[Timothy L. O’Brien] In Trump’s world, he never loses

Hanging on a wall behind the omelet bar at President Donald Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida -- where the commander in chief apparently stopped for a bite on Saturday after declaring a national emergency the day before -- is an old, framed poster. It’s from an ad campaign Walgreens once ran featuring the president back when he was the sorcerer of “The Apprentice.”　In white block letters on the poster, next to a photo of Trump cocking his index finger at the camera and shouting in fu

Feb. 20, 2019

[Andy Mukherjee] Aging Singapore tries to avoid Japan trap

Japan has aged; Singapore is aging. Japan’s workforce is shrinking; Singapore’s has plateaued. Japan’s homogeneous society has struggled with immigration; Singapore’s island culture has been welcoming of foreigners, though increasingly less so.　So is the city-state scoring an own-goal by inviting a demographic decline and Japanese-style lost decades? 　After Monday’s annual government budget, in which Singaporean Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced stronger curbs on immigrants in service in

Feb. 20, 2019

[James Stavridis] How US can escape Graveyard of Empires

The problems in Afghanistan often feel intractable, like a knot of countless ropes bound together. Every time a strand is pulled, another part of the knot tightens up. Currently, the Taliban refuse to have talks with the Afghan government, which they label a puppet regime; the Kabul government insists that any power-sharing agreement allow limited numbers of Western troops to remain; the Pakistanis, who have long sheltered Taliban leaders, are unwilling to fully encourage a peace settlement; the

Feb. 19, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] Artificial Intelligence is getting good at fake news

Algorithms have long been able to produce basic news stories from press releases or sets of financial data; that’s not much of a threat to most humans in the news business. Now, however, artificial intelligence has taken a step further. It’s learned to perform a tougher task -- to produce convincing-looking fake news.　Stringing together a few formulaic passages from a set of numbers is a mechanical job. Inventing a fake news story on a random subject requires imagination; not every human is up t

Feb. 19, 2019

[Hal Brands] Are Russia and China getting closer? US spy chiefs think so

Substance often runs a distant second to drama in the age of Donald Trump. So it was when America’s intelligence chiefs visited Capitol Hill recently to deliver their agencies’ annual worldwide threat assessment. It got traction in the news media largely because Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA director Gina Haspel gave testimony that implicitly cut across Trump’s policies toward North Korea and Iran. Kim Jong-un has no intention of giving up his nuclear weapons, Coats and Has

Feb. 19, 2019

[Anjani Trivedi and Shuli Ren] China’s default wave spares the biggest fish

Brace yourself: A growing number of hard-up Chinese borrowers are not making good on their debts. The pattern is all too familiar.　After a record year of defaults in 2018, two big issuers failed to meet their obligations in recent weeks. Coal miner Wintime Energy Co., one of China’s biggest defaulters last year, missed interest payments again this month. Beijing Orient Landscape & Environment Co., which builds water-treatment plants, was late on a 500 million yuan ($73.8 million) bond due this m

Feb. 18, 2019

[Leonid Bershidsky] Europeans grow tired of US-led alliance

As the US-led world order continues to fall apart, second-tier powers are trying to salvage what they can. But in Germany and France, at least, voters don’t really want the US to be part of the process.　The annual Munich Security Report, which provides the starting point for discussion at the annual security forum in the German city, is often a good indication of the Western security community’s current mood. The 2019 report, titled “The Great Puzzle: Who Will Pick Up the Pieces?” is somewhat le

Feb. 18, 2019

[Gina Barreca] Perils of going online in the middle of the night

Whatever you’re doing out of a sense of desperation at 2 a.m., odds are that it’s not going to be one of your healthiest choices.　Last week, I wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t sleep. Not wanting to wake my spouse in the middle of the night (or, as my students call it, “early evening”), I tiptoed into my office, disturbing the cats who blinked, yawned and then put their paws over their eyes in what I felt were exaggerated expressions of feline sufferance.　Once at my desk, I gave into temptation.

Feb. 18, 2019

[Justin Fendos] Government fails at public relations

I asked some university students a few weeks ago about President Moon’s economic policies. By far, the most common response was: “I don’t know what they are doing.” Because this statement was made with a variety of emotions like exasperation and indifference, I didn’t pay much attention to it at first. It was only later I realized it was meant to be taken literally. My curiosity piqued, I convened a second discussion. Most students knew, of course, there had been a recent minimum wage increase.

Feb. 17, 2019

[Sasha Fisher] Democracy beyond voting and protests

For over a decade now, we have witnessed more elections and, simultaneously, less democracy. According to Bloomberg, elections have been occurring more frequently around the world. Yet Freedom House finds that some 110 countries have experienced declines in political and civil rights over the past 13 years.As democracy declines, so does our sense of community. In the United States, this is evidenced by a looming loneliness epidemic and the rapid disappearance of civic institutions such as church

Feb. 17, 2019

[Cass R. Sunstein] Case for curbing social media getting stronger

The US government should not regulate social media. It should stay far away from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and the rest. Any regulatory effort might well violate the First Amendment. Even if it turned out to be constitutional, it would squelch creativity and innovation in the very places where they are most needed.Until recently, I would have endorsed every sentence in the above paragraph. But as Baron Bramwell, the English judge, once put it, “The matter does not appear to me now as

Feb. 17, 2019

[Rachel Marsden] US should resist urge to use mercenaries

US President Donald Trump has expressed a clear aversion to war. As he said in his recent State of the Union address, “As a candidate for president, I pledged a new approach. Great nations do not fight endless wars.”Trump has already ordered a full US troop withdrawal from Syria and a major withdrawal from Afghanistan, noting that a full withdrawal from Afghanistan is still on the table. Some members of the Washington establishment might suggest that there’s a better way to occupy a country fore

Feb. 14, 2019