The United States of America seeks to pretend that it earnestly is focused on enforcing the 1823 Monroe Doctrine toward Central America, Latin America and the Caribbean. Its 2025 National Security Strategy and articles in the U.S. mainstream media seek to impart the perception of an America shifting away...

On two visits, this author witnessed North Korea’s economic boom first-hand I visited the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) or People’s Korea in April 2024 and then 18 months later in October 2025 after being invited by the Korean Association of Social Scientists (KASS). The trips were organized by the British...

Walden Bello is a well-known figure in the Philippines who served in its House of Representatives and ran as a vice-presidential candidate on a social democratic ticket in the country’s 2022 elections. For many years, Bello has also been a leading intellectual critic of neo-liberal ideology, showing in books and...

The son of the Iwo Jima flag-bearer in one of the most iconic photos in U.S history, James Bradley gained fame for his 2000 book Flags of Our Fathers, which was made into a film directed by Clint Eastwood. Offput at how Flags of Our Fathers was...

Beneath the aircraft-carrier ceremony celebrating a “new golden age” in U.S.-Japan relations, ongoing toxic discharges from the Yokosuka naval base reveal a grimmer alliance—one built on secrecy, contamination and a surrender of environmental sovereignty. When President Donald Trump strode onto the flight deck of the USS George Washington at Yokosuka,...

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has appointed a big-time China hawk to its Board of Directors On November 4, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—a CIA offshoot that finances dissident media and political organizations in countries targeted by the U.S. for regime change—announced the appointment of John...

Shifting Power and Strategic Autonomy In global politics, perception shapes power, but China’s current strategy suggests more than perception management. Its refusal to yield to U.S. tariff pressure marks a deliberate assertion of strategic autonomy. When Washington initiated steep tariffs under the Trump administration, many countries...

Lucien Conein was a key figure in coup that set the groundwork for the escalation of the Vietnam War Lucien Conein was a legendary CIA officer known as “Black Luigi,” who ran agents behind the Iron Curtain in the early Cold War, helped organize Iran’s notoriously brutal secret...

Headquartered in San Francisco, The Asia Foundation is a non-profit organization receiving public and private support that coordinates development projects, educational programs and cultural exchanges across Asia, in part with the aim of facilitating better relations with the U.S., according to its website. Put in slightly different terms, The Asia...

President Donald Trump has expressed enthusiasm about Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, stating that her elevation to head the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in late October was “tremendous news.” Speaking to U.S. troops aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in Japan on October 28 during his Asia tour, Trump introduced...