comes along that can only be called fatuous. Next week, North Korea will hold its first ruling-party conference in 30 years. In advance of the conference, the Kim government...
View ArticleAll the President’s Enemies
I had lunch yesterday with a long-time friend who is intelligent, well informed, and a life-long Democrat. In the course of our conversation I asked for his reaction to what the president said on...
View ArticleNorth Korea & Iran: Containment vs. Regime Change
North Korea doesn’t have a whole lot going for it beyond a large army and a nuclear arsenal. So it should be no surprise that the regime resorts to saber-rattling to remind the world that it needs to...
View ArticleNorth Korea Playing the U.S. — Still
Try as he might, Obama can’t escape being a wartime president and foreign-policy-crisis manager. That’s the world in which we live, and it keeps intruding into his desired agenda: North Korea’s deadly...
View ArticleRE: North Korea–Obama Sends a Stern Letter to the Editor
John, you’re being too hard on the president. He’s only writing the letter to the editor because Kim Jong-il refused to have a beer summit with him. I’m quite sure that had President Obama fulfilled...
View ArticleKorea at Thanksgiving
Most veterans have spent a Thanksgiving on duty. Many have spent Thanksgiving overseas. Some — a growing number — have spent it on alert or in combat. Veterans the world over know what the troops in...
View ArticleFlotsam and Jetsam
This isn’t going to win over the critics who say she lacks political judgment. “Sarah Palin dismissed Barbara Bush’s recent criticism as a matter of class privilege. … ‘I don’t want to concede that we...
View ArticleWEB EXCLUSIVE: North Korea Points to the Way on Iran
“The U.S. has no good options.” How many times have we heard that refrain in the days since North Korea attacked the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong? In fact, even calling our options “options” is...
View ArticleChina and Those Tensions that Remain
Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington has been accompanied by the usual swooning. The New York Times, for instance, finds “Subtle Signs of Progress in U.S.-China Relations.” Very subtle indeed: In a joint...
View ArticleKim Jong Il and the Horror That Survives
Kim Jong Il’s death is a kind of victory—for him. He died of natural causes, in power, with nuclear technology at his disposal, leaving weeping newscasters to sing his praises. He was never toppled,...
View ArticleA More Appropriate North Korean Eulogy
Last night, the North Korean government announced that its Dear Leader of the last 17 years died of “mental and physical exhaustion” on Saturday morning local time. Instead of looking at the death as...
View ArticleFarewell to Two Men Who Shaped History–But in Different Directions
The nearly simultaneous deaths of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il serve as a useful reminder that history is more than impersonal forces. It is also the accumulated actions of individuals–and “great men”...
View ArticleMajor Confusion in the Administration
There is some major confusion pervading the senior layers of the Obama administration when it comes to defining and understanding who our enemies are. At least that’s the only conclusion one can draw...
View ArticleObama Contracts Kim Jong Illness
According to North Korean propaganda, the late Kim Jong Il was present at the creation—of the hamburger. The story goes that Kim himself invented both the classic “double bread with meat” combination...
View ArticleNo Real Reform in North Korea
Today’s New York Times article featuring interviews with a handful of North Koreans visiting China should throw a big pail of cold water on the excessive hopes expressed by so many who think that the...
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