[Kim Seong-kon] Things change, but some things never change

People say, “Things change.” However, “Some things never change,” as the maxim says. It is especially true in Korea. For example, as the Yoon administration is about to launch, people begin talking about the urgency of “normalizing the abnormal” that the previous Moon administration has created for the past five years. They argue that Korea’s diplomacy with China and North Korea or with Japan and the US has been far from normal. They point out that the

April 6, 2022

[Doyle McManus] Biden’s defense budget is big. Democrats will vote to make it bigger

Last week, President Joe Biden sent Congress his proposed defense budget for the next fiscal year: an $813 billion wish list, almost $60 billion more than he requested a year ago -- more military spending than any president, including Donald Trump, has requested since World War II. Once Congress approves the request -- and, in all likelihood, makes it bigger -- US defense spending will be larger in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was at the height of the Vietnam War or President Ronald Reaga

April 5, 2022

[Thomas Spoehr] Military recruiting is increasingly AWOL. Can we fix it?

It’s national budget time in Washington, so the conversation on Capitol Hill is focused on numbers. But an important number is being overlooked, one that affects our ability to defend ourselves. At a time when threats abroad are growing, America’s ability to recruit the volunteers needed to fully staff its armed forces is on the wane. The 2023 defense budget request just released by the Biden administration reduces the size of the US Army by 12,000 soldiers. It isn’t that the

April 5, 2022

[Charles A. Kupchan] Western unity starts at home

The solidarity on display at the recent NATO, US-EU, and G7 summits, as Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to wage war on Ukraine, revealed a rejuvenated West. The Atlantic democracies have responded to Russia’s invasion with impressive -- and somewhat unexpected -- unity as they arm Ukraine, reinforce NATO’s eastern flank, and sanction the Russian economy. Instead of turning away migrants, European Union member states are opening their doors to millions of Ukrainian refugee

April 1, 2022

[Lee Kyong-hee] Myopia, machismo and Dragon Hill

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s plan to relocate the presidential office before his May 10 inauguration is abrupt and absurd. The decision, slathered in opaqueness, not only defies public opinion and risks gross overspending, it intensifies security concerns amid increasing North Korean missile tests. None of that seems to matter to Yoon, known for his bulldog mentality when he was a prosecutor. With logistics denying his original relocation plan, he now wants to move to the Ministry of

March 31, 2022

[Doyle McManus] Elements of peace deal in Ukraine

The war in Ukraine, which just entered its second month, shows no sign of ending soon. Russia’s huge but incompetent army has been stymied in its attempts to seize the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other cities. Ukraine’s defenders have put up a heroic fight, but civilians in besieged towns are suffering a terrible toll. Neither army appears ready to quit. That, diplomats say, is why the chances for a cease-fire look so dim. In recent talks, officials from both countries have sugg

March 30, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] ‘Paradise regained?’ Nightmares in dreamland

Even in dreamland, nightmares can infiltrate. Heaven was not an exception: Lucifer rebelled against God and fell down to this mundane world. The same goes for the Garden of Eden. Due to the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel, Satan, paradise is lost. Those who voted for Yoon Suk-yeol as the next president of South Korea are now breathing a sigh of relief, saying, “The nightmare is over, at last.” Nevertheless, that does not mean South Korea has regained paradise. Perhap

March 30, 2022

[J. Bradford DeLong] America’s macroeconomic outlook

Many who now worry about rising inflation in the United States may disagree, but the US Federal Reserve should take a victory lap. Just consider what the Fed has achieved over the past two years. At this time in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had pushed employment down by a massive 14 percent when large portions of the economy were forced to shut down. And although employment bounced back when the economy began to reopen, it nonetheless remained 7 percent below its pre-pandemic level. Getting bac

March 29, 2022

[Takatoshi Ito] East Asian security after Ukraine

Across Europe, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred a rethink of virtually all dimensions of security, from defense to energy. The war’s likely impact on security in East Asia, especially in Taiwan and Japan, has received far less attention. But the coming transformation may turn out to be just as profound. The Ukraine war, though far away, poses a substantial risk to East Asia. China is watching the conflict -- and the West’s response -- closely. If Russia pays a high pri

March 28, 2022

[Elizabeth Shackelford] How to lead with diplomacy, and not just in Ukraine

President Joe Biden and his top foreign policy advisers have demonstrated how effective diplomacy can be in a crisis. They have worked tirelessly to build a powerful, coordinated response to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Though this has not yet ended the war, it has greatly increased the cost to Putin. It has also sucked up most of the oxygen in the White House, the National Security Council and the State Department. But other crises haven’t abated in the meantime, from Yemen to

March 28, 2022

[Robert J. Fouser] Yoon Suk-yeol’s razor-thin victory

The closest presidential election in South Korean history ended with conservative Yoon Suk-yeol winning by 0.73 percent of the vote. The divisive campaign alienated broad swaths of the electorate, but Yoon’s ability to keep conservatives united while drawing strong support from young men put him over the top. Yoon also benefited from winning in Seoul, which has gone for liberal candidates in every election except 2007 when Lee Myung-bak won a landslide victory. Compared to previous winner

March 25, 2022

[Gordon Brown] Prosecuting Putin starts now

The world has responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with sanctions, travel bans, and deliveries of humanitarian and military aid, all of which have been stepped up as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war crimes claim more lives every day. Now, with the Ukrainian people’s courage and solidarity having stirred the collective conscience of Europe and much of the world, pressure is growing to complement these measures with criminal indictments of Putin and his closest associa

March 24, 2022

[Kim Myong-sik] Yoon envisions enhanced civil-military cooperation

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s act of acknowledgement on the change of power in the rival South Korea was a sort of firework display –- the launching of a long-range missile supposedly capable of hitting the mainland of the United States, Seoul’s trusted military ally. To the embarrassment of the 34-year-old dictator, the intercontinental ballistic missile with a designed range of 12,000 kilometers exploded midair shortly after blastoff. The Hwasong series No. 17 rocket wa

March 24, 2022

[Kim Seong-kon] Why ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ now?

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which was originally published in 1839, begins as the protagonist receives a letter from his close friend, Roderick Usher, who urges him to come to his house to help him as he suffers from a strange illness. Responding to his old friend’s distress call, the protagonist travels to a distant part of the country where his friend lives. Metaphorically, it is a summons from the past. Arriving at the Roderick Usher’s f

March 23, 2022

[Lee In-hyun] Discovering musicians from the war in Ukraine

When I wake up, the first thing I do is check the news. For the past few weeks, the headlines have been about the war between Ukraine and Russia, and we seemed to have moved on from the pandemic news. I thought the war would end quickly since Russia has a much more powerful military than Ukraine. However, I was wrong. The patriotism of the Ukrainians was amazing; they stayed behind and protected their cities after saying farewell to their children, wives and elderly parents. Moreover, many count

March 23, 2022

[Martin Schram] Military mind-reading and Putin’s presidency

Wars leave us with iconic images that somehow capture for eternity the reality that made each war hell. So our minds’ eyes see forever the hell that was Vietnam when we recall just two photographs: that little girl running down the road toward us, crying, stripped naked by napalm dropped from America’s planes; and that South Vietnamese military officer shooting his pistol into his prisoner’s head. But we also see the very different iconic photo. It marked the end of World War

March 23, 2022

[Jeffrey Frankel] These Russia sanctions are different

The surprising potency of the multilateral sanctions imposed on Russia has been exceeded only by that of Ukrainians’ resistance to Russia’s invasion of their country. True, it is difficult to imagine that sanctions will bring the Russian economy to its knees faster than Russian troops are able to capture Kyiv or lay waste to the country. But, ultimately, Russia will lose much in this war. Back in December, US President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that severe sa

March 22, 2022

[Neil Lanctot] Biden, like Woodrow Wilson in WWI, treads a fine line in refusing to send troops to Ukraine

The shocking Russian invasion of Ukraine has left most Americans bewildered, angry and deeply troubled. But exactly how our nation should respond remains unclear. Polls have shown a surprising number of Americans uncertain about the desirability of sanctions or the admission of Ukraine into NATO, although most wholeheartedly support President Joe Biden’s refusal to deploy combat troops. But few recognize that another Democratic president, also in office less than two years, faced a near-i

March 22, 2022