John Metzler

FPI / September 24, 2020 By John J. Metzler Presidents, Prime Ministers and Kings are attending the opening debate of the UN General Assembly; but online. The 75th anniversary session of the Assembly was planned as a gala gathering of chiefs of state and government but shall now be relegated to a series of virtual […]

FPI / September 17, 2020 By John J. Metzler Viewing the sorrowful September 11 commemorations, I was instantly transported back nineteen years to the terrorist attacks on America. As I wrote back then, “On a picture perfect September morning, the Grim Reaper visited New York…it would be our generation’s Pearl Harbor.” A mournful, nervous but […]

FPI / September 11, 2020 By John J. Metzler The rising tide of China’s military modernization, expansion, and force projection capabilities has long haunted policymakers from the United States to East Asia. But while many Washington politicians were premised on the paradigm of China’s “peaceful rise” and a world of global commerce with only occasional […]

FPI / September 3, 2020 By John J. Metzler Nearly six months into the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States remains mired in the nebulous haze of the “invisible enemy,” suffering greatly both physically and emotionally. We have been battered and bruised economically and most of all psychologically. And all this in the midst of a […]

FPI / August 20, 2020 By John J. Metzler A visit by an American Secretary of Health to an East Asian ally would seemingly not register much media attention, especially during the Summer. But in the age of global Corona and the deadly spread of the Covid-19 virus, health certainly matters. So, when U.S. Secretary […]

FPI / August 16, 2020 By John J. Metzler The massive double blast which rocked Beirut harbor brought near cataclysmic damage to the Lebanese capital. Yet as the dust settled on this tragedy, with 200 dead and 5,000 injured, the political and economic reverberations of the explosion have shaken Lebanon to the core and threatened […]

FPI / August 9, 2020 By John J. Metzler The story comes right out of a Dan Brown mystery thriller in which Vatican secrets are targeted by State sponsored computer hackers. Yet according to cyber security sources, the intrusion into sensitive Vatican diplomatic traffic is not fiction, but a cold hard fact of modern espionage. […]

FPI / July 30, 2020 By John J. Metzler Its very name Hagia Sophia evokes the ancient mysteries of Byzantium. Its setting along the Golden Horn on the majestic Bosphorus joining Europe and Asia in itself serves as a beacon for uniting world religions. Yet this magnificent church which has weathered the march of time […]

FPI / July 23, 2020 By John J. Metzler In a sweeping, scathing and searingly poignant speech, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr swept back the curtain on China’s communist regime in a tour de force rarely seen. His focus centered not only on China’s rulers menacing their own people and those of East Asia, but […]

FPI / July 17, 2020 By John J. Metzler A devastating decade old war, a deteriorating humanitarian situation, and a deplorable inability of the international community to stop the conflict, underscores Syria’s tragic fate. The failure of the UN Security Council to ease the suffering, callously blocked by Russia and China, tragically highlights the shared […]

FPI / July 10, 2020 By John J. Metzler Beijing’s tightening noose on Hong Kong foretells many things both in the successful city state as much as throughout the opaque vastness of China itself. Clearly, the widening communist political crackdown on Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms was expected given the successful city-state’s thriving democracy. Despite […]

FPI / July 3, 2020 By John J. Metzler Seventy years ago, on June 25, 1950, North Korean troops attacked South Korea launching an unexpected military blitz. Kim Il-Sung’s communists had as their aim the forcible reunification of the divided Korean peninsula, itself a recent legacy of Japan’s defeat in WWII. The South was stunned […]

FPI / June 25, 2020 By John J. Metzler It’s one of those rites of late Spring when members of the UN’s General Assembly come together to choose five new non-permanent members of the fifteen-member Security Council. But what’s usually a spirited but pro-forma election of candidates, this year was carried out in the shadow […]

FPI / June 18, 2020 By John J. Metzler In a surprisingly understated but inspirational address to the cadets on the historic Parade Field, President Donald Trump spoke to the graduating class of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. But the remarks to 1,100 newly minted second lieutenants in the U.S. Army was not […]

FPI / June 11, 2020 By John J. Metzler Defying all expectations, the U.S. job numbers surged back in early June in a surprise and stunning rebound. While the usual gaggle of “experts” were somberly predicting an additional eight or nine million job losses, the actual numbers showed 2.5 million jobs gained! Despite massive job […]