East Asia Archive

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein and Frederick Deknatel talk about the widespread popular protests in Iran, and what the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators reveals. They also discuss U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s visit to South Korea, where he pressed Seoul to massively increase its share of covering the costs of U.S. troops based in the country, and what the visit says about U.S. policy in Asia. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising […]

The Trump administration’s pandering to North Korea is finally reaching its limits, with implications beyond the Korean Peninsula. At a press briefing Sunday in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced that the U.S. and South Korea were postponing a major and long-scheduled air exercise as “an act of good will” toward the North for the “advancement of peace.” This wasn’t the first time the Trump administration had cancelled or postponed readiness drills in South Korea, where the United States has long maintained a large military presence, recently estimated at 28,500 troops. But a pattern is […]