In his WPR column a few weeks back, David Axe called attention to South Korea’s promised troop deployment to Afghanistan, and it bears repeating, because I think it’s actually one of the more significant “quiet moves” to emerge recently. For more background on Seoul’s decision in the context of the U.S.-ROK alliance, see this March 2009 WPR briefing by Nirav Patel (itself based on this CNAS report). For a more ROK-centric analysis, there’s also this Asia Foundation article by Michael Finnegan — who notes that the operational capabilities the deployment will provide could have potential applications on the Korean Peninsula [...]
Until last week, I was among those who didn’t believe that 9/11 had really “changed everything.” I still don’t think it irrevocably altered global geopolitics, certainly not as much as the U.S. reaction to it did. But in the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day terrorist plot, I was struck by the degree to which 9/11 really did change America. The Yemen frenzy, which seems to be subsiding, nevertheless revealed the extent to which America’s foreign policy and defense posture has gone micro, with engagement conceived of less in terms of actors (i.e., a country’s government and military), and more [...]
The global economy wasn’t the only thing that contracted in 2009. Intensified repression against human rights defenders and civic activists around the world helped make 2009 a “rights recession,” watchdog group Freedom House says in its “Freedom of the World 2010” report. 2009 was the fourth consecutive year of decline, the longest continuous downward slide Freedom House has ever recorded. The group also noted that analysis of data between 2005 and 2009 shows “there have been growing pressures on freedom of expression, including press freedom, as well as on civic activists engaged in promoting political reform and respect for human [...]
