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A New Digital Youth Corps for America

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Akio Matsumura

Only recently have our politicians begun to get the hang of social media. President Obama and Hillary Clinton have both appeared on the comedy show Between Two Ferns to sell their policies and boost their image with young people. Donald Trump is prolific with his tweets.  But “having a good take on popular culture” is not taking full advantage of the power of digital networks in our world. (UPDATE: Of course, President Obama has led the United States through many developments in cybersecurity and other digital innovations, including the US Digital Service. He is helping start a conversation on artificial intelligence this week in Pittsburgh and recently guest-edited WIRED magazine.)

And powerful these networks are. How quickly cyber attacks and theft have moved front and center into foreign policy. (The US election, still more than a month away, appears to have already been hacked.) What’s more, the connectedness the internet affords allows ideas to cross spaces either geographically distant or previously blocked or just not uncovered– from educational videos from Khan Academy, to discussion threads from a white-power hate group, to the attractive messages from ISIL recruiters.

In order to counter ISIL’s online recruiting tactics, the US State Department has created its own digital division to identify and silence or add context to the alternatives offered by a now embattled ISIL. The secret work of the FBI, NSA, Cyber Command and others aside, this is one of few public steps the United States has taken to engage and compete in a new sphere of the web.… Continue reading

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The Tunisian Nobel Prize: Dialogue as a Political Virtue

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The refugee crisis will no doubt reshape the geopolitical, cultural , global economic policies  and challenge the core principles of the Europe Union. The Syria crisis will not only continue to drive the refugee crisis but also potentially trigger revolution in Syria and other Middle East countries. We would like to share a mosaic view of these complicated issues. France has historical ties with Syria, North Africa and the Middle East,and in general, the French have a rich knowledge about the issues in the region. I was fortunate to be introduced to Patrice Barrat, founder  of Bridge Initiative International, by my good friends Byron Janis and his wife, Maria Cooper Janis.**

Patrice has worked at the grass-roots level for many years on his concept to build the bridge to transcend traditional barriers of culture and ideology.  In recent years, he lived in Tunisia to promote his mission at the fount of the Arab Spring and witness the activities of the Quartet, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureates. I am very pleased to introduce his noble work.

(**Byron Janis, the world famous concert pianist, composed the Global Forum theme song “One World “ – with lyrics by the four time Oscar winner Sammy Cahn and sung by John Denver. Maria Cooper Janis is the daughter of the renowned actor Gary Cooper.)

— Akio Matsumura

The Tunisian Nobel Prize

Dialogue as a Political Virtue

It seemed so simple. They were here, on stage, all together for the first time since the news came from Oslo – on October 9, 2015, a week earlier – that the union of their forces in the summer of 2013 had earned them the Nobel Peace Prize.… Continue reading

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Refugees and Responsibility

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by Akio Matsumura

In his welcoming remarks at the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon drew attention to the plight of refugees fleeing Syria and the political and humanitarian challenges of and responsibilities for Europe’s leaders and citizens as more and more people seek safe haven. More than 4 million have fled Syria since 2011, and that number grows as you include those from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries where it is safer to flee than stay put.

Southern and Eastern Europe — Greece, Italy, Hungary, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia,  Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Poland, Germany – the countries who bear the large share of the burden on the receiving end, are no strangers to conflict, revolution, or dramatic change.

A September New York Times editorial asks Eastern Europe to remember its own past:

Even as Europe’s greatest refugee emergency since World War II grew more acute, prompting Germany and some other nations to temporarily shut their borders, European Union interior ministers failed on Monday to agree on even a limited mandatory distribution of refugees for resettlement among member states.

That tragic reaction was all the more shameful because those most adamantly opposed to quotas were some Eastern European countries that recently basked in and richly benefited from the embrace of their Western neighbors.

The Central and Eastern Europeans were not alone in their resistance, and there are explanations for their reaction. Most of the countries that were liberated from the Soviet yoke 25 years ago are still poorer than their neighbors and have not shed a sense of victimhood; many have never had large numbers of people from distant parts of the world on their lands; and many have only a limited familiarity with the crises of the Middle East.
… Continue reading
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Understanding the Nuclear Challenge and Three Other Security Threats

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Akio Matsumura

The way we wage war is changing. Cyber war’s secret infiltrations. The Islamic State’s conquering of vast swaths of land and resources. The UN and the other political entities we developed in the 20th century were not meant to handle such problems and will likely fail to do so. The incremental reforms have not kept up with the pace of changes led by technology and unsatisfied young people. Indeed, these new problems require new approaches. There is a mismatch between the potential consequences of the security problems we face today and the architecture we have to address them.

Four problems loom more menacing than the rest. Each challenges the security architecture on which we’ve depended for 25 years and threatens to spill over into a flood we cannot stem.

  1. Middle East: The region is hitting a low point. Civil War in Syria, expanding war against the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, conflicts between Sunnis and Shias in the region, and nuclear negotiations with Iran.
  2. Pakistan: One neighborhood over, Pakistan has nuclear weapons, tribal conflicts, and a rivalry with India pushed to the brink by state-sponsored terrorism.
  3. Eastern Ukraine: President Putin’s slow creep at the border is getting more dangerous.
  4. China: A huge overinvestment in real estate has left a bubble waiting to collapse. The resulting many ghost towns might cause uprisings and threaten the nation’s stability to a degree we haven’t seen. Especially tightly wound are the autonomous regions of Xinjian and Tibet.

Among the four ongoing conflicts, the potential global risk of the Middle East conflicts is far above the other three cases.… Continue reading

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New Type of Confrontation and the 25th Anniversary of the Moscow Global Forum

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The violent attacks in Paris that resulted in seventeen deaths last week and prompted millions to march for unity in the Paris streets are symptomatic of the new type of confrontation that has disrupted lives, politics, and economic systems. Stark differences in religion, culture, and the way we seek to live our lives has caused many around the world to perceive their lives at odds with others, with strict adherence to ideology playing a role for all involved. Fear, pessimism and a lack of trust describe daily interactions in many parts of the world as well as our international politics as well.

When it began 25 years ago today, the Global Forum for Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders in Moscow symbolized the beginning in a new era of openness and optimism as much as it closed a dark period of distrust and disagreement. The Berlin Wall had fallen only two months before, and the Soviet Union and the United States were seeking a way to cooperate after the Cold War. President Gorbachev, leading the opening of the Soviet Union, agreed to host more than one thousand religious and political leaders at the Kremlin for a multi-day dialogue on the pressing global issues of the times. In contrast with today, leaders were seeking new ways forward, making inroads with new conversation rather than closing off avenues of dialogue.

People chose to trust and engage across cultural and political divides.… Continue reading

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Japan’s Nuclear Water Woes

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Almost four years ago, we switched our focus on this website from international security to the unknown issues at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants – the potential consequences of a larger accident there were impossible to ignore. We covered the meltdowns themselves, the unimagined consequences of an accident with the cooling pool of Reactor No. 4, the ice walls, and the potential for radiation to harm humans, wildlife, and the environment itself.

Perhaps most important, we linked together physicists, biologists, decision makers, nuclear experts (and more nuclear experts), physicians, journalists, UN officials, spiritual leaders, teachers and students to build a more comprehensive understanding of nuclear power’s relationship with people and the environment that surrounds it. We are often restricted, in engineering and science as well as business and politics, to narrow, vertical styles of thinking. Our mission is to connect professions — and individuals at their top – horizontally. The debate over the effects of March 11, 2011, will continue on for decades, and probably remain unresolved. We hope we were able to broaden the conversation.  From this point on, Finding the Missing Link will turn its focus back to issues of security, religion, and politics across the world, building on what we learned through our work on Fukushima, and hoping to build connections otherwise unmade.

Earlier this month Gordon Edwards sent us the following Associated Press article, which descriBes in detail where the clean up of the nuclear power plants stands now and what issues TEPCO and Japan will face going forward.… Continue reading