The Paradoxes of the Pacific Pivot

Posted by on Apr 10, 2013 in Articles, Asia, Featured, Korea, Uncategorized, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments The “Pacific pivot” of the United States is nothing new. At the same time, it doesn’t really exist. And yet, even though it doesn’t exist, this pivot is partly responsible for the escalation of tensions in and around the Korean peninsula. How can all three of these statements be simultaneously true? Such are the paradoxes of the U.S. shift in attention toward the Pacific Rim. The Obama...
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Afghanistan: Avoiding Default

Posted by on Dec 20, 2012 in Articles, Featured, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 in part because of his pledge to end the war in Iraq and shift the Pentagon’s attention to Afghanistan. He has won a second term in part by promising to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan – as quickly and as securely as possible. There have been no “mission accomplished” moments with Afghanistan. An economic crisis at home, a failure to...
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Obama: The Legacy Term?

Posted by on Nov 21, 2012 in Articles, Featured, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments Barack Obama has won a second term as U.S. president. Voters have decisively rejected the Republican version of economic reform, and Obama has already used this mandate to address the debt crisis through higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The implications of the elections for foreign policy, however, are not so clear. To the extent that the presidential candidates talked about global...
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Dumb and Dumber

Posted by on Sep 6, 2012 in Articles, Featured, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments Barack Obama is a smart guy. So why has he spent the last four years executing such a dumb foreign policy? True, his reliance on “smart power” — a euphemism for giving the Pentagon a stake in all things global — has been a smart move politically at home.  It has largely prevented the Republicans from playing the national security card in this election year. But “smart power”...
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Korea and the 2012 Elections

Posted by on Aug 29, 2012 in Articles, Featured, Korea, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments It’s election time in the United States, and once again Washington doesn’t care about Korea. I realize that this is a difficult pill for Koreans to swallow. Koreans naturally believe that, since Korea is at the heart of East Asia and East Asia is at the heart of the global economy, American politicians and voters care deeply about what happens on the peninsula. Koreans are encouraged in this...
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Guarding the Empire from Four Miles Up

Posted by on Jun 24, 2012 in Articles, Book Reviews, Featured, US Foreign Policy | 0 comments They are unpopular all over the world, with one exception. According to a new Pew Research Center poll, the only country where a majority of citizens support drone strikes is the country that uses the new technology most regularly: the United States. Only 28 percent of U.S. citizens oppose drone strikes, compared to 62 percent who approve of their use. Once again, they prove the exception to the...
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