Blogs

The current trade war between Japan and South Korea makes little logical sense in a liberal worldview of international relations. French economist Frederic Bastiat (allegedly) said that “when goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.” The idea is that social...

Over recent weeks, Hong Kong has been repeatedly rocked by mass demonstrations protesting the actions of its governing authorities. What makes these demonstrations noteworthy and very important are their scale and their location. Protest organizers estimated the crowds at...

What really makes something “historic?” Surely, President Donald Trump’s steps onto North Korean soil were historic firsts. Just a couple of years ago—and this cannot be stressed enough—virtually everything that went down in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on June...

Many of the apps we use—as smart and as fast as they appear—cannot function without people working behind the scenes to fill in the gaps. Machines are not as good as humans (yet) at figuring out whether a tweet...

Citizens of Georgia have been protesting for the past week in response to a Russian parliamentary delegation visit. The protests in Tbilisi have shed new light on Georgian political dynamics, civil society, and the country’s future. ...

In the last few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Czechs have poured into the streets to protest the corrupt rule of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the “Czech Trump.” The scenes are reminiscent of 1989. The largest demonstration took place...

Chinese President Xi Jinping is heading to Pyongyang for the first state visit by a Chinese leader to North Korea in well over ten years. It’s a high-profile event, and given how stalled the diplomatic process is between the...

The breakup of the Soviet Union brought freedom, independence, and sovereignty to its member republics without clearly demarcating their borders. The non-demarcated boundaries created numerous conflicts and points of contention in countries across the South Caucasus. The origins of...

On a recent trip to Taiwan, I visited the island of Kinmen, one of Taiwan’s outlying islands located off the coast of China’s Fujian Province. Kinmen, more commonly known as Quemoy to a Western audience for its role in...

China has long occupied a special place in the American imagination.  In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Americans envisioned a Christianized China that would become an Asian counterpart to the US.  That and other dreams were dashed...