John Feffer
John Feffer is the author of the dystopian novel "Splinterlands" (2016) and the director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. His new novel, "Frostlands" (2018) is book two of his Splinterlands trilogy. Splinterlands book three "Songlands" will be published in 2021. His podcast is available here.
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, November 09, 2017 If Asia Leads on Climate, the World Will Follow There’s been precious little good news from Asia these days. Washington and Pyongyang continue to trade threats of war. Right-wing nationalist Shinzo Abe won reelection as prime minister in Japan last month. Major storms have hammered several countries in the region, most recently Typhoon Damrey in... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, November 08, 2017 The Greatest Threat to Both Koreas? Donald Trump’s Mouth In policy terms, the Trump administration has approached North Korea largely the same way the Obama administration has – with a heavy reliance on sanctions, appeals to China, and occasional threats. As John Feffer explains in this short video, the primary difference is that Trump’s threats have... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 24, 2017 The Crack-Up: Donald Trump and the Fourth Great Shattering When the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., published his bestseller The Disuniting of America in 1991, he didn’t seriously entertain the worst-case scenario suggested by the title. At the time, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were imploding, while separatist movements in Quebec, East Timor, Spain’... Read more |
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Views Friday, October 20, 2017 Trump’s Enablers Should Be Shamed Out of Public Life In the middle of September, Harvard University announced that it was inviting two controversial new fellows to the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School: former Trump administration spokesman Sean Spicer and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. At the august institution, they would be joining Corey... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, October 11, 2017 Trump Is Signaling an Unprecedented Right Turn on Foreign Policy Every few years — sometimes four, sometimes eight — America’s political mood swings from one pole to another. It’s a not-uncommon disorder for democracies. Voters get disgusted with one flavor of politics and opt for another. For better or worse, the United States doesn’t have a Baskin-Robbins... Read more |
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Views Thursday, September 21, 2017 It’s Time to Make a Deal With North Korea The United States faces a new nuclear power ruled by a communist dictator. Washington is worried that the leadership of that country is crazy enough to use its new weapons — even against the United States. Meanwhile, other countries fear that the “madman” in the Oval Office might just launch a pre-... Read more |
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Views Thursday, September 14, 2017 Hurricane Donald Hits the Republican Party The storm inside the Republican Party has reached Category Four. At the end of August, as Hurricane Harvey tore through Texas and Hurricane Irma was poised to devastate Florida, the hard right was experiencing its own high winds and pelting rain. On the TV show Fox and Friends , conservative... Read more |
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Views Thursday, September 07, 2017 The President Is a Ponzi Scheme In 1993, I arrived one fall evening in the Romanian city of Cluj. The railway station was mysteriously full of people, and the city outside was crowded and frenetic. I was mystified. Why did this rather obscure Transylvanian outpost suddenly seem like New York City? My contacts in Cluj eventually... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, August 22, 2017 Trump and the Geopolitics of Crazy The United States has beaten its head against the wall of North Korea for more than 70 years, and that wall has changed little indeed as a result. The United States, meanwhile, has suffered one headache after another. Over the last several weeks, the head banging has intensified. North Korea has... Read more |
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Views Monday, July 31, 2017 Trump: The Anti-Gorbachev Back in the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev had a magic touch internationally. Traveling outside the Soviet Union, he often received the adulation that was so frequently lacking at home. When Gorbachev visited other Communist countries, crowds would turn out to welcome him as a savior. He had that... Read more |