[Trudy Rubin] Trump’s loose lips could sink us all

Here’s the good news about the crisis over North Korea.We are not going to war. Donald Trump is not going to nuke Pyongyang, reckless, rhetorical threats to the contrary. Nor is North Korea’s Kim Jong-un going to nuke Guam.Yes, I know the president just threatened to meet any more North Korean threats to the United States “with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” This is the kind of extreme military rhetoric by a US president the world has never seen, except by Harry S. Truman before b

Aug. 14, 2017

[David Ignatius] US can’t go it alone against NK

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has defiance in his blood. It’s said his grandfather once asked what would happen if America defeated North Korea in war, to which his father answered: “If we lose, I will be sure to destroy the Earth. What good is the Earth without North Korea?”President Trump has decided to confront what’s probably the most reckless, risk-taking regime on the planet. His hope for a diplomatic solution depends on convincing North Korea and China that he’s ready for the “fire and

Aug. 13, 2017

[Eli Lake] Why NK hasn’t faced ‘fire and fury’

As the world ponders the meaning of President Donald Trump’s threat of “fire and fury” on North Korea, it’s worth asking why his predecessors never took those steps to stop its nuclear program.When Bill Clinton was confronted with the threat of North Korea’s exit from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he considered military force. But he ended up going for negotiations in what became known as the Joint Framework Agreement. The North Koreans froze their plutonium program in exchange for fuel

Aug. 11, 2017

[Noah Feldman] Trump’s anti-nuclear playbook looks a lot like Obama’s

Imposing United Nations sanctions on North Korea is the first major foreign policy success of the Donald Trump administration. The effort has a chance of working -- provided Trump keeps following a model borrowed from President Barack Obama’s dealings with Iran. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And the only way to pressure a nuclear or near-nuclear power to the table is with economic sanctions that weaken the regime without threatening its existence.To get the UN Security Council to

Aug. 10, 2017

[Justin Fendos] Please don’t start a war, President Trump

Dear President Trump,On the off-chance you might be a fan of The Korea Herald, I think it is important to go over a few things about North Korea. Some of the comments you made recently have left me scratching my head and very worried you might want to start a war. I think these worries are not just mine but shared by the residents of South Korea, all 51 million of them.First, let’s get over this idea of nuclear disarmament. For the last decade, North Korea has spent about one-third of its entire

Aug. 10, 2017

[David Ignatius] North Korea, on the brink

The North Korean nuclear threat is a “hinge” moment for the US and China, and for the new international order both nations say they want. If Washington and Beijing manage to stay together in dealing with Pyongyang, the door opens on a new era in which China will play a larger and more responsible role in global affairs, commensurate with its economic power. If the great powers can’t cooperate, the door will slam shut -- possibly triggering a catastrophic military conflict on the Korean Peninsula

Aug. 9, 2017

[Lee Sun-young] Extreme heat a sign of grim future

Last summer was memorable. Memorable in a bad way. I love summer, but last year’s was unbearable, with day highs hovering over 35 degrees Celsius for weeks. My long-awaited summer holiday was ruined because the wet, sauna-like conditions outside made me not want to leave the comfort of an air-conditioned room. I was then served with electricity bill “bombs” for resorting to air conditioning day and night. I thought it was an exceptional summer.And here we are, in the middle of another scorcher.

Aug. 9, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] Waiting for the autumn and spring

These days, Korea is roasting under the scorching sun. During the day, Koreans seek refuge in air-conditioned buildings and at night, they toss and turn because of the unbearably high temperature and suffocating humidity. People mutter, “Is Korea burning?”The heat is coming not only from above, but from all sides. South Korea is caught in the crossfire between China, Japan, Russia and the United States these days. The leaders of those four nations are all invariably strongmen who have vowed to m

Aug. 8, 2017

[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