Articles

ISTANBUL – By now, the media coverage of the upheaval in Turkey has been extensive, but certain points have been insufficiently emphasized.

I suspect that I’m like many of you. I want to believe Israeli-Palestinian peace is coming, that the two sides will soon agree to borders, Palestinian terrorists will stop launching rockets from Gaza, and ultra-right Israelis will abandon dreams of absorbing the West Bank into a “Greater Israel.”

Of all the variables that dictate the fate of nations, demography might just be the most decisive. The pace of populations—how they grow, change and decline—helps shape a country’s political outlook, its internal makeup, and its place in the world. It can also provide useful insights into a nation’s foreign policy priorities.

President Obama's counter-terrorism strategy, which he unveiled last week in a high-profile speech at the National Defense University, is less off-base than incomplete, reflecting his effort to limit the scope of the problem and the requirements of the response in ways that will prove inadequate to the challenge.

In January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a speech on U.S. East Asia policy at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Acheson spoke about the American "defensive perimeter" on the far Pacific Rim, from the Aleutians to the Philippines. Unfortunately, he left South Korea outside of his red line.