On a frigid day in Alaska last winter, a rocket, designed to simulate an incoming missile launched at the United States, blasted out of the ground. Fifteen minutes later, an interceptor rocket was to be deployed from a site in the Marshall Islands, knock down the deadly missile, and save America. That was the early […]
Joshua Kurlantzick
Joshua Kurlantzick is a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former senior correspondent for The American Prospect. He’s written five previous books on China and Southeast Asia, including one on China’s soft power. His latest book is titled Beijing’s Global Media Offensive.
Posted inDispatches
Man-Made Disasters
BANGKOK, THAILAND — On December 26, when the tsunamis struck Asia, I was in Thailand. Like nearly everyone in Bangkok, I turned to any television I could find. The local Thai channels captured the breadth of the devastation, showing grim photos of southern beaches that looked like someone had swept away all the vegetation and […]
Posted inFeatures
2000, The Sequel
Sam Heyward thought he’d paid his debt. A tall, soft-spoken 45-year-old man from Tallahassee, Florida, Heyward was convicted in 1981 of a felony for buying furniture he knew was stolen. He spent a year in a prison work camp and then tried to rebuild his life. He got a steady job at a Tallahassee church […]
Posted inFeatures
The Rice Capades
Between May and July 2001, the National Security Agency intercepted more than 30 private communications suggesting an imminent terrorist attack. In June, U.S. intelligence discovered that leading al-Qaeda operatives were vanishing from sight, possibly in preparation for a strike. By August, the CIA was reporting that Khalid al-Mindhar, Nawaf al-Hazmi, and other associates of Osama […]
Posted inFeatures
Outsourcing the Dirty Work
The war in Iraq could not have taken place without a network of for-profit contractors upon which the U.S. military has come to depend. Some 20,000 employees of private military companies (PMCs) and of more traditional military contractors accompanied the U.S. forces in the buildup to war in the Middle East. They maintained computers and […]
Posted inFeatures
Globalism in the Dock
Rangoon, the capital of Burma (now officially called Myanmar), is normally one of the most depressing cities in Asia. It usually exudes the desperate air of a decaying totalitarian metropolis: Beggars wander the central market, queuing for handouts of the worthless local currency, while paramilitary police block access to universities, political party offices and any […]
Posted inFeatures
Guerillas in our Midst
The headquarters of the Government of Free Vietnam (GFVN) would fit right into the guerilla campaigns of 1930s China or modern-day Colombia. Along the building’s walls, reams of photos show Free Vietnam troops training at secret Southeast Asian bases code-named “KC 702.” On the top floor, a shortwave radio transmitter broadcasts the GFVN’s anti-regime programs […]