[James Stavridis] Scowcroft never hated his enemies

As I was preparing to assume duties as supreme allied commander at NATO a decade ago, the two people I sought out for counsel were both generals: Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft. The advice from Powell, the former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was essentially personal, and it boiled down to: “Don’t start to think you are Charlemagne over there, Stavridis.” Meaning, don’t let your ego get out in front of you, and listen to your mentors and

Aug. 12, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] Memorable phrases in films

We tend to think that movies are merely a form of entertainment, but this is only partially true. In fact, a film is an excellent cultural text and an important social document. Furthermore, a film is a valuable text through which we can learn about life and the world. It that sense, movies are like audiovisual books that we enjoy watching and reading, through which we become not only well informed and knowledgeable, but also enlightened and refined. Films also drench our souls with mesmerizin

Aug. 12, 2020

[Lee Mun-ki] Citizens bring life to park

Couples taking a walk with their dogs in the neighboring park after work, parents vigorously riding bicycles with their children in the fresh air at a lake park on weekends, neighbors occasionally walking up and down Mount Wonsu Promenade nearby their homes to keep healthy: These are common scenes of daily life found in the Sejong Administrative City (Happy City). Parks and green areas in the city have become indispensable spaces for urban residents. According to the recent social atmosphere re

Aug. 12, 2020

[Shang-Jin Wei] The US may lose in Trump’s TikTok war

Following US President Donald Trump’s vow to block US access to TikTok, the popular short-video app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has been in frantic talks with Microsoft, presumably to sell its subsidiary quickly before the ban goes into effect. Of course, it is possible -- even likely –- that Trump’s real intent is not so much to ban TikTok as to force a fire sale to a US buyer. Trump has said that he wants the buyer to be “very American,” and has even

Aug. 11, 2020

[J. Bradford DeLong] Morgue testing the US economy

US national income and output in the first quarter of 2020 was 1.25 percent below what it had been in the fourth quarter of 2019, but still 9.5 percent above what it would be by the second quarter of this year. Now that US national income has plunged 12 percent below what it was at the start of the year, what should we expect for the third quarter? America could always turn out to be lucky; but betting on that would not be prudent. According to Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson of the Universit

Aug. 11, 2020

[Sarah Halzack] Summer of COVID-19 marks the end of office clothes

Professional attire has been evolving for decades into ever more casual modes. For men, suits gave way to blazers and slacks, then blazers and dark jeans, and then just jeans and a button-up. For women, pantyhose got dumped, skirt suits became a relic, and leggings somehow got reclassified in wardrobe taxonomies as pants. Now, thanks to this weird, extraordinary summer America is having, it’s finally happened: Office clothes are officially dead. Desk jockeys have been toiling from home

Aug. 10, 2020

[Tyler Cowen] Coronavirus moralizing has to stop

In some cases, it is already possible to make moral judgments about the various government responses to COVID-19. Such as: The US squandered months of preparation time in early 2020, and President Donald Trump’s administration used and promoted abysmal risk communication strategies. China should have been more transparent about the virus early on. The Brazilian leadership has behaved especially irresponsibly. Nonetheless, the genre of “coronavirus moralizing” is suspect. All t

Aug. 10, 2020

[Clara Ferreira Marques] Europe’s vulnerable ‘last dictator’

In an era of authoritarian populists, at least one iron-fisted leader is looking more vulnerable than he has in decades. Yes, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko will claim another resounding victory after Sunday’s vote. After all, the country has not had an election recognized as free and fair by Western observers since 1995. Yet a creaking $63 billion economy, a poorly handled pandemic, geopolitical isolation and crowds galvanized by the wife of an imprisoned opponent could make his

Aug. 7, 2020

[Seth G. Jones & Juan C. Zarate] US faces new threats, but we have failed to adapt

It has now been more than five months since a US intelligence assessment included in President Donald Trump’s Daily Brief suggested that Russia was paying bounties to Taliban fighters for attacking US and other foreign forces in Afghanistan. And it has been more than a month since news of the intelligence reports became public. Yet the president and his administration still have not adequately denounced Russian activity or outlined a strategy to counter this type of hybrid warfare. It&r

Aug. 7, 2020

[Digital Simplicity] Lost in translation due to raging dispute over mobile game

Once in a while, a well-made game hits the market, gets mostly positive reviews from gamers and rakes in handsome profits over an extended period. To achieve this daunting goal, it must have two main elements: deeply entertaining gameplay and responsive communication with gamers. Guardian Tales, a mobile game launched by Kakao Games on July 16, met the first condition, but has failed to meet the second, touching off a wave of disputes in the domestic gaming industry. The once-popular mobile

Aug. 6, 2020

[Eli Lake] Biden should give Maduro reason to worry

One of the defining features of the Trump years has been the collapse of bipartisan consensus on foreign policy. There is at least one notable exception, however: support for a democratic transition in Venezuela. When Juan Guaido, the leader of Venezuela’s national assembly and the man recognized by the US and more than 60 other nations as the country’s interim president, attended the State of the Union address in Washington this year, he received a standing ovation from Democrats a

Aug. 6, 2020

[Noah Smith] Developing nations are dealt a one-two hit to growth

Recent decades have been glorious for developing countries, where rapid growth has lifted millions of their citizens out of crushing poverty. But the coronavirus pandemic is threatening to halt their gains. And in the long term, the decline of the US may pose an even bigger obstacle for developing nations. Starting in about 1990, poor countries started catching up to rich ones. South Korea, Taiwan and some countries in Europe reached a fully developed state. China has powered ahead with one of

Aug. 6, 2020

[Ivo Daalder] What Pompeo gets right about China

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to the Nixon Presidential Library last week to proclaim the American opening to China a grand failure. “What do the American people have to show now 50 years on from engagement with China?” Pompeo asked. His answer: not much. China, the secretary of state intoned, had become a menacing tyranny that had succeeded economically only by robbing America of its jobs and its ideas and now threatened its freedom. Instead of continuing “the old p

Aug. 5, 2020

[Kim Seong-kon] Good intentions may bring bad outcomes

We tend to believe we are doing the right thing when our intentions are good. Often enough, however, we realize in retrospect that we were wrong at the time despite our good intentions. This is especially true for those who insist that they are doing something for a Grand Cause or for the Greater Good. Those who become obsessed with these righteous visions may not hesitate to sacrifice smaller causes or lesser goods in the name of the ideology they blindly worship. Those self-righteous people ma

Aug. 5, 2020

[Faye Flam] US can control COVID-19 without second lockdown

Rising COVID-19 case counts across the US have made a second lockdown seem almost inevitable. It is likely to be months before a vaccine could end the coronavirus pandemic, and the US is also months away from using the testing-and-tracing strategy that other countries have used to keep new outbreaks from expanding. But Americans can’t be expected to stay in their homes for months on end. The rational, fair, humane way forward is for society to balance pandemic safety against other vital n

Aug. 4, 2020

[Clara Ferreira Marques, Matthew Brooker] Hong Kong takes the zero-risk poll option

Hong Kong’s decision to bar a dozen pro-democracy candidates from contesting legislative elections and then to postpone the vote by a year won’t leave its economic prospects unscathed. It’s a striking reminder of how threatening elections can be for authoritarian governments -- even those where the system is stacked in their favor. The authorities’ actions further narrow the scope for public dissent in the former British colony, after Beijing passed a national security l

Aug. 4, 2020

[Kwon Soon-yong] Telemedicine in the era of post-COVID-19

As the coronavirus crisis emerged, South Korea distinguished itself on the global stage on the basis of its excellent health care system, quality of medical staff and personnel, and most of all, the collective strength of its citizens coming together to rise above the challenge of a potential epidemiological crisis. Korea’s response to the crisis -- the rapidity with which diagnostics kits were developed, produced, and distributed as well as early adoption of innovative practices such as

Aug. 3, 2020

[Serendipity] Turn crisis into opportunity for arts

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has raged on for more than seven months now, it was said that there would be a plethora of books about the time of the novel coronavirus in the years to come. Judging by recent press releases, artists appear to be already at work trying to make sense of these confusing times. But how many artists will make it through these rough times when the cultural scene remains crippled following the monthslong virtual shutdown? Even in better days, &ldqu

July 31, 2020

[Robert J. Fouser] Sejong City back in limelight again

Sejong City is back in the limelight. Politicians of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, are rallying behind a proposal to move the president, the National Assembly, and government ministries from Seoul to Sejong. Named after King Sejong, whose epithet is “the Great,” the city grew out of former President Roh Moo-hyun’s plans to encourage balanced regional development by moving the capital from Seoul to the center of the country. The city was founded in 2007 and parts of th

July 31, 2020

[Jean Pisani-Ferry] Challenges of post-pandemic agenda

There is a growing possibility that the COVID-19 crisis will mark the end of the growth model born four decades ago with the Reagan-Thatcher revolution, China’s embrace of capitalism, and the demise of the Soviet Union. The pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of human societies and fortified support for urgent climate action. And it has strengthened governments’ hand, eroded already-shaky support for globalization, and triggered a reappraisal of the social value of mundane ta

July 30, 2020