John Feffer is director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.

He is the author, most recently, of Aftershock: A Journey into Eastern Europe’s Broken Dreams (Zed Books). He is also the author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands (Dispatch Books) and its soon-to-be-released sequel Frostlands. He is the author of several other books, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, USAToday, Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, and many other publications.

He has been an Open Society fellow, a PanTech fellow in Korean Studies at Stanford University, a Herbert W. Scoville fellow, a writing fellow at Provisions Library in Washington, DC, and a writer in residence at Blue Mountain Center and the Wurlitzer Foundation.

He is a former associate editor of World Policy Journal. He has worked as an international affairs representative in Eastern Europe and East Asia for the American Friends Service Committee. He has studied in England and Russia, lived in Poland and Japan, and traveled widely throughout Europe and Asia.

John has been widely interviewed in print, on radio, and TV.

Learn more about him on his website.

Latest

What’s So Funny?

It used to be that prospective politicians chose law school as the first step in their career path. Future politicians may skip law school altogether and try out for the Saturday Night Live team instead.

South Korea: Still Dreaming of Regionalism

Collaboration in Northeast Asia is crucial to the future of South Korea and its allies.

Scorched-Earth Presidency

The cost of the war, coupled with the tax giveaways to the wealthy, has contributed to enlarging the U.S. budget deficit to nearly $500 billion, the highest ever.

Surrounding China’s String of Pearls

The United States’ “rimland strategy” highlights the ambiguity of its relationship with China.

Of Coffee and Capitalism

The rise of Starbucks also seems to correspond with the expansion of the go-go economy.

Executive Summary for ‘A Unified Security Budget for the United States’

In this fifth annual edition of the “Unified Security Budget,” as with the previous four editions, a non-partisan task force of military, homeland security, and foreign policy experts laid out the facts of the imbalance between military and non-military spending.

Bring Them Home…from Asia

U.S. military presence in South Korea and Japan has outlived its usefulness.

East Asias History Wars Rage On

Northeast Asians wage war over history.

Starbucks v. Ethiopia

It was a classic confrontation between a poor underdog and a wealthy transnational corporation. But then the story took an unexpected twist.

Danger in South Asia

Columnist Conn Hallinan warns that conflicts in Iran and Georgia might soon be eclipsed by simmering tension elsewhere.

Stealth Crisis

When pundits talk about the U.S. elections and foreign policy, they focus on Iraq and Iran. But the third member of the infamous “axis of evil” may prove to be just as influential.

Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

In the poems Aziz and In the News, award-winning author Naomi Shihab Nye remembers her father, a Palestinian forced out of his home in Jerusalem in 1948.

Asia’s Olympic Debs

Like any coming-of-age event, the Olympics not only acknowledge transformation, they can be part of that transformation.

Biden, Iraq, and Obama’s Betrayal

Obama’s choice of Biden as running mate repudiates his anti-war supporters.

Postcard from…Rome

A sheep farm in the middle of a city? Only in Rome…

On the Brink of Peace in the Middle East?

A convergence of interests in the region provide a golden opportunity for the United States to reverse its policy and help bring peace to the Middle East.

The Goldilocks Apocalypse

We seek out the comfortable middle at our own peril.

What To Do Now in Georgia

It’s time for the UN to step up to the plate and help resolve the conflict.

Would There Be Change in Obama’s Americas Policy?

Despite some conventional thinking in his approach to the Americas, Obama’s statements so far give prompt Laura Carlsen to make a leap of faith.

Pop ’til We Drop?

Compared to oil, water, land, and carbon emissions, population is the only positive “peak” that we are approaching. The number of human beings will level off in this century and the sooner we get there the better.

Project Director and Associate Fellow

Epicenter, Foreign Policy in Focus

    Asia/Pacific, Military/Peace, NATO, North Korea, Northeast Asia, South Korea

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