[Kim Seong-kon] What to learn from 'Escape From Saigon, 1975'

Recently, I read an important book titled “Escape From Saigon, 1975.” It's a memoir written by retired Korean Navy commander Lee Moon-hak and Chung Ho-young, a former journalist at Kookbang Ilbo, or Defense Daily. Reading this mesmerizing book was like watching a riveting war movie about an adventurous military rescue operation. “Escape From Saigon, 1975” is about the Korean Navy’s evacuation of Korean civilians residing in Vietnam just before Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces. In the missi

April 17, 2025

[Wang Son-taek] Making America graceless again

I like America. I received my master’s degree in the US and worked three years as a Washington correspondent for YTN, a cable TV news channel in Korea. During that time, I can say that I saw the country up close — its people, institutions and ideas. But more than just familiarity, I was impressed by what America stood for: liberal democracy, diversity, freedom and economic opportunity. For decades, the United States was not just a superpower but a world leader. Its soft power was rooted in princ

April 17, 2025

[Lee Jae-min] Age of homo digitalis

After class, I often fear my profession will go extinct sometime soon. If the best lectures and the most succinct summaries are just a few clicks away from students, who would listen to what I say? As a matter of fact, in my field alone I can find in seconds a string of video clips online, issue by issue and topic by topic, where world-renowned experts from well-known institutions articulate key points in all guises in just 20 minutes. I simply marvel at the content and efficiency. The same is t

April 17, 2025

[Jan-Werner Mueller] No prioritizing politics over the law

Late last month, a French court barred Marine Le Pen from standing for political office for five years, on the grounds that her party, the far-right National Rally (RN), systematically embezzled more than 4 million euros ($4.5 million) in public funds. Resources earmarked for staff of members of the European Parliament in Brussels were instead used to cover RN’s expenses back in France. Le Pen is appealing the verdict, and her supporters are not the only ones finding fault with it. Impeccably li

April 16, 2025

[Lim Woong] When AI swipes Ghibli’s wand

OpenAI’s latest image-generation tool has gone viral, thanks to a fun feature: users can upload a photo and request a version in Studio Ghibli’s magical style. In seconds, selfies, vacation snapshots, or family portraits are transformed as if they’ve come from a Ghibli film. Overnight, social media flooded with charming Ghibli-style images. Many of my graduate students and colleagues at Yonsei changed their KakaoTalk profile pictures to their artificial intelligence-generated portraits. I even t

April 15, 2025

[Lisa Jarvis] RFK Jr.’s measles message

With the death of a second child from measles and cases in the US surging past 600, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, finally stated the obvious: Vaccination is the best way to prevent the spread of the disease. It’s a message that should have come sooner from the country’s top public health official. Kennedy’s response is both too late and too confusing to effectively contain the outbreak. He doesn’t seem to take seriously the real risk of the US l

April 15, 2025

[Andreas Kluth] US national security ‘Loomered’

It can always get worse. There’s no reason to think that US President Donald Trump will stop at causing chaos in world trade and stock markets, the American executive branch, the legal profession and public health. He’s also well on the way to making America less safe under the most immediate definition: by undermining his own national-security staff, and thereby endangering the nation’s security. In recent days, the White House has been orchestrating what you might call a Week of the Long Knive

April 14, 2025

[Yoo Choon-sik] How to turn political tragedy into national blessing

There’s a saying: “If you can’t avoid it, enjoy it.” I find myself preferring this phrase over the oft-repeated notion that South Koreans possess some innate ability — “a crisis-overcoming DNA,” as it's sometimes phrased. That idea, while flattering on the surface, risks normalizing the presence of crises themselves, as if enduring and overcoming them is something we should accept as our national identity, rather than striving to prevent them in the first place. These two contrasting phrases hav

April 14, 2025

[Lee Byung-jong] President Yoon’s diplomatic legacy

Former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will likely be remembered for a troubled legacy marked by domestic controversies, unpopular policies, and his shocking and ill-fated declaration of martial law. However, amid the many missteps and political scandals that defined his presidency, there remains one domain in which Yoon made tangible progress: diplomacy. Though much of his foreign policy agenda may be rolled back or abandoned in the wake of his premature departure, he nonetheless achieved

April 11, 2025

[Tae H. Park] Seeking genuine innovation in AI era

You’ve probably seen headlines like this recently: “XXX corporation appoints its group AI officer” It seems like large corporations are jumping on the artificial intelligence bandwagon, either to transform their business or, more often, to convince customers and shareholders that they’re doing something about AI. This trend reminds me of the “ESG” -- environmental, social and governance -- movement from just a few years ago. Back then, companies rushed to incorporate ESG initiatives, not necessa

April 10, 2025

[Wang Son-taek] Evildoers inevitably destroy themselves

Everyone knows that this world is not inhabited solely by good people. We must live alongside those who act selfishly, exploit others and abuse their power. That’s the unfortunate reality of human society. But knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to accept. We feel uneasy whenever we see such individuals thrive — living comfortably with money, influence and status despite their misdeeds. We may grow irritated, angry or even disheartened. They seem to operate with impunity, harassing innocent

April 10, 2025

[Kim Seong-kon] South Korea, where to now?

At last, the Constitutional Court’s verdict on the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol has been released. Now, Yoon is impeached, thus removed from office and deprived of all presidential privileges. Before the Court’s ruling, many Koreans were against the impeachment. To our relief, however, they seem to have decided to completely go along with the result. Now we should put an end to the rambunctious socio-political mayhem that has disrupted and divided our country for the past four months a

April 9, 2025

[Grace Kao] Seventeen cinema tour in the US

Can concert films serve as a proxy for an actual concert? Seventeen is one of the most popular K-pop groups today. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry identified Seventeen as the third biggest-selling global artists of 2024, just behind Taylor Swift and Drake. The group's most recent tour began on Oct. 12, 2024 in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, and concluded on Feb. 16 in Bangkok. For those of us who couldn’t make it to the live shows, or if one wanted to relive the experience,

April 8, 2025

[Ahmet Davutoglu] Trump aims to dismantle postwar US-led order

At the beginning of Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, I argued that this would be no ordinary US presidency. The international order, already beset by fundamental weaknesses and disputes over its core values and institutions, was now facing a seismic shift. With the beginning of Trump’s second term marked by even greater chaos, what once seemed like an isolated shock has evolved into a full-blown “systemic earthquake.” Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, often unhinged executive orders, a

April 8, 2025

[Lee Kyong-hee] Right the ship and reboot democracy

The Constitutional Court ended a long nightmare on Friday while the nation delivered a triumph of peaceful civic activism. Yet it is too early to fully celebrate the resilience of Korea’s democracy. The unanimous court decision to uphold the impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol only marks the first step toward repairing the country’s wounded democracy and healing the scars from his audacious declaration of martial law last December. The president who embraced extreme right-wing conspiracy theories has l

April 7, 2025