Russia using North Korea’s nuclear playbook Russia and North Korea are the only two nuclear powers whose leaders continually boast about using nukes. That is no coincidence. Russia and North Korea are also the two poorest and most sanctioned among the nine nuclear powers. Both leverage nuclear weapons to compensate for everything from diplomatic isolation to economic stagnation. North… Read more.
nuclear weapons
Trump and Biden: Dupes about Nukes
North Korea used love letters to dupe Trump into thinking it was going to get rid of its nukes. Iran used hostages to dupe Biden into thinking it was not going to develop nukes. But North Korea was playing Trump to become an even greater nuclear power. And Iran was playing Biden to continue its… Read more.
Nuclear Arms Control – Russia Is Threatening to End It
Russia is threatening to end nuclear arms control. But its president, Vladimir Putin, has become the boy who cried wolf. So many political analysts are dismissing this as just another idle threat. I disagree. Nuclear arms control Putin is establishing a pretext to honor Russia’s quid pro quo with Iran. Because I suspect Russia struck… Read more.
Israel Should Support Ukraine – If Only to Help Itself
President Biden declared the war in Ukraine a clash between democracies and autocracies. Sure enough, democratic countries are supporting Ukraine. Autocratic countries are supporting Russia. Israel is a Democratic country. It follows that Israel should be supporting Ukraine. Yet it stands out among the few democratic countries that are not doing so. But a quid pro quo between… Read more.
But why do you think Trump was hording top-secret nuclear documents?
Everyone in Washington knew it had to take a truly grave concern for the FBI to search former President Donald Trump’s home – even with the kid gloves and in the discreet manner agents reportedly did. Well, according to The Washington Post, we now know that concern was as grave as grave can be. Because… Read more.
Trump Weasels Out of Ill-Fated Nuclear Summit with Kim of North Korea
Here in part is the plainly hypocritical way President Trump weaseled out of the nuclear summit with President Kim: Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. (CNN, May 24, 2018) Indeed, just weeks ago,… Read more.
PyeongChang: Olympics and Politics Playing Out like Marriage and Divorce
The 2018 PyeongChang Olympics get underway tomorrow. Yet the media are dedicating relatively little coverage to the Opening Ceremony or the athletes. Instead, they are focusing on the nuclear brinkmanship between North Korea and the United States, which will hover over South Korea (and these Games) like a Damoclean sword. But one can hardly blame… Read more.
North Korea’s Nukes Upstage America’s Fireworks … Again
Just nine days ago, I vowed to stop commenting on the Kabuki dance between North Korea launching ballistic missiles and the United States reacting with feckless outrage and hollow threats. I did so in “North Korean Nukes like Quicksilver for China and US,” June 26, 2017. But North Korea busted a milestone move in this… Read more.
North Korean Nukes like Quicksilver for China and US
China and the United States agreed that efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula should be ‘complete, verifiable and irreversible’, Chinese state media said on Saturday, reporting the results of high level talks in Washington this week. ‘Both sides reaffirm that they will strive for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,’ a… Read more.
Egypt Sentences Morsi to Death; Exposes Fecklessness of U.S. Middle East Policy
Alas, Mohammed Morsi seems fated to become a martyr for the cause of democracy in the Middle East. He became Egypt’s first democratically elected president in June 2012. But army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi deposed him in July 2013 – in a coup that was, ironically, almost as popular as the student protests that… Read more.