Commentary

Freedom of speech permits the support of terrorism, as long as you are only providing “expert advice and assistance” to groups the federal government has designated as “foreign terrorist organizations.” So says a California district judge, in a decision...

This essay is based on a talk to the FPRI Sponsors Forum on January 29, 2004. The Forum is regularly hosted by Pepper Hamilton LLP (www.pepperlaw.com).  The Middle East has been divided for decades between radical forces challenging the...

One hundred years ago tonight, Sir Halford John Mackinder presented his paper, “The Geographical Pivot of History” (published in the April 1904 Geographical Journal) to London’s Royal Geographical Society. He argued that the “closed heartland of Euro-Asia” was the...

The Big Mac can be effective tool in helping students achieve a better understanding of Japan. It can defeat Orientalist stereotypes about the Japanese–and also challenge young people who might have oversimplified notions of what exactly occurs when U.S....

Kokoro: The Heart Within (1998), Bonneville Worldwide Entertainment, 55 North 300 West, Suite 315, Salt Lake City Utah, 84110-1160. 300 minutes (five 60-minute tapes). $99.95 for the entire series on Amazon.com as of May 5, 2003). Scott Featherstone, producer,...

Over the past two decades, Americans have been preoccupied by Japan’s schools. Often the rhetoric has prevented educators and policymakers who seek a clearer understanding of Japanese education from acquiring objective information. Here, I attempt to separate myth from...

Identify the following country: a mid-sized non-European country with a history going back to Biblical events. An ancient trading center, it figured in the works of ancient historians. It has an almost exclusively Muslim population, a troubled colonial history,...

There are two certainties at this time of writing: (1) our armed forces will maintain a significant presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future and (2) the threat from al Qaeda and similar aligned groups will not be going...

Earlier this year, FPRI convened a conference to assess Asia’s shifting strategic landscape. Participants addressed long-term trends that have transformed the strategic environment in Asia, including the rise of China as an economic and military power, Japan’s protracted reconsideration...