South Korea is a paradise for religions. Indeed, Koreans are so religious that all kinds of religions thrive here. Most Koreans are either Christians or Buddhists, but you can also find Muslims in Korea. Churches, cathedrals and temples in Korea are always bustling with multitudes of Protestants, Catholics and Buddhists. Add to these the numerous unorthodox churches that Protestants or Catholics may call heretic. It seems nonbelievers are hard to find in today’s Korean society. Perhaps that is w

WASHINGTON ― The Obama administration’s Iraq policy seems premised on the idea that the terrorist Islamic State is so toxic that it will be self-limiting and ultimately self-defeating. But that’s not the view of senior U.S. intelligence officials.In a background briefing Thursday afternoon for journalists, a panel of five U.S. intelligence officials summed up their assessment of an organization that has shown a remarkable durability because it is “patient,” “well-organized,” opportunistic” and “

LAGUNA BEACH, California ― The world has changed considerably since political leaders from the 44 Allied countries met in 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to create the institutional framework for the post-World War II economic and monetary order. What has not changed in the last 70 years is the need for strong multilateral institutions. Yet national political support for the Bretton Woods institutions ― the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ― seems to have reached an all-time

Here I am a week after leaving Korea for the great American adventure, in a sports arena filled with 15,000 fans screaming “Gee Gee Gee Gee” at the top of their lungs. The rather large male Caucasian standing in front of the stage has been waving a sign saying Tiffany, one of the singers in the K-pop group Girl’s Generation, practically for the last two hours. Attending KCON 2014, a two-day Korean pop culture extravaganza put on by CJ Group in L.A. was a way to placate my two teenage daughters w

LOS ANGELES ― Nobody would dispute the danger inherent in possessing nuclear assets. But that danger becomes far more acute in a combat zone, where nuclear materials and weapons are at risk of theft, and reactors can become bombing targets. These risks ― most apparent in today’s chaos-ridden Middle East ― raise troubling questions about the security of nuclear assets in volatile countries everywhere.Two recent events demonstrate what is at stake. On July 9, the militant group now known as the Is

The world is witnessing the conflict between the Jewish and Islamic civilizations in Israel, the Islamic sectarian conflicts in Syria and Iraq, the tribal and Islamic sectarian conflicts in Afghanistan, an ethnic-nationalist conflict in Ukraine and the unrelenting tension between the two political systems on the Korean peninsula, while observing peace in Western Europe. This shows that the root-cause of these conflicts is the lack of national identity. In other words, the peoples in these confli

WASHINGTON ― When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his terrorist Islamic State, he ignored a warning from Osama bin Laden that jihadists should be cautious about establishing a caliphate too quickly. In torching a firestorm in Iraq and Syria, Baghdadi has united his enemies and given them a target to attack, just as bin Laden predicted.Baghdadi’s bloodbath has achieved the impossible: He has provided a common adversary for Saudis and Iranians, Turks and Kurds. He has united many of Iraq’s Sunni, Sh