When I first came across Richard Kim’s “The Martyred” in 1967, I was an intellectually adventurous and emotionally vulnerable college freshman. At the time, I was intrigued and mesmerized by the novels of Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoevsky. “The Martyred,” too, was a thought-provoking novel that resonates with Camus’s nihilistic existentialism and saturated with a philosophical rigor comparable to Dostoevsky.The story of is set in Pyongyang, the capital city o

Last spring, a Korean friend used the phrase “things people can still do” in broad conversation about business and current events. Last week, I was reminded of the phrase when I took a ride in a driverless car for the first time. There was a driver, but he was there as a backup in case something went wrong. The car had no steering wheel and the driver had very little to do except start it after the passenger was safely seated. It handled curves and corners better than most drivers an

How did the world’s two most venerable and influential democracies -- the United Kingdom and the United States -- end up with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson at the helm? Trump is not wrong to call Johnson the “Britain Trump” (sic). Nor is this merely a matter of similar personalities or styles: It is also a reflection of glaring flaws in the political institutions that enabled such men to win power. Both Trump and Johnson have what the Irish physicist and psychologist Ian Hughe

One of the most striking things about Boris Johnson, who became UK prime minister last week, is how precisely he fits the stereotype of the eccentric upper-class Brit. With his elevation, Britain joins several other major nations led by people who embody their national stereotypes, and not the best of them at that; it could be argued, however, that it’s leaders defying such cliches who take their countries forward.In a paean to Johnson published on Quillette, his onetime Oxford schoolmate

On Wednesday, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the likely successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, took over as Germany’s defense minister. In a speech to parliament outlining her priorities, AKK, as she is known, said she would “hold fast” to the goal of increasing the country’s defense spending to 2 percent of economic output -- but that Germany would aim to attain military spending of 1.5 percent gross domestic product by 2024, when North Atlantic Treaty Organization member s

KOBANI, Syria -- In the direct and disciplined voice of Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Syrian Kurdish militia, you can hear the determination that has made the Kurds a great partner for America, and one of the extraordinary survival stories of the Middle East. Mazloum quietly enumerates the sacrifices made by his group, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the obliteration of the Islamic State here: 11,000 of his fighters were killed, 24,000 were wounded, and many thousands of civi

ABOARD THE USS BOXER IN THE PERSIAN GULF -- Capt. Ronald Dowdell was on the starboard side of the bridge, looking toward Iran, as his vessel passed through the Strait of Hormuz on July 18. He’d been monitored by Iranian helicopters and speedboats, but now a drone was closing fast. Dowdell ordered his crew to disable the drone because it “looked like a potential threat,” he said in an interview on that same bridge Tuesday. The danger signs were the drone’s proximity to the

At the military headquarters here (Kabul) where commanders oversee America’s longest war, an official explains in one sentence the US-led coalition’s bottom-line objective: “Peace is a situation where we can leave, and we don’t have to come back.”But how will the United States move toward this endgame, as US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad nears conclusion of his secret peace negotiations with the Taliban jihadists that America has been fighting for 18 years? Afghan

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has achieved something none of his predecessors managed: Winning a parliamentary majority, obviating the need to form a coalition. Whether he knows how to capitalize on this unprecedented victory will be evident from his next steps.According to preliminary results from Sunday’s snap election, Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People grouping looks set to not only win 122 seats under the party list system, but a further 125 seats under the first-past-t

Now that Christine Lagarde has announced her resignation as managing director of the International Monetary Fund, German chancellor Angela Merkel says Europeans “again” have a “claim” to fill what is arguably the world’s most important economic job. Merkel is invoking a decades-old political deal, which gives Europe the IMF leadership in return for allowing Americans to run the World Bank.If global leaders want the IMF to achieve its mission of ensuring internationa

We are now living in the era of globalism when the whole world has become a global village. The boundaries between nations are rapidly collapsing and people are experiencing crossovers everywhere. Take the EU, for example. Practically the whole continent of Europe has become a global village already and Europeans are freely crossing borders without an entry visa, using the same currency and their mobile phone with no extra charge. Why, then, are we witnessing such sudden unprecedented change in

Earlier this month, President Trump addressed a group of so-called “digital leaders” invited to a social media summit at the White House.The guests included far right social media activists linked to white nationalists who spew out racist and anti-Muslim messages. They included individuals who produce fake videos, use hoaxes to smear Democratic candidates, and disseminate dangerous conspiracy theories. Only at the last minute was the welcome mat withdrawn from cartoonist Ben Garrison

July 14 is celebrated in France as Bastille Day, on which day 230 years ago, French peasants stormed the Bastille prison in Paris and sparked off the French Revolution. Thus began the populist movement that overturned the Ancien Regime (old order) of absolute monarchy and replaced it with the popular creed of liberty, equality and fraternity. There is a popular story that when Henry Kissinger asked the late Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972 what was his view of the French Revolution, he said it

In 1960, South Korea had a total fertility rate of more than six children per woman, high enough to cause a population explosion. But as the country developed, this number dropped decade by decade:A country needs a fertility rate of about 2.1 -- a little more than one child per parent -- to maintain long-term population stability. South Korea’s fertility is now about half that number. And it’s still falling. The country’s statistics office reported that in 2018, the fertility r

It is astounding that 159 years after the end of the Civil War we are having a full-throated debate about whether the US president is a racist. Or is that surprising?Donald Trump’s tweet that four Democratic congresswomen of color should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” (Three were born in the US; another is a legal immigrant) caused the House of Representatives to pass a resolution denouncing his comments. It was, perhap