The Korea Times
I was born in 1978 in the United States. I have a few memories of important international political events from the 1980s, but not many. I watched the 1986 Challenger Shuttle explosion live in my elementary school classroom. The 1987 Iran-Contra hearings were mysterious, but I still recall seeing Oliver North’s testimony on television. I have recollections of Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis’ silly tank-ride photo-op during the 1988 U.S. presidential election campaign. Manuel Noriega’s rendition to the U.S. during the invasion of Panama somehow stayed in my memory. I remember watching scenes of “tank man” at Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, both in 1989. Mostly, however, my political coming of age occurred in the 1990s, and as a cynical Gen X-er I was blithe about U.S. assumption of unilateral global power. Fukuyama’s “End of History” claim was premature, but it fit the American zeitgeist and I was an avatar. My teenage and early adult years were marked by unchallenged U.S. security, rapid economic growth, full employment, low inflation, etc. A blu
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