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Fri, May 25, 2018 | 10:08

Opinion > Columnists > Stephen Costello >

Trump goes rogue, candidates fall in line

Pakistan, India, China and the US have all tested missiles in recent months. Some are more provocative than others, depending on who is making the assessment. For the most part, these are regarded as R&D, even as intentions are also carefully examined. It is far more likely that India and Pakistan will exchange nuclear missiles than it is that North Korea will commit regime suicide by attacking South Korea, Japan or US forces in the Pacific. The creation of the current “crisis” surrounding North Korea is almost entirely due to US goading of the isolated and paranoid North Koreans through mil...

Stephen Costello | 2017-04-18 16:35

THAAD in Korea: victim of politics

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is no longer about the THAAD anti-missile system. As the manufacturer states, the system may be very good at protecting specific areas such as military bases. Its range of 200km can be crucial but limited. Missile specialists say public claims about THAAD’s radar by the US and China both have some validity. For Korean political leaders the larger question has never been about the THAAD’s range or utility. Rather, their assessment of any anti-missile system has been based on threats, probabilities, and various countermeasures available to...

Stephen Costello | 2017-04-06 17:08

US, China need South Korea to lead

“Let me be perfectly clear,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Seoul last week, echoing the signal President Barack Obama had used to conceal the policy confusion and political timidity that has defined US diplomacy toward East Asia since 2001. “The policy of strategic patience has failed.” But he wasn’t being clear about the Trump administration’s views. He was stating a fact that has been obvious to all in the region for 8 years. Tillerson would have been more clear if he had offered a reason WHY strategic patience failed. Or if he had admitted that only the Bush and Obama polici...

Stephen Costello | 2017-03-26 17:18

Suspend THAAD, pause China relations

The remarkable and complicated pressure on Korea from China and the U.S. over deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system has now made the choices for the next Korean government easier. It is an irony that just when the Korean public and leadership groups feel they have been unfairly bullied and their choices limited, clarity emerges. Friday’s final impeachment of President Park Geun-hye by the Constitutional Court can only add to that clarity. The kind of decisions forced upon the next president and his team may have been inevitable, largely because of bad assumptions, bad strategies, and u...

Stephen Costello | 2017-03-12 17:21

Dear Korean presidential candidates

Dear Korean presidential candidates, I write to you as an outsider who supports Korea, the US-Korea alliance, and our common effort to make progress on the big issues that confront us. The many experiences and values we share are not a little thing; they are the main thing. I am amazed at the clarity, determination and civic openness of your recent demonstrations. Our own demonstrations last week have been important for us, as well. Among other things, both have been attempts to reaffirm deeply held values, and to stand against backsliding in social progress. Let’s say a few things at the be...

Stephen Costello | 2017-01-30 15:45

Korea, Trump: crisis of modernism

The US is moving in one direction while Korea is moving in the other.

Stephen Costello | 2017-01-15 15:42

The apex was reached during the George W. Bush years. It was in the wake of 9/11, which should make us stop and think a bit. That was when American hubris was most fully embraced by the president, his team, and much of the confused media. We now know that the recklessness, the shallow ideas, and the made-up ideals that drove US policy were a disaster not for decades, since it has already gone beyond that, but for generations. US credibility as a thoughtful power may never recover. That’s not such a bad thing. Even today allies such as South Korea tend to overestimate the wisdom and capabilit...

Stephen Costello | 2017-01-01 15:53

Trump's Northeast Asia deal II

The kind of thinking that dominates discussions today in Washington is very much zero-sum.

Stephen Costello | 2016-12-23 15:20

Trump's only deal in Northeast Asia

The Donald Trump administration will probably be as chaotic as his transition has been during the past 25 days. No president or candidate in memory has had less preparation, less experience, less intellectual and managerial capability, and less emotional maturity for the job. Electing Trump president is like giving a five-year-old a knife, a box of matches and a loaded gun, and then waiting. We are about to find out how strong our broken policy and legal systems are at keeping the worst from happening. Won’t it be ironic if the final bulwark against unjust, illegal or potentially catastrophi...

Stephen Costello | 2016-12-04 12:18

Korea is now on its own

I was wrong about the U.S. election. Hillary Clinton won only 1.5 million more votes than Donald Trump, when she needed to win more.

Stephen Costello | 2016-11-20 15:54

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