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Tue, September 25, 2018 | 16:52

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

Moves on the chessboard

Now the real games begin; the interplay between North and South Korea and between the U.S. and both Koreas. The players may have shifted some of the pieces around the chessboard during these most political of Winter Olympics, but it's much too early to know what happens next, much less the final moves.

Donald Kirk | 2018-02-22 16:57

Conflict of interests at NBC

The strange case of NBC sports commentator Joshua Cooper Ramo touched the sensitive nerves of millions of Koreans. Thousands responded with indignation, aggrieved feelings, even outrage to his on-air remark at the Winter Olympics to the effect that “every Korean will tell you that Japan as a cultural and technological and economic example has been so important to their own transformation.”

Donald Kirk | 2018-02-18 20:38

Olympic fever, then and now

Mid-winter is not exactly the best time for mass demonstrations in South Korea. Protesters prefer to wait for spring, but the Winter Olympics leave them no choice. Flag-wavers are out there during the coldest ever Olympics, the rightists waving Korean and American flags, leftists and liberals those one-Korea flags, the Korean Peninsula in blue on a white field.

Donald Kirk | 2018-02-08 16:21

Trump's 'American moment'

Don't count on the Winter Olympics as the moment for rapprochement on the Korean peninsula. That message came through loud and clear in President Donald Trump's first “state of the union” address. “Our new American moment,” as Trump called this turbulent time in U.S. history, does not mean happy talk and dialogue with America's enemies.

Donald Kirk | 2018-02-01 17:14

Tet and Korea, 50 years later

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia - How quickly we forget. Memories, dates and events fade away, only to be revived on anniversaries. A lot of historical events are barely recalled. I was in a country named “South” Vietnam 50 years ago when North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces attacked almost every city and town at the opening of Tet, the Lunar New Year. The 50th anniversary of Tet 1968 has to be the topic of colorful reminiscences and guilt-dripping analyses about the American role in foreign wars, but how many remember two other events in the month of January 1968 that stand out in modern Korean h...

Donald Kirk | 2018-01-25 15:59

Checking those N.Korean dancers

WASHINGTON - Ah, let the games begin! The fun and games, that is, of seeing how the clever North Koreans play the Winter Olympics for all they’re worth. For sure, North Korean strategists are looking for a diplomatic and political triumph regardless of who wins what at PyeongChang and Gangneung. Already, by getting the South to agree on a joint women’s hockey team and on athletes from North and South parading under the one-Korea flag at the opening and closing ceremonies, they’ve put the Americans on the defensive. Who would doubt such gestures should prove a lot more effective than all thos...

Donald Kirk | 2018-01-18 16:27

Second-guessing Korean history

WASHINGTON - Uh oh. Watch for all the soothsayers putting in their two cents or two won worth on the future of the Korean Peninsula, post-PyeongChang. Beware of the cognoscenti with dire forecasts of capitulation to the evil Northers, with hopeful words of peace at last, with demands for cancellation of U.S.-South Korean military exercises, with pleas for more and bigger war games to show Kim Jong-un he can never “drive a wedge” between those “ironclad” allies, the U.S. and South Korea.

Donald Kirk | 2018-01-11 17:20

'Strategic ambiguity' versus 'strategic patience'

Here's another term for President Trump's North Korea policy. How about “strategic ambiguity” in place of the “strategic patience” of the Obama era? The Trumpsters persist in saying they've come up with a new and bolder and better way of putting Kim Jong-un in his place, applying “maximum pressure” to force him to give up his nukes and missiles, but that's not happening.

Donald Kirk | 2018-01-04 20:04

Darkest Hour': a film with a message

WASHINGTON - Historical comparisons can be terribly flawed. Bearing that in mind, I could not help but think of talk about talks with North Korea while watching a new British film, “Darkest Hour,” all about Winston Churchill in the darkest early days of World War II spurning pleas to negotiate with Hitler's Nazi Germany. Italy, Germany's axis ally, offered to mediate between the two.

Donald Kirk | 2017-12-28 18:03

Why North Korea wages cyberwar

WASHINGTON - Here’s a target the deadliest, most accurate missile isn’t going to touch: the computers in North Korea that are responsible for wreaking havoc around the world. It’s all very well to talk about “the military option” or even a “pre-emptive attack" on a North Korean nuclear and missile site. You can fantasize U.S. war planes, hefty B1 bombers, sleek stealth-like F22s and F35s, maybe a few F18s and F15s in the mix, staging day and night raids wiping out all the North Korean targets deemed capable of sending missiles tipped with nuclear warheads to targets in the U.S. That would be...

Donald Kirk | 2017-12-21 17:07

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Inter-Korean Summit in Pyongyang