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August 18, 2022

How sanctions helped bring down the Soviet Bloc

Among sanctions critics who oppose America’s foreign policy goals or sympathize with its adversaries, a common cliche is that “sanctions never work.” A more nuanced criticism from skeptics of American power is that sanctions alone cannot cause states to change the policies that Washington and its allies oppose. A third argument is that sanctions are not an end unto themselves. The first argument is demonstrably untrue; the second is a half-truth; and the third is too self-evident to be worth...

Categories Europe/History/Sanctions
February 15, 2018

Neither talks for talks’ sake, nor sanctions for sanctions’ sake.

AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II, the U.S. Army assembled a team of experts, including the economist John Kenneth Galbraith, to assess the effects of our strategic bombing campaigns in Europe and Asia. For present purposes, let’s stick to what the Strategic Bombing Survey found about strategic bombing in the European theater: that it lacked focus, hit too wide a variety of targets, and had varying levels of impact on each category of target. Our terror bombing of German...

Categories History/Sanctions
January 8, 2018

Guest Commentary: How Pyongyang’s reunification plan outlived Seoul’s

The following commentary is submitted by OFK contributor Rand Millar. ~   ~   ~ For most of the second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century Germany was perceived by most European nations as the primary security hazard in Europe on account of its expansionist ambitions. In the aftermath of its defeat in the First World War, Germany was forbidden by the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty from fortifying the left bank of its Rhineland territory or...

Categories Korean History/Korean War II
April 2, 2015

Tell me who you boycott and I’ll tell you who you are: On Indiana, S. Africa & N. Korea

As I write this, advocacy groups nationwide are recomposing the tested strategy of using economic isolation to coerce an oppressive, backward regime to improve its human rights practices. The regime, unfortunately, isn’t North Korea; it’s Indiana. That strategy, however, is a moral muscle memory to those of us who came of age as America and Europe mobilized to boycott and sanction apartheid out of existence. Then, when President Reagan came out for “constructive engagement” with South Africa, he was met...

Categories History/Racism/Sanctions
October 27, 2014

Daily NK: Fire destroys Kim Jong Il’s fake birthplace (updated)

Update, September 2015: Subsequent reporting by NK News calls the Daily NK‘s report into question. ~   ~   ~ This report has been circulating in Korean-language sources for a few days, and the Donga Ilbo has reported that a large fire was burning (and had been extinguished) in that area, but this is the first time I’ve seen it reported in English. A raging wildfire that broke out on October 21st in North Korea’s Samjiyon County, Yangkang Province is...

Categories History/Kim Jong Il
August 29, 2014

The WaPo has noticed how Korean-Americans’ political power

… in northern Virginia has grown dramatically in recent years, and accuses politicians of “pandering” to them. To that, I’d ask you to name any well-organized constituency that can’t make a politician pander now and then, and I’ll show you a constituency that isn’t organized at all. We have the worst political system there is, except for all of the others, and in our political system, constituencies matter very much. The WaPo dwells on what it doesn’t like about the...

Categories History/Japan & Korea/U.S. Politics
January 28, 2014

Please buy Don Kirk’s new book on Okinawa and Jeju

A few weeks ago, it was my pleasure to meet up with Don Kirk for beers at the Press Club. Don was kind enough to give me a copy of his new book. I’ve only had time to poke through it so far, but it does (as you would expect) a comprehensive job of discussing the politics of military basing on both islands, each with its own history of conflict and controversy. Don asked me to give it a plug,...

Categories Books & Films/Korean History/ROK Military/U.S. Military
July 17, 2013

I interrupt this hiatus (briefly)

Recently, I was pleased to learn that Miss Hannah Kim, about whom I wrote admiringly here and here several years ago, is now a staffer for Korean War veteran and Congressman Charles Rangel.  Because I have a certain weakness for Miss Kim’s inner beauty (I say this in all sincerity) I find myself unable to (resist embarrassing her or) refuse her kind request to post a link to her latest piece in the Huffington Post.  Here is the gist of it: As a...

Categories Korean War
February 22, 2013

The Continuum: U.S. Army film from South Korea, 1945-1948

It’s interesting to look back at history from the perspective of what we did not yet know: The Japanese Army surrenders: Like all propaganda, these films withhold unpleasant truths.  The sight of these South Korean kkotjaebi in Seoul is just heartbreaking. North or South, videos like this are just hard to watch.  What bothers me almost as much as seeing this kids crying alone is seeing so many people walk without even stopping to help. I often marvel at how...

Categories Korean History
August 13, 2010

Repatriated South Korean POW Sent to Yodok

An octogenarian South Korean POW has been sent to a North Korean prison camp after he was caught attempting to escape the country and return to his homeland more than 55 years after being captured during the Korean War. [Open News] According to the report, the “peace forest” that will be Jung’s final destination is the infamous Yodok, or Camp 15. Follow me in a slightly cynical thought. If we’re going to start using the I.C.C. as a means to...

Categories Korean War/North-South/Refugees/The Camps
July 28, 2010

Why There Is a Cold War in Asia

When someone escapes from North Korea and makes contact with South Koreans, and when China then repatriates that person to North Korea, the North Korean authorities typically execute that person, or send him to die in a prison camp. China has known this for years. That’s why the Chinese government is an accessory to murder when it does things like this: China has repatriated an 81-year-old former South Korean prisoner of war who had fled North Korea decades after being...

Categories China/China & Korea/Korean War/Refugees
July 27, 2010

Dealing with Khmer and North Korean Killers

As the first sentence is finally handed out to a former member of the Khmer Rouge regime, it reminds us of a human rights catastrophe still in progress. Admittedly, I don’t know much about the history of Cambodia, including the nightmare under the Khmer Rouge, but this is a reminder that someday (may it be very soon), decisions made today will determine the fate of many now running the regime in North Korea. The details and issues addressed in South...

Categories History/Human Rights/Southeast Asia
June 30, 2010

China, Korea, and the Persistence of Mendacity

It’s nice to see Koreans calling China on its P.R. blunders with greater frequency these days: In its feature on the 60th anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, the International Herald Leader, a newsweekly of the Xinhua News Agency, said the North Korean army launched the war by crossing the 38th parallel and seizing South Korean capital Seoul in three days. The article immediately drew attention, with some placing significance on China’s first admission of military aggression...

Categories China & Korea/Korean War
June 30, 2010

North Korea Demands $65 Trillion Dollars from U.S. Government

In case you thought there was an end in sight to North Korea’s demands before it would agree to disarm: The Obama administration ridiculed North Korea on Friday for claiming $65 trillion from the United States in Korean War damages, saying the communist nation is an economic “basket case” due its own failed policies. Have the North Koreans actually looked at our balance sheets lately? While it’s probable that the Congressional Budget Office has been working nights to recompute our...

Categories Korean War/WTF?