The liberal-democratic ephemera that was South Korea
As the Trump Administration sends in troops against the wishes of the Governor of California to quell riots and near-daily ICE raids rock American cities, it’s hardly becoming to point out challenges to democracy anywhere else in the world - let alone South Korea.
2025 06 17
Strategic flexibility and Korea’s return to the frontlines of conflict
Strategic flexibility—the U.S. doctrine that deems forward-deployed forces, including those in South Korea, ready to respond to crises anywhere in the region—is knitting the Korean and Taiwan theaters together once again.
2025 06 16
Will geography determine South Korea’s future?
Geography is more than a backdrop—it often shapes the grand arcs of national strategy. While political will, technology, ideology, and the vagaries of fortune do override geography, it is always momentary. Like the rocks and earth on which it rests, geography tells tales over millenia, not centuries or decades.
2025 06 10
The pointlessness of North Korea policy
At the moment, it’s impossible to escape. The parade of think tank briefs, university reports, blog posts, and earnest social media threads is already in full swing. After all, the moment seems irresistible — a relatively new U.S. president and a freshly minted South Korean one.
2025 06 09
South Korea’s social media problem
The Lee Administration faces a dilemma. It wants to clean up the internet. And who can blame it? The country’s digital spaces—once the pride of a hyper-connected, democratic society—have become a swamp of hate speech, deepfake porn, conspiracy theories, and coordinated harassment. Social media reform is not just overdue; it’s essential.
2025 06 09
The American left’s misguided crush on Lee Jae-myung
It was inevitable. Like watching porn in tracksuit pants, America’s left-leaning commentators can’t hide their fondness for Lee Jae-myung. A plucky human rights lawyer who survived child labor in a factory; a human rights lawyer; and someone who stared down authoritarianism at the barricades. It’s classic Western leftist fetishism—a script-ready narrative for a Michael Moore documentary. Unfortunately, this sentimental packaging misunderstands both Lee and Korea.
2025 06 05
South Korea needs a content strategy
It didn’t take long. Just minutes after it became clear that Lee Jae-myung won South Korea’s presidential election, American conservative social media lit up with a verdict: “RIP South Korea.” According to Laura Loomer: “the communists have taken over.”
2025 06 04
South Korea’s strategic futures between continental and maritime powers
Attention has turned to the re-emergence of a Cold War-like division in East Asia, with China, North Korea, and Russia on one side and the United States, South Korea, and Japan on the other.
2025 06 03
Manufacturing the next generation of North Korea watchers
Single sentence summary
2025 06 02
North Korea watcher cybersecurity best practice
Cybersecurity for the North Korea watcher is about adopting a disciplined, practice-based mindset. The threats faced by researchers in the field are persistent and highly tailored.
2025 05 29