BLOG Post #227: Game Over? Report Card on Our Planet’s Environment 24 Feb 201923 Feb 2019 Unrelenting Warming The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report for 2019 indicates that most experts point to environmental problems as being the most serious threats to global stability—just as they…
BLOG Post #226: On China, the US Public Stands Apart 5 Feb 20194 Feb 2019 Why isn’t the American public as agitated about China as are the Trump administration, the mainstream media, and even many China specialists? In a recent article (www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/31/china-gap/), Daniel Drezner, a…
BLOG Post #225: Trump’s Crusade in Latin America 28 Jan 201927 Jan 2019 What we are witnessing in Venezuela is a Latin America policy that draws from the Cold War and the era of US interventions, when regard for democracy and international law…
BLOG Post #224: The Shame of the 1 Percent Continues 21 Jan 201927 Jan 2019 Speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Sir David Attenborough called on government and business leaders to support, with practical plans, “United Nations decisions on…
BLOG Post #223: Happy New Year from Kim Jong-un 6 Jan 2019 Kim Jong-un looked quite cosmopolitan on January 1 as he made his annual New Year’s address to the nation from the comfort of a paneled office, wearing a spiffy Western-style…
BLOG Post #222: Road to Ruin: Trump’s Middle East Retreat 22 Dec 201822 Dec 2018 The flight of the generals is now complete with the resignation of General James Mattis—the last of the four generals to depart, and the last to give up the naïve…
BLOG Post #221: Weaponizing Humanitarian Aid 13 Dec 201813 Dec 2018 Long ago, US foreign aid programs honored the principle that humanitarian aid should be treated separately from economic and military assistance to governments. Public Law 480 (popularized as “Food for…
BLOG Post #220: China Policy: Disappointment is No Excuse 30 Nov 2018 Greg Sargent writes in the Washington Post (November 30): For years after Deng Xiaoping’s decisive turn toward modernization in the late 1970s, U.S. business executives and diplomats supported not only…
BLOG Post #219: Is China a “Responsible Great Power”? 31 Oct 201830 Oct 2018 President Xi Jinping would like everyone to pay attention to how China is exerting leadership in world affairs as a “responsible great power.” While the Trump administration is in retreat,…
BLOG Post #218: Getting Away with Murder 15 Oct 2018 In March I wrote about the visit to Washington of Saudi Arabia’s new leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. At the time most of the media were reporting uncritically about…
BLOG Post #217: Waiting For Hitler 11 Oct 201819 Oct 2018 If there is one thing I have learned as a political analyst, it is that there is no such thing as "never again." Use of weapons of mass destruction against…
BLOG Post #216: A Victory for Diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula 29 Sep 20182 Oct 2018 On September 18 leaders of North and South Korea signed a September Declaration to advance inter-Korean cooperation and the possibility of the North’s denuclearization. Critics immediately dismissed the agreement for…
BLOG Post #215: On Dealing with China 18 Sep 201826 Sep 2018 (Note: A slightly different version of this article has been published as "The China Conundrum" at https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/the-china-conundrum.) A Self-Confident China Ever since China’s economic reforms began in 1978, the goal…
BLOG Post #214: Saving Democracy 15 Aug 2018 Writing on democracy, I’m reminded of a great old Stevie Wonder song, “Love’s In Need of Love Today.” Democracy is in need of love today: It is taking a beating…
BLOG Post #213: While Rome (and Most Everywhere Else) Burns 3 Aug 20182 Aug 2018 By now we’re accustomed to learning that every year brings record high temperatures around the world. Extreme weather, says Prof. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, “is the face of…
