With the newly inaugurated Park administration beginning to reshuffle and rename government ministries, many major newspapers are discussing the rather odd ministry names used by the previous administration. Perhaps the most outstanding name in dispute is the “Ministry of Knowledge Economy.” One may wonder, “How exactly does ‘knowledge’ relate to ‘economy’?” Judging by the title alone, it is hard to grasp what the ministry does. Although the term “knowledge economy” has been used by Peter Drucke

WASHINGTON ― Imagine that you’re sitting at the table as the National Security Council debates the deteriorating political and security situation in a North African country (take your pick). The president asks how the U.S. can prevent conflict there without sending in the military. Various Cabinet members and agency directors look awkwardly at each other ― because nobody has a good answer. Here lies one of the biggest unresolved problems for U.S. national-security planners today: How can America

NEW YORK ― Is it always offensive to advise women to change something about themselves in order to ensure that they can achieve their goals? To suggest the need for any self-scrutiny on women’s part is a minefield; the safe ground is to urge that we remain focused only on fighting all-too-real gender discrimination. But sometimes it is necessary to cross the minefield.Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, has done something pretty gutsy. She has written a manifesto about brea

PARIS ― In his masterpiece “Diplomacy,” Henry Kissinger describes, probably too idyllically, the international balance-of-power system that, following the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, produced what came to be called the “Concert of Europe.” As Kissinger describes it, after the Napoleonic Wars, “There was not only a physical equilibrium, but a moral one. Power and justice were in substantial harmony.” Of course, the concert ended in cacophony with the outbreak of World War I in the summer of

NEW YORK ― Of all major world regions, Europe has worked the hardest to implement policies aimed at countering human-caused climate change. Yet the cornerstone of Europe’s approach ― a continent-wide emissions trading system for the greenhouse gases that cause climate change ― is in trouble. That experience suggests a better strategy for both Europe and the rest of the world.The basic story of human-caused climate change is becoming clearer to the global public. Several gases, including carbon d

I was born in 1946, just when the boomer wave began. Bill Clinton was born that year, too. So was George W. Bush, as was Laura Bush. And then the next year, Hillary Rodham. And soon Newt Gingrich (known as “Newty” as a boy). And, also in 1946, Cher. (Every time I begin feeling old, I remind myself she’s slightly older.)Why did so many of us begin coming into the world in 1946? Demographers have given this a great deal of attention, but it’s not that complicated.My father, for example, was in Wor