WPR Blog Archive

Cheryl Rofer (via Progressive Realist), at the end of an informative post about the North Korean nuclear test, adds this as an afterthought: . . . North Korea, partly on its own and partly because of the actions ofother countries, is isolated in a way that no other country is. It canbe reasonably sure there will be no military retaliation because ofSeoul’s proximity and China’s fear of a flood of refugees. So it isfree to do as it pleases. And, whatever its objectives may be, it canfreely pursue them. This is where strategies of isolating andsanctioning countries leads. The rest […]

Hollywood stars and U.S. lawmakers are lending support to a growing movement to end the use of “conflict minerals” in electronics products. The goal is to raise the issue’s profile so that consumers, many of whom remain uninformed about the subject, will throw their buying power behind it. By putting pressure on corporations to rid their supply chains of these minerals, organizers hope to cut off funding that helps prolong fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — one of the world’s worst conflicts resulting in ongoing rights abuses. Mary Louise Parker, Saffron Burrows, Sandra Oh and Ryan Gosling […]

I just saw Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino” over the weekend, and I immediately wondered, upon leaving the theater, how it managed to get left out of the recent blog discussion about movies dealing with international relations. The movie examines the long-term effects of war, as reflected in its impact on individuals, but also on the movement of peoples and, by consequence, on culture and society. The Korean War haunts Eastwood’s Walter Kowalski to the point that he conflates his entire reality through the warped and distorted lens of his own prejudices. His life spent working in a Detroit car-manufacturing plant […]

There’s probably some complex game theory calculations necessary to figure out if it makes sense to claim that the DPRK nuclear test was a failure even if it was a success. Then again, the actual seismic data is a matter of public record, and the calculations follow from that. Be all that as it may, according to the FAS’ Hans Kristensen, the initial Russian estimates of a 10- to 20-kiloton Hiroshima-type blast are wildly off the mark. Jeffrey Lewis agrees, putting it in the 2- to 6-kiloton range. That’s better than the .5- to .8-kiloton “dud” from 2006. (Was it […]

How does a man decide to give away a billion dollars? At a recent Washington benefit gala for Refugees International, the privately funded relief organization, CNN founder and owner Ted Turner sat on a stage and revealed how he came to the aid of the United Nations. His short, revealing monologue — surely a classic in the annals of philanthropic decision making — is reproduced here, more or less verbatim: “I thought, what could I say [about the United Nations] that would really have an impact? Why don’t I give the United Nations a million dollars? I always thought a […]

I’m not sure I’d characterize the summit between the presidents of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran as “the latest sign of Iran’s emergence as the regional power,” as does the NY Times. I might think otherwise if Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had joined them. But he didn’t, meaning this is basically the diplomatic equivalent of a block association meeting. It certainly can’t do any harm, could even do some good, and far from being an example of our inability to isolate Iran, is exactly the sort of thing that we should be — and increasingly have been — encouraging. But […]

Is there any other country on earth about which this sentence could be written? Despite being rigidly observed, Japan’s 1976 ban on arms exports was never passed as a law. Interesting to note that the only exception made to the ban to date was with regard to missile defense technology to address North Korean proliferation threats. As troublesome as the now-nuclear DPRK is to all parties involved, the major destabilization risk, outside of a sudden collapse of the regime, still involves Japan’s potential response. Even if it predates today’s test, the proposed lifting of the export ban comes in the […]

Couldn’t help but chuckle over this, from an EU Observer wrap up of the EU-Russia summit. Apparently, prior to the summit, Czech President Vaclav Klaus got quoted as saying that, as a “big, strong and ambitious country,” Russia deserved more attention than, say, Estonia and Lithuania. To which, in addition to summoning the Czech ambassador, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves replied: I amsurprised that such a regrettable phrase, which divides Europeancountries into important and unimportant ones, were expressed by aCzech. Translation from the Diplospeak: Who you calling a twerp, twerp?

Around 100,000 homeowners in the earthquake-stricken town of l’Aquila, in central Italy, have filed for financial aid to rebuild their primary homes destroyed or damaged in the April 6 tremors. Curiously, l’Aquila only has about 70,000 registered homeowners. “There is obviously a discrepancy in the numbers, and we need to check it quickly to determine the reason for it,” Massimiliano Cordeschi, a regional official, conceded blithely in a television interview Wednesday. Meanwhile, reconstruction of the ancient town nestled in the Abruzzi Mountains — where almost every structure suffered some damage — has been held up pending the investigation, with thousands […]

Today’s selection comes from Pat Martino, the man I consider to be the gold standard of jazz guitarists and — as my guitar teacher’s teacher — my musical Godfather. The song itself came to me as I was running alongside the river, thinking about nothing in particular. But it seems to wordlessly express the feeling I get from President Barack Obama’s first months in office, with the composition’s speed and momentum that comes of leaning into the rhythm broken up by the stops and starts and broken stride of its quirky, halting middle section. The quintessential recording of this comes […]

The surprising part of this EU Observer article isn’t that British refinery workers called a two-day strike to protest the the hiring of 40 foreign workers by a subcontractor. Nor is it that the parent company eventually caved, and promised to replace them with homegrown British workers. No, what surprised me was that Britain’s government statistics shop reported that foreign workers are increasingly leaving Britain, and fewer are coming to replace them. Now I’m not sure if that reflects the reality (i.e., including undocumented workers). But it suggests that the economic downturn, at least in Britain, has had the opposite […]

Also of note this week was the EU-China summit, which seems to have gone a bit smoother than the EU-Russia summit I mentioned. One predictable point of contention was the EU’s insistence on human rights concerns (Tibet, Burma), to which Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao replied, in so many, Mind your own business. That they will, of course. Still, what caught my eye is how much weight the EU’s much-derided soft power really carries, after all. Not necessarily in the realm of human rights, where Wen could basically send it packing, but in the power of its market to exert a […]

I’d like to say that I realized today would be the Federal Republic’s 60th anniversary when we scheduled this week’s feature issue on Germany six weeks ago. But truth is, I didn’t. I’m fairly certain Hampton did, though. Either way, it’s a good excuse to plug the issue again, because it’s a great collection of articles on a “quiet” subject that’s worthy of more attention. Another good excuse to plug the issue is this Al Jazeera piece about Dmitry Medvedev calling out the EU on its Eastern Partnership at the EU-Russia summit meeting yesterday. The Eastern Partnership, as Max Bergmann […]

David Horovitz, writing in today’s Jerusalem Post, paints a very compelling picture of the situation that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu finds himself in after this week’s meeting in Washington with President Barack Obama. Horovitz points out that Obama has left Netayahu with little “wiggle room” on the settlement issue: either stop all settlements, including “natural expansion” or be cast as obstructionists. Recall that the settlement issue is like kryptonite in Israeli domestic politics, and that Netanyahu himself rode to power defying a previous generation of Israeli leaders who tried to use the settlers as pawns in a wider peace initiative. […]

I had no intention of commenting on the speeches made by President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday. I haven’t read the transcripts, and I’ve only seen short clips of the video. Most people have already made up their minds on this, and neither Obama, Cheney, or myself is likely to convince anyone to change their judgment. But there are a few things that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere. First of all, the degree to which Cheney’s battle has become a personal one to resurrect his reputation. By all accounts, Cheney got spooked on 9/11. Should history […]

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported this week that a political deal was under discussion between Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Zalmay Khalilzad — the former U.S. ambassador successively to Kabul, Baghdad, and the United Nations, and until recently a possible, if undeclared, contender for the Afghan presidency. The talks centered on Khalilzad, an Afghan by birth, being appointed to a non-elected post described as chief executive officer, to put sinew into Karzai’s weak, inefficient, and — from Washington’s point of view — unreliable government. Both Karzai’s office in Kabul and Khalilzad himself at once denied […]

A British-based campaign aimed at ending the use of loud music by U.S. interrogators as a means of exerting psychological influence over detainees is reaching across the pond in an effort to bring American musical icons Bruce Springsteen and Eminem on board. A diverse group of mostly British artists and musicians has already joined the “Zero dB” campaign, launched last December by Reprieve — a legal charity that is representing more than two dozen Guantanamo detainees. U.S interrogators have been using the music — pumped into cells at extremely loud levels for as much as 20 hours a day, for […]