Where do you stand on the declining liberal order debate? More bad news for liberal international order

More on declining liberal international order I've dug up.

So if one guy can blow up the liberal international (institutional) order, than the order is not all that its cracked out to be. I've been making a similar argument in my book on Asian regional architecture, but from the angle that the liberal international order is more resilient precisely b/c it rests on norms and institutions.  Dan Drezner raises this point channeling a tweet presents the following.

As President Trump continues to wreak havoc, questions are being asked about the resiliency of the rules-based liberal order. Adam Elkus is a smart guy I follow on Twitter; maybe you should, too! But in response to much gnashing of teeth in the past week over this question, he tweeted the following: “If the Rules-Based Liberal Order can be blown up by one man within a 4-year time span then people can’t still unironically talk about institutions and the binding power of norms.”

If Elkus is correct, then it’s a pretty damaging blow to liberal institutionalists. It would turn out that all of the trappings of the postwar global order rested not on rules or norms, but on raw American power. Is he correct?

Foreign Affairs posted this interesting poll of foreign policy experts last year (May/June 2017) on whether they agreed/disagreed with the idea that the postwar liberal order is in "grave danger" The forecast looked gloomy. A year later, the prognosis is probably worse. There's a slew of new pieces discussing how Trump is destroying the liberal international order:

Dan Byman in Lawfare, stating that even if Trump exits after one term, the damage may not be easily reversible. In particular, the Trump years have signaled to the world the messiness of US domestic politics and the possibility that a substantial number of Americans may not want a liberal order.  As Byman argues, "A successor to Trump can try to renew these commitments but must do so with the world recognizing that a sizeable share of Americans oppose these traditional components of the world order and that a leader championing these Americans might again gain power." This was similar to Drezner's comments.

Robbert Kagan discusses the US as a rogue superpower that's not only rejected the liberal order, but is "milking it for narrow gain, rapidly destroying the trust and sense of common purpose that have held it together and prevented international chaos for seven decades."

Fareed Zakaria argued that the main headline of the US-North Korea summit last week was not the praise lavished onto Kim Jong Un, but the cancellation of military exercises and his allusion to reducing US troop commitment. China ended up being the big winner out of the summit.

In a CATO report, Patrick Porter finds policymakers nostalgic for the liberal order. Is it time to move on?

G7, Trade Disputes, and the Decline of Liberal Internationalism

“What worries me most is the fact that the rules-based international order is being challenged — quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the U.S.,” - European Council President Donald Tusk.

"When does a feud become a separation? A separation a divorce? When do arguments, sharp-tongued put-downs and perceived betrayal among allies become the collapse of the Western-dominated order that has ruled the world, under U.S. leadership, for the past seven decades?" - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.

Washington Post June 10 2018 (Photo Credit: AFP)

These are the headlines underlining (or undermining) the 2018 G7 Summit in Canada,  capped by President Trump's early departure from the G7 and decision to withdraw US support joint statement. At the center of this debate is the Trump administration's threat to the international trade architecture as President Trump threatens to slap tariffs on goods - steel, aluminum, and automobiles in particular - of our closest allies in the name of national security. These allies include Canada, Germany, and Japan. Although there might be some "nuggets of truth" to Trump's claims on trade, most analysts believe the US will bear a significant economic cost in a trade war, translating into the loss of millions of jobs.  I don't have the economics or math background to prove to what extent Trump's trade policies would help or hurt the US economy, but if there's anything I learned from my IPE class in graduate school, it's that international trade always carries winners and losers. Steel and aluminum producers in the US may get their jobs back as Trump rises tariffs on foreign imported metals. But what about all the US manufacturers who rely on lower cost materials to make their products? What about the US pork and dairy farmer who will face retaliatory tariffs in Europe. The Washington Post had a great feature story on a sausage-making manufacturer in Ohio who will potentially lose millions of dollars b/c of Trumps steel tariffs. Here's an excerpt:

Bill Adler was invited last year to bid on a contract to make commercial sausage stuffers for a company that wanted to replace its Chinese supplier. The customer had just one non­negotiable demand: Match China’s price.

Adler, owner of metal-parts maker Stripmatic Products, thought he could. But even as he readied his proposal, talk of President Trump’s steel tariffs sent the price of Stripmatic’s main raw material soaring.

In April, with prices up nearly 50 percent from October and the first wave of tariffs in place, Adler’s bid failed. His costs were too high.

Today, instead of taking business from China, Adler worries about hanging onto the work he has. He hopes that the president’s tariffs are just a negotiating tactic.

Washing machines are another product in which trade tariffs, initially put in place to reduce competition from foreign competitors such as LG and Samsung, have backfired as those companies have continuously moved production to avoid tariffs, and ultimately moving production to the United States itself, complete with tax breaks and subsidies while creating US jobs. Here's a PBS video exploring if trade tariffs actually help US workers.

A looming trade war with China also stands to have the US losing billions, particular among US farmers as demonstrated in this clip from Vice News.

This is not only about trade. The rift at the G7 has broader implications for the liberal international order. The Trump administration has battled its allies on other issues including climate change (the US pulled out of the Paris Accords);  non-prolilferation (the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal). Some questioned whether Trump was looking after US or Russian interests as Trump called on the G7 to reinstate Russia as part of the G8. Max Boot headlined an article stating the US turned the G7 into the G6 vs. the G1.

In his PostEverything colum, Dan Drezner is circumspect about the possible long term damage of Trump's "bad-cop/bad-cop" approach to global affairs. Perhaps the most likely pathway linking Trump to a longer US withdrawal from the liberal order is increasing polarization in the US which promotes Trump's nationalist/anti-liberal policies. He ends the piece by stating. "Trump could get reelected. if that happens, the tombstone for the current order can safely be planted."

If there's any optimism, though, we need to remind ourselves that America has faced worse, and has tended to rebound from tumultuous periods (i.e. Civil War in the 1860s, the 1930s depression, riots of the 1960s). There is always recourse to head back to the political center - or return to some consensus. 

Strategic Narratives

I've been thinking a lot about foreign policy narratives - and in particular the rise of "restraint" and the decline of "liberal internationalism" as dominant narratives. Beyond U.S. foreign policy, however, one might consider global narratives. A piece in Foreign Affairs by Ian Bremmer and Joe Kennedy III gets at this:

Today, however, non-Western powers are gaining political and economic influence, and no longer feel that the global architecture created in the late 1940s fits their purposes and their ambitions. They’re right. But in response, the Trump administration seems content to let the old order collapse—and even help accelerate that process—while seeming unwilling to use American power to create a new and better one.

In a slightly different twist on how narratives influence foreign policy - more at the domestic than the grand strategy level -  CSBA published a piece on how authoritarian states have used information warfare as a means to alter narratives within domestic politics. The title is "Countering Comprehensive Coercion: Competitive Strategies Against Authoritarian Political Warfare."

And in a  piece by Aaron Friedberg on visions of international order, the author gives much more attention to ideas and ideology. Friedberg writes:

If they wish to respond effectively to these new realities, American and allied policymakers cannot afford to downplay the ideological dimension in their own strategy. Beijing’s obsessive desire to squelch dissent, block the inward flow of unfavourable news and discredit ‘so-called universal values’ bespeaks an insecurity that is, in itself, a form of strategic vulnerability. China’s rulers clearly believe the ideological realm to be a crucially important domain of competition, one that they would be only too happy to see the United States and the other Western nations ignore or abandon....


... Last but not least, the experience of the past century suggests that, if America’s leaders are serious about mobilising and sustaining the bureaucratic focus, domestic political support and economic resources necessary to wage a protracted strategic competition against a powerful and determined rival, they are going to have to cast the challenge, at least in part, in ideological terms. Geopolitical abstractions and economic statistics may be important, but historically what has moved and motivated the American people is a recognition that the principles on which their system is founded are under threat. There is an undeniable risk here of fear-mongering and overreaction, but at this point excessive caution and a continuing refusal to face facts may be an even greater danger. What is needed instead is a sober assessment of the challenge in all its dimensions, a clear articulation of the measures necessary to meet it, and leaders in Congress, the executive branch and the private sector who are capable of conveying both to the public.

The attention given to ideology leaves the door wide open for research on narratives.

Fearless Speech Index

I recently joined Heterodox Academy which encourages academics to support a diversity of viewpoints.  This week's newsletter highlighted an op-ed by professor Adam Grant at Wharton who encourages more arguing and fighting at home which helps train kids to grow up to be more creative and open minded. 

In that post, a quote struck me as consistent with my own observations and experience: "Universities—ideal homes for constructive disagreement—can now be places where students and professors alike often feel silenced." Results from a survey tracking a "fearless speech index" can be found here. Researchers are trying to determine to what degree students feel comfortable speaking about the following topics in class, and the reasons why they do/don't speak up about 3 issues: race, gender politics. There's a "control" category for comparison. The topic of race generated the most discomfort, and criticism from  other students (not professors) ended up being the biggest concern/reason for not speaking out. As an Asian-American, race is not as uncomfortable for me, but as a conservative Christian, gender is probably the hardest. 

A Century of Communism

It's been 100 years since Communism came into power. The Washington Post's Will Englund presented a cool graphic timeline or the "Red Century." Until I read this brief account, I had never considered the Communist Revolution as a social movement with major implications for world politics. But of course that's exactly what it is. It's not a single movement of course, even though there was an international organization (Comintern) set on expanding communism globally. But the Revolution has all the makings of a social movement if one considers mass mobilization, the challenge to authority, and the diffusion of ideas. The puzzle for me is why and how communist movements/parties/governments virtually everywhere turned to authoritarianism and repression, especially if communism in its pure form was an ideology which was to bring equality.

Anyway, this is a mental note to consider the Russian Revolution and the spread of communism as an example of social movements transforming world politics. I might also use the Red Century in my Intro to IR class next semester to educate students about Cold War history.

Intro to IR Roundup: Nukes, Migration, Syria and IR Research

Today is the first day of fall 2016-17 classes. I usually teach Intro to International Relations in the fall, but am out of my routine due to a conference I'm organizing. However, I thought I'd post several good sound bytes which I would have offered to students had I been kicking off class with a dose of current events and international crises.

Syria: Why is the war so damn long and bloody. It's gets more violent by the day. Drawing on IR

 AFP/Getty Images

research, Max Fisher of the New York Times provides a run-down of some of the factors contributing to the ugly nature of the Syrian war. The usual suspects like multiparty factions and ethnic/sectarian divisions. But a big culprit appears to be foreign sponsorship/intervention. As Fisher writes:

"Foreign interventions that were intended to end the war ...have instead entrenched it in a stalemate in which violence is self-reinforcing and the normal avenues for peace are all closed...Whenever one side loses ground, its foreign backers increase their involvement, sending supplies or air support to prevent their favored player’s defeat. Then that side begins winning, which tends to prompt the other’s foreign backers to up their ante as well. Each escalation is a bit stronger than what came before, accelerating the killing without ever changing the war’s fundamental balance."

Intervention: Recent interventions (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) have left us pondering the costs of such intervention.  Anne Applebaum asks what the costs of non-intervention have been in Syria in terms of total deaths, the refugee crisis, the destabilization of the region, and security threats in Europe . Of course, intervention could have made all of this even worse. Fareed Zakaria earlier argued that it was probably best for the U.S. not to intervene, but it could/should have done much more on humanitarian assistance, even if it rightfully chooses not to pursue humanitarian intervention. Part of the problem may be the politicization of aid.

Nuclear Weapons: Obama is toying with the idea of changing U.S. strategic doctrine by declaring a no first use nuclear weapons policy. Some pros and cons of a first no use policy are outlined by the WSJ.  While reducing nukes sounds good in theory, Stephen Sestanovich of CFR pushes back against this change.

Migration: Want to know the difference between migrants and refugees. A CFR video and backgrounder explains here.

Russia, Turkey, and IR Paradigms

In a nod to ideological alliances, Anne Applebaum argues that dictators will choose other dictators at the end of the day and cites Turkish President Recep Erodgan's recent meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin as an example. Despite Turkey's membership in NATO, Edrogan has used the military coup to crackdown on even the slightest potential for opposition.  As Applebaum writes:

(Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated Press)

Geostrategic, military and even historical calculations should make Turkey and Russia antagonists. But their meeting illustrates something that many Western politicians and “realist” thinkers find difficult to understand: that ideas and ideology sooner or later trump “interests.” If Turkey were still a democracy, Erdogan would be looking to his Western allies to help him push back against Russia. But contact with the West also means contact with Western ideas. Dependence on the West means dependence on states that believe in the legal norms which Erdogan wants to repress, states that might support the people Erdogan wants to lock up.

Victory for constructivists? Does this really mean ideas trump interests? Well, Turkey's move does indicate the power of ideas. But ideas too reflect particular interests. What's important here (for IR students) is the relationship between ideas and interests and whether in the case of Turkey and Russia, ideas are defining actors' interests.

Obama, Syria, Migration, and Intervention

Initial reactions from a few Republican presidential candidates and handful of Republican governors have ranged from disheartening to appalling. Unsurprisingly Democrats, including President Obama have attacked Republicans and others for refusing to accept Syrian refugees.

Conservatives have hit back, putting some of the blame on the Obama Administration for producing the Syrian crisis., and making a case for intervention. As Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post argues:

Four million Syrians have fled, with even more internally displaced. Half of all Syrians have been forced from their homes.For that, the Obama administration bears some responsibility — and the reasons should be something voters think about in 2016....He withdrew all U.S. troops from Iraq when experts advised that a residual force of 15,000 would help to keep a fragile peace. He bombed Libya to overthrow its dictator but opposed a small NATO training force that might have stabilized the new government. He ordered a limited surge of troops to Afghanistan but soon began withdrawing them on a timetable unmoored to conditions. When Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad cracked down on democracy protesters, kindling violence, Obama kept the United States aloof.

As a result, Hiatt claims we are paying "the price of inaction."

Today Libya is “engulfed in civil war and bloodshed.” In Iraq, having lost leverage and interest, the United States stood aside as the Shiite prime minister turned the U.S.-trained armed forces into a sectarian militia that gave space and impetus for radical Sunnis — reborn as the Islamic State — to reemerge. In Syria, effects even direr than Obama feared from U.S. intervention bloomed in its absence: a wider war, spilling across borders; radical jihadists establishing the kind of statelet that al-Qaeda never achieved; millions of refugees destabilizing not only Syria’s neighbors but all of Europe. 

This argument fits well with an ongoing discussion in my class on the extent to which the U.S. needs to engage in global affairs. Following Chris Preble in  The Power Problem, overextending our reach only does us more harm than good, and does not benefit U.S. interests. We should rely on regional powers and our allies to deal with crises in distant lands, especially if we cannot make the situation any better. Others, believe the U.S. must exercise its leadership and lead by example, recognizing that securing long term U.S interests do require maintaining/managing  global crises.

The One-Child Policy and Teaching About Human Rights in China

China ended it's controversial one-child policy last week, most likely on economic rather than any humanitarian grounds given potential labor shortages and an ageing population. The NY Times provided a timeline chronicling the implementation and effects of the policy. The one-child policy is often associated with forced abortions, compulsory sterilization, infanticide, and other abuses committed by party officials (usually at the local level). Here is one anecdote from the Washington Post:

Katherine Hesse. From NY Times.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/world/asia/one-child-rule-china.html

His wife was seven months pregnant with their second child when the group of people barged into his home and took her away. He followed them to the local hospital, where — against medical advice and despite his pleadings — they jammed a needle into her belly.“They grabbed my wife’s body like they were grabbing a pig, four or five people holding her hands and legs and head, and injected a shot into her belly,” the man said, asking not to be named for fear of retribution. “Neither my wife nor I signed any consent form.”Ten hours later, she gave birth to a boy, wriggling and faintly crying. But the doctors in southern Hunan province would not even let her hold the dying infant, the husband said. They put the baby in a plastic bag and instructed him to pay a cleaner a small sum to bury it on a nearby hill.

Several other news stories appeared about the horrors of the one-child policy last week. See here, here, and here. Adding to criticism, despite the welcome end to the one-child policy, human rights organizations such as Amnesty International argued that the policy change didn't address the deeper issue of setting limits on child bearing. Coincidentally, I invited renowned activist Chen Guangchen, currently affiliated with Catholic University, to my class the week before China's announcement. Mr. Chen has made it his life commitment to challenge the abuses associated with the one-child policy. Despite this qualified victory, I'm certain he will continue to press on with his activism.

There is no question that this policy has resulted in horrible abuses. A classic example of initially well-intentioned social engineering gone wrong (future labor shortages, uneven gender ratios, inability to support ageing population etc...). But from a teaching standpoint, I am curious to hear the official Chinese stance on the one-child policy. Was there ever any merit to this policy which has been thoroughly tarnished in the West?  Did the CCP intentionally encourage abuse to support policy? Some of the articles I read indicated it wasn't necessarily the central government which enforced abortions, bur rather local party cadres intent on moving up in the ranks. How effective was the one-child policy? Amartya Sen argues more credit is given to the one-child policy than warranted (he attributes declining fertility to other factors such as women empowerment  and new norms of smaller households).

I have one student from mainland China in my Intro to IR class and wondered what was going through his mind during Chen Guangchen's discussion. His presence has made me mindful of how I discuss China in class, especially after inviting Mr. Chen. I wouldn't say it's self-censoring, but I'm reminded that all sides of the debate should be represented, even if China is an easy target to condemn for its human rights abuses.

News Roundup: Asia Pivot; Philippine Disaster; Kony 2013; Korean Politics and More...

There's so much news and so little time to post these days that I've decided to adopt something similar to the Duck's "Morning Linkage" news updates. These are basically news, academic research, and reports which revolve around my research & teaching interests.

Disaster and Relief Effort in the Philippines

• Typhoon Haiyan  has crippled the middle islands of the Philippines. The U.S. military is once again playing a leading role in disaster relief efforts in Asia. Foreign Policy published this article interestingly titled, "Everyone Hate U.S. Bases in Asia - Until Disaster Strikes." Goodwill efforts go far for the military as was the case in Indonesia in 2004 and Japan in 2011. This is in comparison to China's alleged $100,000 pledge (yes, that's correct, 100K). Diplomatic reasons for the paltry sum are given here. Reuters may be exaggerating to make the Chinese look really bad, but the general point about aid and goodwill still stands.
• I'm sure it's been done already, but it might be interesting to conduct a study on the role of the U.S. military and overseas U.S. military presence following foreign disasters? How does U.S. military participation in relief efforts affect local and regional opinion of the U.S. and U.S. military? Does "goodwill" have longer term regional effects? Does disaster relief draw the U.S. military far from its traditional mandate/mission and to what extent can/should the U.S. military be involved in providing humanitarian assistance.
•  Josh Busby had a good  post on thinking about natural disasters and insecurity. We often lump such studies under the rubric of "human security," but Busby, reflecting on his own work on climate change and security in Africa, suggests ways to think about natural hazards and "harder" security issues (i.e. bringing back guns, bombs, bullets). One interesting aspect noted by Busby (via Max Fisher) is the importance of governance and its relationship to disaster response. Looting, violence, and a general breakdown in order is very well a function of governance, state capacity, and perhaps civil-military relations.Jennifer Keister makes excellent points on governance and disaster response here.  The aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan certainly brings interesting comparisons to disaster response in Japan after the 2011 tsunami or the United States after Hurricane Katrina in 2005

Asia pivot related content

• Bob Kelly at the Duck had a long, but insightful piece on ROK-Japan relations, an issue I've also blogged about in the past. What was more interesting was his sweeping overview of East Asian security, the Asia Pivot, and US-Sino relations and where ROK and Japan fit in the broader strategic landscape. This makes a good read for undergrads interested in Asian security.
• Here's a recent CNAS report from Ely Ratner on the Asian Pivot and U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia. I'd like to take very small credit for suggesting a few ideas to Ely in the early phase of this project.

South Korean Politics

• The ROK government is seeking a ban on the United Progressive Party (UPP), South Korea's far left party for being pro-North Korea. I've had some interaction with UPP party members since they've been a key supporter of anti-U.S. base protests. Anyway, the article falls in line with a recent paper I read by UCSD professor's Steph Haggard and Jong-Sung You about a decline (or at least lower levels relative to other OECD countries) in civil liberties in South Korea. This is supported by several indexes which measure civil liberties, media openness, and democracy (i.e. Freedom House scores). It also falls in line with my argument about a strong security consensus held by foreign policy and security elites in South Korea.

Kony 2013

• I assigned this piece for my undergrads: a follow-up to the viral Kony 2012 video. The article highlights the unique and unusual interesection of interests between civil society/human rights activists and the U.S. military. As the article states, Invisible Children and other young activists were instrumental in pushing the U.S. government to take action against Kony. This comes despite the fact that Kony “is not targeting U.S. citizens. He’s not targeting U.S. embassies. He’s not al-Qaeda.” Despite the lack of threat to the US, the U.S. military may find other reasons for getting involved in the Kony hunt: 1) it gives them a reason for military presence in sub-Sahara Africa; 2) strengthens relations between U.S. and African countries; 3) allows the US to train African militaries.  So a win-win situation for activists and the U.S. miltiary. Would love to see a research article about the rise of Kony 2012, the convergence of political interests, and perhaps long term consequences of such action beyond Kony's future capture. 

Base Politics

• One of the anti-base protest cases I examined in my book was the protest against base expansion in Vicenza, Italy. The U.S. Army wanted to consolidate the 173rd Airborne Brigade, split between Germany and Italy, to northern Italy. Base construction is now complete, but David Vine just emailed me asking if I knew why the U.S. decided to keep two brigades in Germany. This was news to me so didn't have a clear answer.  But here was my educated guess: 

"The military states strategic reasons for keeping a batallion in Germany. Recent departures at Grafenwoehr have left more space with better training facilities for the 173rd. Of course, this defeats the earlier idea of consolidating the 173rd in one location.  This is purely speculation on my part, but is it possible that the Germans wanted to retain some US presence? When the DoD (and CBO) made its early recommendations for base realignment, Germany faced the largest reductions and closures. Not that there's much love for Washington these days from Berlin, but among foreign policy circles, I thought I read or heard somewhere that a few Germans believed the reductions were too much and too fast.

The question which I'm afraid I don't have an answer to, is how the US and Germany decided to retain some of the 173rd in Germany. Did the US ask Germany (likely with Germany willing to oblige); did Germany ask the US (less likely, but possible as a way of reinvigorating strategic ties); and finally, our milliion dollar question, if the  US asked Germany was it b/c of the newfound opportunity to use a large training facilitiy (although hard to believe the US wouldn't have thought of this earlier) or b/c of political opposition either in Vicenza locally, or from Rome, which left the US seeking some last minute basing solution." 

On this last point, if anti-base movements were a part of the decision to keep parts of the 173rd in Germany, I'm curious to know if Vicenza activists celebrated this announcement as a  a partial victory in blocking some US troops.

Teaching About China's Maritime Dispute

CFR unveiled a snazzy new interactive tool to study China's maritimes disputes. This is a great educational tool for students, complete with discussion and essay questions, and something I'll try to incorporate next semester in my U.S., China, and International Relations of East Asia course. Ironically, however, using such a tool will probably require more, not less time for prep since the instructor has to preview all the material beforehand. Anyway, kudos to CFR.

Update: I removed the map b/c it was taking up a lot of space

Amanda Murdie on Human Rights Treaties and Virginity Pledges

Amanda Murdie had a terrific post titled Human Rights Treaties Are Like Virginity Pledges. The basic gist is that states signing human rights treaties has little effect in improving human rights practices because 1) Enforcement mechanisms are weak; 2) States sign for reasons that have nothing to do with commitment to change behavior (i.e. don't want to be stigmatized for not signing; signing gets you some immediate benefit in return with no cost to comply). The debates outlined here raises excellent issues about compliance in international politics. It also challenges constructivist notions of human rights change (i.e. Risse, Ropp, Sikkinnk) which sees treaties as an early stage of normative change.

I posted the blog entry though, mainly for it's teaching value. Can't wait to hear how my Intro to IR students respond next fall.

The State and Global Governance

I assigned 3 articles related to global governance. Two are related to the nuclear security, and one on Europe’s loan package to Greece. Hopefully, students are beginning to pick up on some of the key questions of our times in international relations: cooperation under anarchy (to steal from Kenneth Oye's title). States remain the central actors in international politics. However, world leaders continue to increasingly rely on international institutions, supranational organizations, or world forums and conferences to tackle global issues. Does this suggest a) the decline of states in international politics b) a revamping of state power filtered through international institutions c) or a new form of global politics defined by international institutions and forums? I like answer “b” – but I won’t elaborate here.

On the point about forums, is it just me, or do we see more and more of these loose international forums on the rise. Recently, we have forums on climate change, financial regulation, and nuclear proliferation. Is this a sign that process is just as important as outcomes when devising solutions to world problems?

Course Evaluations on East Asian Security

I finally got my course evaluations from last semester. The comments were quite valuable. I learned that:
1) Students want to hear more about policy/current events, than the history side. several students complained it was more like East Asian history
2) Students like short writing assignments and actually want more of this.
3) Students enjoy in-class simulations and activities