North Korea Stirs Cuban Crisis Memory
By Hui Zhang
Asia Times
“Over the past decade, past experience has shown that the more sanctions the international community places on Pyongyang, the more Pyongyang is motivated to respond defiantly. The longer the stalemate drags on, the more fissile material North Korea will produce, and the better weapons it will make. The North can also sell its fissile materials to anyone in the world seeking to buy it.”
Islamists and Secular Nationalists in Syria
By Rami Khouri
Agence Global
“The heart and soul of Syrian society for a century predominantly has been neither sectarian nor religious. But in the face of state collapse and widespread insecurity at family level, Syrians will naturally turn to sect and faith if that is their key to survival. If the fighting and destruction continue for a long time in Syria, sect and faith will reshape the new country that emerges, probably laying a foundation for long-term tensions that provide structural entry points for others in the region to interfere in domestic affairs.”
On DOMA, Real-World Arguments Could Sway the Supreme Court
By Ben Heineman
The Atlantic Monthly
“After the Supreme Court hears oral argument in the two same-sex marriage cases next week, it could issue a momentous ruling that gay marriage is a constitutional right in all 50 states — or that it is not. But, the Court has left itself numerous more modest options to avoid such a sweeping ruling when it decides whether the California can outlaw same-sex marriage through a voter initiative or whether Congress can define ‘marriage’ for all federal programs as “only a legal union between one man and one woman.”
America’s Security, Under the Weather
By Juliette Kayyem
Boston Globe
“President Obama’s trip to the Middle East last week served as a nagging reminder of the world’s most intractable problems: the Palestinian conflict, Iran, North Korea. These are geographically distant but historically persistent threats to the United States. With meteors landing unexpectedly from the sky, the entire earth suddenly feels like one big bulls-eye of doom.”
China Doesn’t Belong in the BRICS
By Graham Allison
The Atlantic
“When Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the term 12 years ago, many expected that economic growth rates in India and Brazil would soon rival China’s. That remains O’Neill’s bet, his most recent blast foreseeing that “India definitely has the biggest potential for growth among BRIC countries this decade.” But the brute fact is that China has continued growing more than twice as fast as other members of this club.”
Forging New Diplomatic Bonds Through Science and Technology
By Calestous Juma
Technology and Policy
“Science and technology are being increasingly recognized as central features in international diplomacy. Much of the attention, however, has focused on how major industrialized countries and large emerging nations such as China, India, and Brazil use science and technology to advance their global competitiveness.”
Snowstorm Will Provide a Blizzard of Lessons
By Juliette Kayyem
Boston Globe
“The recovery is now in earnest for those still without power, for public transportation systems that closed during the height of the snowstorm, and for families who left their homes to seek shelter. But the great nor’easter of 2013 isn’t over. We will rebound, but, if we are lucky, this storm will never end.”
Kayyem also wrote this week on public safety reform strategy >
The Information Revolution Gets Political
By Joseph Nye
The Australian
“The second anniversary of the ‘Arab Spring’ in Egypt was marked by riots in Tahrir Square that made many observers fear that their optimistic projections in 2011 had been dashed. Part of the problem is that expectations had been distorted by a metaphor that described events in short-run terms. If, instead of ‘Arab Spring,’ we had spoken of ‘Arab revolutions,’ we might have had more realistic expectations. ”
Read more >
Good news: World War I is over and will not happen again
By Stephen Walt
Foreign Policy
“It therefore pains me to have to take issue with Rachman’s recent column warning of rising tensions in East Asia, and all the more so because he quotes two respected colleagues, Joe Nye and Graham Allison. His concern is the possibility of some sort of clash between China and Japan, precipitated by the territorial dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands exacerbated by rising nationalism in both countries and concerns over shifting balances of power. These are all legitimate worries, although it’s hard to know just how serious or volatile the situation really is.”
Technological Somnambulism Revisited: Sleeping through the New Invisible Surveillance Technologies
By Tolu Odumosu
STS.Next.20
“My first appointment to see the sleep physician after six months of using the machine is when I discovered that my new medical device had been spying on me from the day I brought it home. Upon taking the machine in with me (as requested by my doctor’s office), I discovered to my immense shock that my machine was fitted with a small removable data card which the attendant readily removed and relieved of accumulated data shortly before I began my meeting with the doctor. ”
Belfer In The News 