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…
BLOG Post #212: Some Dare Call It Treason 19 Jul 201819 Jul 2018 Is Donald Trump not merely gullible, uninformed, and indifferent but actually treasonous when it comes to Russia? More and more high-profile people are saying so. He’s acting like “a Russian…
BLOG Post #211: At Home and Abroad, Trump Abandons Human Rights (Part 2) 16 Jul 201814 Jul 2018 (Note: This is the continuation of Post #210, published July 7. The full version is available in The Asia-Pacific Journal/Japan Focus, https://apjjf.org/2018/15/Gurtov.html. Deceptive Reporting Discussion in the Trump administration of…
BLOG Post #210: At Home and Abroad, Trump Abandons Human Rights (Part 1) 7 Jul 20187 Jul 2018 In January 1941, with the prospect looming of US involvement in another European war, President Franklin Roosevelt spoke of America’s purpose in the world: to protect and promote “four freedoms.”…
BLOG Post #209: After Singapore, is Iran the Next US Target? 23 Jun 201822 Jun 2018 Predictably, both sides at the Singapore summit are claiming victory. Kim Jong-un, having shared the stage with Donald Trump, can say that North Korea is now recognized de facto as…
