At the 2005 UN World Summit, the largest gathering of heads of state in history made a landmark commitment to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, and pledged to intervene when a given state manifestly failed to protect its population from mass atrocity or was the actual perpetrator of these crimes. It is unequivocal that the DPRK has violated this international norm known as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). With hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees outside of the country, evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide taking…
While America’s goals in the AfPak region have focused on eliminating Al Qaeda, organizations like Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba are ready to step into the breach. Yet Islamist militants will prevail in AfPak so long as America remains dependent on Pakistan for access to Central Asia; Pakistan makes use of this dependence to secure military aid, backing militants whose existence in turn ensures American engagement in the region and continued American dependence on Pakistan. But the main reason that Pakistan has nurtured Islamist militants is Islamabad’s insecurity over its unbalanced relationship…