[Lee Jae-min] Will this dose of sanctions work?

North Korea’s missile tests on July 4 and 28 were met with one of the most stringent sanctions adopted by the UN Security Council over the weekend. A new sanction of the Security Council, known as Resolution 2371, is now going to slash North Korea’s export of coal, iron and seafood by $1 billion, roughly one third of its total annual exports. Will the measure exert more pain on North Korea? Of course, it will. Losing one third of the export revenue should be a significant blow to any country. Un

Aug. 8, 2017

[Noah Smith] Japan buries our most-cherished economic ideas

Japan is the graveyard of economic theories. The country has had ultralow interest rates and run huge government deficits for decades, with no sign of the inflation that many economists assume would be the natural result. Now, after years of trying almost every trick in the book to reflate the economy, the Bank of Japan is finally bowing to the inevitable. The BOJ’s “dot plot” shows that almost none of the central bank’s nine board members believe that the country will reach its 2 percent inflat

Aug. 7, 2017

[Michael Auslin] A grand bargain with China would damage US power

With North Korea’s latest test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, one apparently capable of reaching California, the American foreign policy community is struggling to find a way -- short of war -- to end the threat from Pyongyang. In the media and behind closed doors, some are suggesting that the US should approach China for a grand bargain.The idea is deceptively simple: China would intervene in North Korea, most likely by removing Kim Jong-un from power and installing a puppet in his p

Aug. 7, 2017

[Sohn Jie-ae] Why gender parity is win-win outcome

There is a myth that I would like to dispense with right now. Gender equality is not limited to getting women on par with men. Decades of attempting to do just that have really gotten us not very far. And the bad news is that recent statistics say closing the gender gap in employment will take approximately another 170 years! I recently attended a W-20-related conference at the East-West Center in Hawaii. The W-20 is a part of the G-20 dialogue process that advises Group of 20 nations on women’s

Aug. 6, 2017

[Eli Lake] Thank leakers for new Russia sanctions

If you are inclined, as I am, to see the new congressional sanctions on Russia as a positive development, then take a moment to thank an anonymous national security state leaker. The legislation President Donald Trump reluctantly signed on Wednesday is extraordinary in that it does not include a national security waiver. Until now, sanctions were largely left up to the discretion of the president. Former President Barack Obama used legislative waivers to lift sanctions on Iran after he completed

Aug. 6, 2017

[Sohn Jie-ae] Writing about gender (Part I)

I usually don’t write about gender. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in gender equality, quite natural since I am a woman raising three daughters. But advocating for the issue usually doesn’t appeal to me for a number of reasons. First, most of the proposals set forth by the government or political parties during election seasons sound too much like appeasement packages, you know, like we will build you a bridge over that river that floods all the time if you vote for me. This includes various meas

Aug. 4, 2017

[David Ignatius] Might the threat of American strike on North Korea prompt China to action?

Here’s a contrarian thought: President Trump had the right instinct to insist that China help resolve the nightmare problem of North Korea. A peaceful solution is impossible without help from the other great power in East Asia.As Trump nears the threshold of a military crisis with North Korea, he needs to sustain this early intuition -- and not be driven into actions that may look tough but would leave every player worse off. The template hasn’t really changed from the first Korean War in 1950:

Aug. 3, 2017

[Kim Young-sun] Slow but steady, ASEAN turns 50

About 100 kilometers southeast of Bangkok, in a remote coastal town called Bang Saen, the five foreign ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand got together in early August 1967 to negotiate an agreement that has now become an exemplary case of regional integration. In the background, the Vietnam War was in its 12th year, with the first half of the 1960s experiencing many of the war’s biggest battles. Also, the countries in this region had ideological differences

Aug. 3, 2017

[Kim Ji-hyun] Do we all need daughters?

This could be on a bit of a personal level, but I also believe many Koreans face similar factors of stress on a daily basis, so here goes.One question, or rather, one suggestion I get quite frequently is, “Why don’t you have a girl?” I have a son, my only child, and apparently to many it looks like a long and lonely road stretches ahead for me. I admit, for a while -- at least six months in my life -- I did seriously contemplate having another child, and also lamented my lack of a daughter. One

Aug. 2, 2017

[Kim Myong-sik] Please do not make haste, Mr. President

Thousands of workers are on forced vacation since the construction of two nuclear reactors at the Shin Kori site stopped late in June. They must feel deeply frustrated because the fates of what would be Korea’s 26th and 27th reactors, and their own, are being put on trial by a “citizens’ jury,” a novel process proposed by the Moon Jae-in administration. 　This particular body of unique power has no statutory basis yet and no manual has been made of its operation, except that it will consist of 35

Aug. 2, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] A colorless man is a colorful man

Generally speaking, Koreans like to belong somewhere and tend to flock together. Perhaps that is why there are so many groups, societies and associations in Korean society. Koreans seem to feel comfortable and gain strength when they belong to a group. There seems no place for lone wolves in Korean society. Unless you belong to a group, you will be a social pariah like a stray dog or an alley cat. Of course, not everybody is the same. There are black sheep even in the Korean community. I, for ex

Aug. 1, 2017

[Douglas W. Kmiec] How to stop Russia investigation

President Donald Trump wants to put an end to the US Department of Justice’s Russia inquiry. He has questioned whether he can pardon himself and whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions should have recused himself from the investigation.The president is a fighter, but he’ll need to pick his fight. Expressing annoyance with his attorney general and daydreaming about pardoning himself won’t do. Sessions’ recusal merely reflects that no one can investigate himself, and the embarrassing idea that a pr

July 31, 2017

[Tyler Cowen] In a robot economy, all humans will be marketers

The fear that robots, or more generally smart software, will put us all out of work is one of the dominant economic memes of our time. But that fear is misplaced. We’re unlikely to see mass unemployment; rather, workers will shift into new economic sectors -- albeit with transition pains -- as has always been the case. The real risk is that the robots will push too many of us into less socially productive jobs, especially those in marketing.Let’s consider the ATM. Contrary to what many people th

July 30, 2017

[David Ignatius] Pompeo's job as CIA director

If the ghosts who inhabit the walls of the CIA could talk, they would tell Director Mike Pompeo to be careful. The agency is entering a danger zone where a White House in turmoil wants the CIA to take aggressive action overseas, but hasn’t developed the clear strategy or political support needed to sustain it.Pompeo is an activist, an exuberant politician with a flair for delivering one-liners. He’s a risk-taker, who wants the agency to be more aggressive both in collecting information and using

July 28, 2017

[Paul W. Kahn] The president’s dangerous endgame

President Donald Trump is besieged. He is reportedly looking for ways to close down the Russia investigation by the Justice Department. He already tried at least once, when he fired FBI Director James Comey. He still has the power to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.President Nixon fired a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. It did not go well for him, but he did it anyway. To fire Mueller, Trump probably first would have to fire Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general. And to do that, he

July 27, 2017