Most Americans have still not gotten beyond the end of the Cold War and associated changes in the nature of the world when it comes to thinking about the Middle East. For decades, both before and after the formation of Israel, the United States has believed it has had...
Mission to Macedonia So, you're the ruthless ruler of a worldwide empire, and you want to take over a poor, hapless, unsuspecting nation – whaddaya do? Step number one: fund a guerrilla insurgency. STEP ONE: ADD ONE INSURGENCY There's always some disgruntled...
Peace is breaking out all over, in Macedonia, so they say! Some may call it an armistice. Others, a meeting and agreement of warring factions, still others, a halt to hostilities or a silencing of weapons. This is certainly like no peace that I have ever seen in the...
The revolution that overthrew Yugoslav socialism, led by Vojislav Kostunica, is far from over: having gotten rid of Slobodan Milosevic, and freed the country from the sclerotic grasp of the Serbian Socialist Party, Kostunica became the President of the Federal...
Japan's Prime Minister Junichero Koizumi will face many tests in the months to come: reforming Japan's sclerotic economy, reinvigorating a society fossilized by habit and chafing under the heel of the US occupation. The Japanese people have placed their hopes in him,...
The world may believe that the carefully staged, orchestrated, and subdued signing of the "Made in America" Ohrid framework document translates into peace in Macedonia, the latest Balkan boiling pot. It, however, does not. It will not provide any measurable change to...
There are essentially two types of peace agreements: those that ratify a peace that is in place for whatever reason (conquest, surrender, war-weariness) and those that seek to push forward a "process" that has not yet brought anything resembling an actual peace. One...
During the Cold War, outrage at the idea of "moral equivalence" animated the neoconservative critics of non-interventionism. How dare those leftists hold up the Soviet occupation of Hungary and all of Eastern Europe and equate it with, say, the American occupation of...
In a recent Chicago Tribune article, Michael Lev discussed the question that every foreigner in China finds himself asking after his first trip to the market: Which is better – the free market or the supermarket? After taking a stroll through a muddy, crowded...
The Framework Agreement for Peace is due to be signed this week by the government of Macedonia and someone who allegedly represents the Albanian rebels. I say "allegedly" because the rebels are not present at the negotiating table and it is not known whether...
