In a defiant speech in late September, North Korea Foreign Minister Ri Young warned the U.N. General Assembly that the Korean Peninsula “has now been turned into the world’s most dangerous hot spot which can even ignite the outbreak of a nuclear war.” This was not speculation, but rather a warning from the former Chief […]

Read more

Since 2014, when President Barack Obama announced his intention to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, the United States and its allies have dropped more than 50,000 missiles and bombs on Iraq and Syria in over 15,000 separate strikes. That’s a bomb nearly every 20 minutes for two years. If even one of these bombs […]

Read more

Back in 1996, shortly after the end of the war in Bosnia, New York Times foreign affairs “sage” Thomas Friedman posed this question in his column: “What does Bosnia need today if it is going to be stabilized?” The answer, according to Friedman’s calculations: “Bosnia needs big tanks, big roads, and Big Macs.” To be […]

Read more

Photo Credit: Senior Airman Matthew Bruch, U.S. Air Force   There is a scene in Hal Ashby’s classic 1979 adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s novella Being There where the hapless Chauncey “the gardener” Gardiner, played by Peter Sellers, ends up at a meeting with the president of the United States. Complex policy discussions are taking place and […]

Read more

Lawrence Jackson   While final preparations were under way for the 51st anniversary of Singapore’s independence on August 9, the White House hosted the nation’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at a lavish state dinner—the highest honor the U.S. government can give a visiting dignitary. Singapore is a tiny island country in Southeast Asia, but […]

Read more