American Foreign Policy… George H.W. Bush in Mao’s China 1 Dec 20181 Dec 2018 With the death of George H.W. Bush, it is an opportune time to look back at his time as the top U.S. diplomat in Beijing in the immediate aftermath…
American Foreign Policy… On Think Tanks, or, What Trump Didn’t Get in Helsinki 17 Jul 201818 Jul 2018 The Trump administration has brought with it a dark winter of discontent to US think tanks. Institutions stocked with the analytical rosters of former Clinton and Obama appointees with North Korea-related expertise…
American Foreign Policy… North Koreans Watching Fox 24 May 2018 This post operates on sanity-preserving ground rules: No referring to: think-pieces, think-tank analyses, journalistic hot takes, outraged or absurd Tweets (other than those thumbed out by POTUS), Chuck Schumer's courageous…
American Foreign Policy… New Book Reviews: Espionage in Republican China, and Britain’s Role in the Korean War 30 Mar 201830 Mar 2018 My two new book reviews engage with the intelligence history of two chaotic decades in China, and the British role in the Korean War, respectively. Review of Panagiotis Dimitrakis, The…
American Foreign Policy… On Red Lines and Reunification: Recent Remarks by the CIA Director on North Korea (updated) 31 Jan 20185 Feb 2018 [UPDATED on 5 February 2018:] Donald Trump surely makes the North Korean state nervous. But when CIA Director Mike Pompeo actually emerges from his operations bunker in Virginia, he tends…
American Foreign Policy… Trump, Nixon, and Gambling on the Korean Peninsula 29 Nov 2017 This essay fragment was written in December 2016, and has not previously been published. If you’re a gambler, the odds are good that Donald Trump will face a North Korea…
American Foreign Policy… Hillary Clinton and the Taxing Friendship: China and North Korea 22 Aug 201720 Aug 2017 This essay, previously unpublished, was written in Seattle on 27 May 2010. Hillary Clinton arrived in Beijing last weekend to send an urgent message to China: put pressure on North…
American Foreign Policy… Wise Words and Wishful Thinking on China’s Relationship with North Korea 6 Jul 20176 Jul 2017 The most recent wave of analysis emerging out of North Korea's test of an apparent Intercontinental Ballistic Missile has once again brought minds back to focusing on China's ability to…
American Foreign Policy… Reflections on the History of Chinese-North Korean Relations, and US-DPRK Relations Today 12 Mar 201712 Mar 2017 Sometimes we need to modify the questions we ask. The question "Is the Chinese Communist Party going to cut off North Korea?" results in a fairly predictable string of analyses…
American Foreign Policy… North Korean Human Rights: Rex Tillerson as Blank Slate 11 Jan 201711 Jan 2017 Will the Trump administration maintain and extend US pressure on North Korea on the human rights front? Will the Executive Branch aim to extend and intensify US criticism of and dialogue…
