[David Ignatius] Trump’s style has diminishing returns

President Trump has styled himself in foreign policy as the Great Disrupter. And for a time, this unpredictable approach served him reasonably well. Leaders from China, North Korea and Iran found themselves off balance, and they sometimes made what looked like concessions. Trump’s problem is that, after two years, foreign nations seem to have figured him out. Rather than crafting quick deals that Trump could tout as wins, these adversaries have played a waiting game. They appear to sense in Trum

May 16, 2019

[James Stavridis] National security risks are rising with sea levels

I spent much of my life in the US Navy, including nearly 11 years on the deep ocean day-to-day, out of sight of land. This really drove home the fact that oceans cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface -- all the world’s land would fit comfortably within the Pacific. Oceans produce much of the oxygen we breathe and a great deal of the protein we consume. They enable more than 90 percent of international trade and provide increasing amounts of oil and natural gas. Yet now, because of climate chan

May 15, 2019

[Chun Sung-woo] A play never imagined before

Two years ago, the curtain rose on a new play. It was billed as a show never imagined before. The director said his play would depict a society without privileges and misconduct. He put up a sign that read, “Opportunities will be equal, the process fair and results righteous.” The title of the first act was “Elimination of Evils.” Only misconduct by conservatives and rightists was uncovered. Over 100 people who worked for the previous government were indicted, a

May 15, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Why Borges became apolitical

Recently, I saw an interesting diagram on the internet about the left and the right. The drawing indicates that as you go further to the right, you will get bad outcomes such as libertarianism, corrupt capitalism and then anarchy. On the contrary, if you go further to the left, you will end up with equally undesirable results such as fascism, socialism and communism. Then finally you will find totalitarianism and enslavement at the far end of the left. It is intriguing that the illustration puts

May 14, 2019

[Lee Jae-min] Zigzags, cut-ins and sudden dashes

Last spring, driving on Olympic Highway along the Han River, I saw a young man caught by police for riding a motorcycle on the highway. To be sure, riding a motorbike on expressways or automobile-only highways is not permitted in Korea. In fact, Korea is one of the few countries (the only OECD member) where motorcycles are prohibited on those roads, mainly for safety reasons. This policy has been a trade hot potato for many years. Domestically, a group of Korean motorbikers have brought as many

May 14, 2019

[Andrew Sheng] Is democracy in retreat?

A fortnight ago, markets were going great guns, with the S&P500 hitting a record high, even as there was increasing evidence that global trade and many economies were slowing. Last week the markets took a sharp turn as the White House tweeted that tariffs would once again be escalated for US-China trade. With North Korea again testing missiles, Iranian tensions rising and US politics becoming more divisive by the day, what is going on?People like to have simple stories to explain all this comple

May 13, 2019

[Hal Brands] Are Americans turning isolationist?

Public attitudes toward US foreign policy are a mess of ambiguities and seeming contradictions. Americans don’t particularly like Donald Trump’s policies, but they share some of his ambivalence about the country’s vast global role. They are not retreating into isolationism, but neither are they persuaded by the traditional justifications for America’s efforts to shape the world.These are the principal takeaways from a recent opinion survey conducted by the progressive-leaning Center for American

May 13, 2019

[David Ignatius] Saga of the Chinese mole reads like a thriller

Behind last week’s admission by a former CIA officer that he plotted to spy for China lies an astonishing tale of Beijing’s espionage against America -- and the vindication of other officers who were falsely suspected of being the Chinese mole. This saga has a classic thriller plot, in which a suspect must find the real villain to clear his name. Unfortunately, most of the details of the true-life version remain secret, under seal at the US attorney’s office in Alexandria or in the vaults of the

May 12, 2019

[Noah Feldman] Trump is stuck with nationwide court injunctions

Vice President Mike Pence says that the Donald Trump administration will ask the US Supreme Court to bar federal district courts from issuing nationwide injunctions -- the court orders that make the entire government stop enforcing a law or policy that one district judge finds is likely to be unconstitutional.Such injunctions are always bad for the administration that’s in office, so you can understand why this Republican administration might think the conservative-leaning Supreme Court would be

May 12, 2019

[David Ignatius] US needs a defense secretary now

At a time when America is facing a potential military confrontation with Iran, an escalating trade war with China and a showdown with North Korea, you’d think President Donald Trump would want a permanent secretary of defense to oversee Pentagon plans.But Patrick Shanahan is still cooling his heels as acting secretary, awaiting a formal nomination that was expected nearly two weeks ago, after Shanahan was cleared in a conflict-of-interest probe. The nomination sits and waits, and some prominent

May 9, 2019

[Elizabeth Drew] Trump is now above the law

Things have gotten ugly in Washington since the release last month of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, and they’re about to get uglier. It’s now clear that the United States has an attorney general who believes his job is to protect the president, facts be damned. During his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, William Barr, the country’s top law-enforcement official, obfuscated and lied with contempt and

May 9, 2019

[Kim Myong-sik] New outlook on Korea-Japan relations in Reiwa era

Citizens in this republic were not quite impressed by the televised scenes of Japanese imperial abdication and enthronement last week that appeared more theatrical than real. However, poet-essayist Lee Sunshine (Seung-shin) said of former Emperor Akihito, who passed the throne to his son Naruhito on April 30, “I feel sorry that there were or will be no other Japanese monarch who thinks so much well of Korea as Emperor Akihito, before or after him. But we could wish (for the) improvement of our r

May 8, 2019

[Francis Wilkinson] Pelosi’s dangerous battle against Trump

This week almost 700 former federal prosecutors, including prominent Republicans, signed a letter saying the Mueller report lays out offenses against Donald Trump that would lead to indictment if committed by anyone who is not president. All of which is another way of saying that a corrupt executive is the problem of the US Congress, not of prosecutors.That leaves House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a pickle. She faces mounting pressure, no doubt from her own conscience as well as from Democratic acti

May 8, 2019

[Kim Seong-kon] Elegy for the humanities

Recently, I read a perceptive article that the famous basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote for the Guardian. It was entitled, “The way Americans regard sports heroes versus intellectuals speaks volumes.” In this insightful article, Abdul-Jabbar defended the hopelessly waning humanities, lamenting Americans’ infatuation with famous athletes and disrespect for intellectual giants. It was a pleasant surprise that an internationally well-known athlete emphasized the importance of the humaniti

May 7, 2019

[Robert J. Fouser] Reducing abandoned houses in old neighborhoods

Last week, I visited a friend living on top of a steep hill in Seongbuk-dong. The house had a sweeping view of the entire center of the city and of the rest of the neighborhood below. As we talked about the view and the neighborhood, my friend said that many of the houses in the area were empty. He said that the area was slated for redevelopment and that many houses are not rentable because they are in such bad condition. Plans for redevelopment have stalled and property owners are left with hou

May 7, 2019

[Noah Smith] Politics moves faster than economists gather data

The dream of evidence-based policy is that as data and analysis get better and better, policymakers will be able to make informed decisions in real time. Instead of relying on judgment or on long-cherished theories when an economic crisis arises, they’ll have the facts at their fingertips. In reality, however, this dream may always remain just out of reach.Sometimes, the barrier to evidence-based policymaking is that the evidence just isn’t all that solid. When the financial crisis struck in 200

May 6, 2019