Author name: Branden Loizides

By Richard Fontaine and Micah Springut* – As the hundreds of American and South Korean officials involved in formulating and executing policy towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea over the years will attest, theirs is a difficult endeavor.  Pyongyang’s actions and intentions are notoriously inscrutable, and the North’s alternating pattern of threats, bluster, and occasional concessions are as treacherous a path to navigate as exists in international relations.  The threat posed by Pyongyang’s nuclear program, combined with its proliferation of nuclear and missile technologies, naturally represents a major challenge to the current American and South Korean administrations.  The story […]

By Larkin Reynolds – On Monday, April 5th, The New York Times published a story about a controversial video now known in blogging circles as the “‘Collateral Murder’ video.”  The video was posted on WikiLeaks.org, a Web site known for its disclosures of sometimes-classified government information. Because the tape WikiLeaks obtained had been encrypted, they needed help to descramble it.  To do so, they solicited assistance on Twitter by representing that the video depicted an aerial intervention in Afghanistan that may have killed over 100 civilians.  Both versions were reportedly posted on the WikiLeaks site at first, but as of

By Ronak D. Desai, NSJ Staff Editor – Washington and New Delhi last week announced the successful completion of a nuclear agreement granting India rights to reprocess nuclear fuel imported from the United States, moving the two countries one step closer to implementing a historic civilian nuclear deal that has become the centerpiece of the widely touted U.S.-India “strategic partnership.”  The accord provides a much needed boost to bilateral relations between the world’s oldest and largest democracies, which have shown some signs of strain amid concerns from officials in New Delhi that the Obama administration was downgrading its relationship with

By Jonathan Abrams, NSJ Staff Editor – The Justice Department, in an attempt to bolster its argument that suspected terrorists can be tried in civilian courts, released a report earlier this month that includes a chart detailing over 400 convictions of terrorists obtained in such courts.  But this effort has not halted GOP criticism of the wisdom of civilian trials for terrorists. The Justice Department’s report is part of an effort to push back against Republican opposition to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) in a civilian court in New York City.  The chart purports to