The Untested Kim Jong-un
The latest crisis emanating from Pyongyang is almost enough to make you nostalgic for Kim Jong-il who died at the end of 2011. Sure, he may have been a murderous tyrant who lived the high life while...
View ArticleWill Obama and Hagel Learn from the Korean Crisis?
From day one of his first term, President Obama has made outreach to Iran a central pillar of his foreign policy. He spoke of reconciliation in his first inaugural address and, a week later, he told...
View ArticleThe One Book to Read on Korea
While writing my book chapter on the history of U.S. diplomacy with North Korea and while preparing for a trip to South Korea to conduct interviews a couple years back, I had to get smart on Korea...
View ArticleHow to Deter North Korea?
So far the Obama administration has hung commendably tough in its response to North Korean saber rattling. Unlike his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, President Obama has resisted the...
View ArticleOverstating the North Korean Threat
Does Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s untested new dictator, want a war? He certainly sounds like it with his constant stream of threats against South Korea and the United States. His mouthpiece has even...
View ArticleU.S. Folding on North Korea?
It was too good to last. For the last few weeks, the Obama administration has been showing more fortitude in confronting a belligerent North Korea than either the Bush or Clinton administrations had...
View ArticleThe Costs of Obama’s Miguided Nuke Policy
I wrote yesterday about President Obama’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate, in which he embraced Cold War symbolism on behalf of the West and acknowledged that Cold War tensions still exist and must be...
View ArticleLessons From Korea
This past Saturday marked the 60th anniversary of the armistice which ended the Korean War. The day passed quietly in South Korea, where I am spending some time–marked by a few fly-bys of South Korean...
View ArticleDoes North Korea Sense U.S. Weakness?
At first glance, the news coming out of North Korea would seem to have nothing to do with President Obama’s dispiriting retreat on Syria. Young dictator Kim Jong-un’s mad regime needs no foreign...
View ArticleThe Missing Pivot
So much for the vaunted “Pacific pivot.” When Barack Obama came into office, he vowed to reverse the Bush administration’s focus on the Middle East by “rebalancing” toward East Asia and the looming...
View ArticleThe Barbaric Cruelty of North Korea
It seems like only yesterday that gullible commentators were welcoming the ascension of Stalinist prince Kim Jong-un in North Korea and claiming he would inaugurate a new era of openness. There has...
View ArticleAppeasing Nuclear Tyrannies Doesn’t Work
The news that North Korea’s young dictator Kim Jong-un has executed his uncle and mentor Jang Song-thaek has provoked jokes about family spats run amok and further confirmed the conventional wisdom...
View ArticleIt’s Time to Close the Camps
The last quarter century has been a time of great change across the globe, much of which has been for the better. The number of electoral democracies has grown from 69 in 1989 to 118 today. Despite...
View ArticleNorth Korea Amnesia and Iran Engagement
Who says the ayatollahs don’t have any holiday spirit? In what some might interpret as a courtesy to their Western diplomatic partners, Iran suspended the negotiations being conducted to nail down the...
View ArticleTake Claims of Diplomatic Progress with a Grain of Salt
The White House is denying that talks over the technicalities of the Iranian nuclear deal have broken down, never mind that diplomats have so far been unable to resolve differences regarding Iran’s...
View Articlere: Why the Secrecy on the Iran Deal?
Earlier this week, Emanuele Ottolenghi asked “Why the Secrecy” about the Iran deal, a reference to the Obama administration keeping the implementation agreement of the Joint Plan of Action out of the...
View ArticleWas Dennis Rodman’s North Korea Diplomacy Wrong?
Dennis Rodman checked into an alcohol rehab center this past week, a source close to the former National Basketball Association star told CNN. The move caps off another bizarre North Korea trip in...
View ArticleMeanwhile in North Korea …
The 2014 “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community” presented by national intelligence director James Clapper to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week had a stunning...
View ArticleA Lesson in How to Embolden Aggressors
Yesterday morning on Fox’s America’s Newsroom, Sen. John McCain echoed comments made over the weekend by former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates that Crimea is essentially lost. Even after ticking off a...
View ArticleGeorge W. Bush, Still Living Rent-Free in Their Heads
Remember that time the George W. Bush administration simultaneously invaded Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea? Apparently, according to the New York Times report today on the Obama administration’s...
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