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By Doug Bandow

Doug Bandow

It has been decades since bombs fell and bullets flew on the
Korean peninsula. Yet the United States, China, North Korea, and
South Korea still technically are at war. The Korean War ended in
an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The time is long overdue for the “combatants” to
declare a state of peace.

Until now formally ending the war might have seemed premature.
North Korea launched routine rhetorical fulminations and occasional
violent attacks over the years. The North’s conventional
forces were essentially spring-loaded just north of the
Demilitarized Zone, ready to resume combat. Furthermore, despite
Pyongyang’s sometimes pacific protestations, it didn’t
seem like the North Korean leadership actually wanted peace.

Everything changed this year. Although the Trump-Kim summit was
the highlight, there was much more. Kim’s three meetings with
China’s Xi Jinping suggest that the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea has moved closer to Beijing’s position, which for years
emphasized stability and peace.

Kim met twice with the Republic of Korea’s Moon Jae-in and the
second visit was arranged overnight. South Korean diplomats report
that the DPRK’s Supreme Leader treated Moon, his elder, with
traditional Asian deference. Kim rules with a lethal hand but is
deftly playing the game of international statesman.

A peace treaty will do
more to change Pyongyang’s behavior than a return to a cycle of
escalation.

Indeed, Kim apparently has been invited to Moscow to meet
Vladimir Putin, and there is even talk of a summit with Japan’s
Shinzo Abe. The North Korean leader appeared to enjoy his stroll in
Singapore. He appears unlikely to revert to his father’s and
grandfather’s hermit-like behavior.

Equally significant, the North recently ended its anti-American
propaganda. Cleaning up Pyongyang, so to speak, will be no easy
task. Posters line streets and fill walls. The United States was a
frequent target. This change could be a ruse, of course. But likely
not. For seventy years Washington and its “puppets” in
the ROK were the primary enemies used to rally North Koreans behind
the regime. Now Kim Jong-un has implicitly declared that peace
reigns on the peninsula.

Recognizing changing reality is a good reason to make peace
formally, but there is a better one: encouraging movement toward
denuclearization.

Grant that no one has ever gone broke betting against DPRK
intransigence. Moreover, America has given Kim much cause to hold
on to his nukes. The last international pariah to disarm in return
for Western expressions of love and affection, Muammar Gaddafi,
probably wondered in his dying moments why he had trusted the
Americans.

Nevertheless, Kim appears to be different than his predecessors.
He is more committed to economic reform and comfortable with the
international spotlight than his …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By Ryan Bourne

Ryan Bourne

The great and good of the commentariat fear that Brexit will
mean the Tories’ abandoning the terrain as the
“pro-business” party.

But is that even a label worth fighting for and a good guide to
how the party should approach policy?

Those who self-define as free-marketeers or libertarians have
long argued that politicians should aim to be
“pro-market” rather “pro-business”. This
distinction might appear trivial or meaningless for most issues
— but it’s an important one to make.

Being pro-market implies a starting point of considering
consumer welfare, competition, and ease of exit and entry of firms
(including those that do not even exist yet). It’s about
getting the institutions right, and then allowing businesses to do
their thing.

Describing oneself as
pro-business then is to put the cart before the horse.

Being pro-business, on the other hand, inevitably means a
tendency toward the status quo and government favouritism.
Politicians often think of themselves as “pro-business”
if they acquiescence to demands from existing firms for
protectionism, subsidies from government, industrial strategies, or
support for things such as childcare, even though these might harm
the economy overall.

Some, such as prominent libertarian economics blogger Bryan
Caplan, argue that abandoning the pro-business label cedes too much
ground to capitalism’s critics. Sure, he says, some dumb
government policies do tilt the playing field towards some
businesses over others, but the overall impact of business on
society is positive, and therefore worth defending.

Caplan points out that businesses play an extraordinary role in
organising us to undertake activities to fulfil the wants and needs
of others, much more efficiently than governments could ever
do.

Given negative media portrayals of prominent business leaders
and a tendency towards reporting only nefarious activities, it is
necessary to make the counter case for business as a positive
force.

Caplan may well be broadly right about the role of business in
western societies. But being pro-something implies unconditional
support for it.

If I were to take to Twitter to describe myself as pro-Trump,
people would justifiably ask how I could support some of the
President’s more economically illiterate policies, such as
the imposition of highly damaging tariffs using the veneer of a
“national security” threat.

In the same way, whether one likes it or not, self-defining as
pro-business is seen as apologising for all sorts of bad business
activity.

The important question, therefore, is why do businesses have the
positive impact Caplan outlines?

The very reason businesses are a force for good in the way he
describes is because they are embedded in a market economy. The
frameworks set out under the law mean that, in most cases, the way
businesses make money is by meeting our demands. …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By Doug Bandow

Doug Bandow

Although terrorism understandably has become the focus of U.S.
foreign policy, the problem of religious intolerance and violence
is far broader. As Islamic extremism has erupted throughout the
Middle East, most dramatically in Iraq and Syria, Christians,
Yazidis, and other religious minorities are being driven from their
historic homes.

What to do? U.S. “public diplomacy” has been
ineffective, essentially attempting to put lipstick on a pig in
terms of selling American foreign policy. Washington has spent
millions on foreign aid to promote education and provide social
services for supposedly at-risk Islamic youth, without any evident
impact on violent behavior.

America’s military response has turned into endless war,
which appears to create as many terrorists as are captured or
killed. Indeed, America’s multiple interventions and wars
have both spawned violent extremists and created chaos in which
they thrive. The Islamic State, the fount of so much horror, was
merely the most notable beneficiary of misguided U.S.
war-making.

However, the fact that there is no simple, quick answer
doesn’t mean there is nothing to do. Education can work, but
of a unique kind. The group Hardwired, run by Tina Ramirez, a
former Capitol Hill staffer, engages in what it calls
“rights-based education,” which has had notable if
small-scale success in building support for religious tolerance and
liberty.

Washington has spent
millions on foreign aid to promote education and provide social
services for supposedly at-risk Islamic youth, without any evident
impact on violent behavior.

I witnessed the group’s approach at a conference held in
Erbil, Kurdistan. Hardwired brought together people of varying,
even contentious faiths and backgrounds — most of whom had
suffered persecution at the hands of Islamic radicals. Although
divided in beliefs, they came to recognize their shared interest in
respecting the rights of others.

Hardwired also has targeted children, efforts detailed in a new
study by Lena Smith, Tina Ramirez, and Mary Anne Rea-Ramirez,
“Protecting Children from Violent Extremism.” The
report reviewed Hardwired’s efforts in Iraq, Lebanon, and
Morocco, in which the group taught 56 teachers and 1161 students at
46 different schools. The overall assessment: “students
demonstrated greater acceptance of the rights of others, greater
respect for the equal rights of women and minority communities,
were less intimidated by public expression of belief, and reflected
greater resiliency to extremist thinking.”

As almost everyone recognizes, kids are the most important
target for purveyors of violence. Explained the group, “The
threat of intolerance, extremism, and radical ideology is evident
everywhere, and children throughout the Middle East and North
Africa are particularly vulnerable to its influence.”

The problem is not just that children are exploring their way,
gaining new experiences, and coming under new influences. With
conflict and oppression widespread …read more

Source: OP-EDS