Obama’s Half-Pivot to Asia

Posted by on May 1, 2014 in Articles, Asia, Featured, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments President Barack Obama’s recent tour of Asia was an opportunity to reenergise his foreign policy after a series of setbacks in the global arena. The four countries on the week-long tour — Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines – have all been eager to upgrade their relationships with the United States in light of their concerns over Chinese maritime ambitions and an uncertain...
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World Cuts Back Military Spending, But Not Asia

Posted by on Apr 21, 2014 in Articles, Asia, Featured | 0 comments For the second year in a row, the world is spending a little less on the military. Asia, however, has failed to get the memo. The region is spending more at a time when many others are spending less. Last year, Asia saw a 3.6 percent increase in military spending, according to figures just released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The region — which includes East Asia,...
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What the Crisis in Ukraine Means for Northeast Asia

Posted by on Apr 18, 2014 in Articles, Asia, Featured, Russia and Eastern Europe, Uncategorized | 0 comments International borders are manmade. They are arbitrary, although they often conform to some natural feature of the landscape. And they are very difficult to change. It is a cornerstone of the international system that borders should not be altered by force. Particularly since the end of World War II, the international system has resisted any changes to the map. Of course, the map of the world has...
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Has Obama Already Forgotten about Asia?

Posted by on Feb 11, 2014 in Articles, Asia, Featured, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments Last year was a tough time for President Obama. The health care roll-out was plagued by website malfunctions. His ambivalent approach to intervening in Syria satisfied neither hawks nor doves. Congress stalled on major legislation like immigration reform. And the leaks by Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was spying on American citizens, a major embarrassment for the...
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Why North Korea 2014 Is Not East Germany 1989

Posted by on Feb 11, 2014 in Articles, Asia, Featured, Korea | 0 comments Policy analysts, pundits, and politicians have long predicted that the North Korean government will go the way of East German Communism. Just as the seemingly impregnable Honecker regime rapidly disintegrated along with the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the Kim dynasty in North Korea has been expected to collapse at any minute. This minute, of course, has lasted for more than two decades. The...
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The Color Wars

Posted by on Feb 6, 2014 in Articles, Asia, Featured, Human Rights | 0 comments I played for Green when I was growing up. That was my soccer team. We were divided up by color: Green vs. Red, Gold vs. Blue. The teams were chosen at random, but we became fiercely attached to our color. Friendships across color lines became strained. We talked of “Purple power” and the “Gold tradition.” For all I know, the league was run by psychologists testing the influence of...
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