NEW HAVEN ― Until now, and with few exceptions, the West has nurtured two distinct communities of foreign-policy specialists: the development community and the democratic community. More often than not, they have had little or no connection with one another: development specialists dealt comfortably with dictatorships and democracies alike, believing that prosperity can best be created by concentr

On June 2, Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, reportedly told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the South Korean government doesn’t want the U.S. providing food aid to North Korea. He also announced that the U.S. would resume humanitarian food assistance to Pyongyang without political considerations. We heartily welcome this policy shift of the U.S. gov

NEW YORK ― It is impossible to hear about sexual or sex-crime scandals nowadays ― whether that involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn or those of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, or the half-dozen United States congressmen whose careers have ended in the past couple of years ― without considering how they were exposed. What does it mean to live in a socie

ISLAMABAD ― Large events sometimes have unintended strategic consequences. This is turning out to be the case following the killing of Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad, a military-dominated town near Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.The fact that the world’s most wanted man lived for a half-dozen years in a large house within spitting distance of Pakistan Military Academy, where the countr

NEW YORK ― In almost every part of the world, long-festering problems can be solved through closer cooperation among neighboring countries. The European Union provides the best model for how neighbors that have long fought each other can come together for mutual benefit. Ironically, today’s decline in American global power may lead to more effective regional cooperation.This may seem an odd time t

Credit downgrades can elicit fascinating reactions. Take a January move by Standard & Poor’s to cut Japan’s rating to the same level as China’s. I expected the backlash to come from Tokyo. Instead, it was the Chinese who were aghast. Every Chinese official I’ve met since is bewildered that 10 percent growth and $3 trillion of currency reserves don’t buy a better grade than the AA- China shares wit

WASHINGTON ― At the Pentagon, there’s a legal formula for intelligence operations that has come to be known as “Gates practice,” after its proponent, Defense Secretary Bob Gates. It basically argues that if the U.S. conducts a sensitive intelligence mission outside a war zone, the president should make the decision. That may seem like a no-brainer, but it wasn’t always the case. Early in the last

For a man who billed himself as the CEO president, Lee Myung-bak of South Korea sure seems to lack business sense. In February 2008, voters turned to Lee, the former chief executive officer of several Hyundai Group businesses, to see through the reforms needed to break the economic gridlock. Who better to drive change than a guy famed for bulldozing the competition? Buyer’s remorse is setting in a

TOKYO ― Just before the fourth trilateral summit between Japan, China, and South Korea began on May 21, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan jointly visited the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, offering encouragement to the disaster’s victims living in evacuation centers. Since the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nu

North Korea disclosed Wednesday that South Korea proposed three inter-Korean summits ― first at Panmunjeom in June, second in Pyongyang in August and third in Seoul in March ― at a secret meeting of officials from the two sides in Beijing on May 9. According to the North’s official media, Pyongyang rejected the offer because Seoul demanded an apology for the atrocities the North committed last yea

The National Assembly opened a month-long extraordinary session Wednesday to discuss major state affairs, review the government’s policies and deliberate on the pending bills. But this session is likely to be dominated by one burning issue ― the savings bank scandal.The floor leaders of the ruling Grand National Party and the main opposition Democratic Party have agreed to start a parliamentary in

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that permits local officials to revoke the licenses of businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers. The decision makes sense in principle but not in practice.Under the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, business owners are required to use the federal E-Verify program to confirm if a person is authorized to work in this country. Employers mu

MILAN ― The departure of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund has presented the G20 group of advanced and emerging economies with an opportunity and a challenge as they vie to select a new leader.It is a critical moment of transition because the emerging economies that have been in the shadows during most of the IMF’s existence will be dominant in the not-too-distant f

PARIS ― Due to its dramatic nature as well as to the worldwide media attention it has generated, the nuclear accident of Fukushima Daiichi has become a catastrophe that, in the minds of many, overshadows one of the most destructive tsunamis of recent centuries. It has shamed an entire industry and has pushed some countries into urgently adopting moratoria and others into demanding the outright dis

In the just-concluded fourth trilateral meeting of the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea, all three countries agreed to speed up the process toward finalizing a free-trade agreement (FTA).Promoting a trilateral FTA at this time is significant, mainly because major changes occurred in the world economy after the global economic crisis, and Japan and South Korea strongly hoped to “take a free

Philadelphians know better than anyone why Dominique Strauss-Kahn should remain anchored to New York City.Two words: Ira Einhorn.Einhorn, the slovenly, self-appointed hippie guru of 1960s and ‘70s counterculture with a history of abusing women, was convicted in 2002 of murdering his former girlfriend Holly Maddux, a Texas-born cheerleading beauty.The road to that elusive conviction, however, took

WASHINGTON ― One consequence of the early “war on terror” years was that the lines between CIA and military activities got blurred. The Pentagon moved into clandestine areas that had traditionally been the province of the CIA. Special Forces began operating secretly abroad in ways that worried the CIA, the State Department and foreign governments. The Obama administration is now finishing an effor

One of the undeniable features of the European debt crisis is the tendency to obscure, verbally and politically, the real issues at play. Euphemisms, statistical gimmicks, meaningless institutional squabbling, undecipherable acronyms, and plain double talk proliferate as part of the debate. In my experience as central-bank governor in Argentina during the worst financial crisis in our history, at

Godot isn’t likely to show up for the Republicans. Like the characters in Samuel Beckett’s play, the Republican establishment probably will wait in vain for a white knight ― Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Paul Ryan are the most oft-cited ― to rescue the party’s presidential prospects. The Republican field seems set, with the major contenders likely to be former Governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts

BERKELEY ― In the mid-2000s, the United States had a construction boom. From 2003-06, annual construction spending rose to a level well above its long-run trend. Thus, by the start of 2007, the U.S. was, in essence, overbuilt: about $300 billion in excess of the long-run trend in construction spending.When these buildings were constructed, they were expected to more than pay for themselves. But th