Scary ‘Nuclear Challenges’ Faced by United States

The Defense Intelligence Agency just released a new assessment, and it’s chilling. 

By  Dave Patterson | Oct 31, 2024 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags Articles, Military Affairs, Opinion

If you aren’t worried about America’s nuclear deterrence, you should be. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) just released its latest assessment of the nuclear capabilities of America’s most dangerous enemies: Nuclear Challenges: The Growing Capabilities of Strategic Competitors and Regional Rivals. Replace the word “challenges” with “threats,” and you get a better picture of the dire situation. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran continue to grow larger on America’s nuclear threat windscreen.

Nuclear Challenges

Over the past four years, America’s nuclear posture has been deemed inadequate. In this presidential election, leadership choices becomes even more significant. The DIA report executive summary opens with a sobering analysis:

“Russia, China, and North Korea are modernizing their legacy stockpiles by incorporating advanced technologies to penetrate or avoid missile defense systems. Countries are also developing nuclear weapons with smaller yields, improved precision, and increased range for military of coercive use … Beijing has far surpassed earlier growth estimates assessed in 2018 and is currently exceeding 500 deliverable nuclear warheads in its stockpile.”

The report estimates that China will reach 1,000 warheads by the year 2030. Perhaps more troubling from a deterrence perspective is that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) emphasizes lower yield, more tactical atomic weapons. Moving away from high yield in the mega-ton category gives the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) more flexibility and makes the use of nuclear weapons more suitable for a “proportional” response, as the report suggests. However, the PLA’s more “appealing” choice of tactical nuclear weapons makes the US deterrence calculus more difficult. Furthermore, the DIA analysis asserts, “The PLA is implementing a launch-on-warning posture where it would be able to, upon warning of [a] missile strike, launch a counterstrike before an enemy first strike can detonate.” Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Russia is assisting China to establish a ballistic missile “early warning system.”

There seems to be little desire on the part of Beijing to engage in nuclear disarmament talks as China’s nuclear capability is in ascendancy. The Biden-Harris administration’s first attempts to create a mutual accommodation relationship with the PRC set the stage for a geopolitical mismatch that has continued until this day. 

 

The Chinese gained the negotiation’s upper hand and have not let go. Despite the Biden-Harris administration’s entreaties to Chinese leadership to cease aggressive activities against Taiwan, the intensity has increased. In addition, the military collaboration between the PLA and Russia’s armed forces has grown.

Russia sustains its stockpile of 1,550 strategic nuclear warheads with a bomber force, submarine fleet, and ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver the warheads. Additionally, Russia claims to have nuclear weapons capable of avoiding US countermeasures. Sino-Russian military exercises have increased in frequency and magnitude. “Russia launched its largest navy drills of the post-Soviet era … alongside Chinese warships, the latest sign of deepening military cooperation between the two global powers. The drills will continue until September 16 and will involve more than 400 warships, submarines, and other maritime vessels,” France 24 reported.

Other Global Actors Present Threats

North Korea presents a unique problem for the United States. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Pyongyang’s missile testing became less frequent, around 50 for nearly three years, during the Trump administration (no tests in 2018). North Korean tests began again in earnest with the Biden-Harris national security team in position. Between January 2021 and April 2023, there were more than 130 test firings by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The DIA assessment of North Korea’s nuclear capability concludes: 

“North Korea has demonstrated the capability to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium, has conducted nuclear tests, and has developed new ballistic missiles systems intended to strike regional and CONUS [Continental United States] targets.” 

The DPRK’s recent military agreement with Russia makes North Korea a more formidable threat than in the past.

Give Cable TV the Boot – Check This Out!

The Middle East teeters on the brink of an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Recent attacks on Israel by Iran are testimony to Tehran’s missile capability for launching a nuclear warhead. The failure of Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to limit the development of ballistic missile technology is one of the reasons the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement. As a result, “The Iranian missile force is the largest in the Middle East and can strike targets up to 2,000 km (over 1,200 miles) from Iran’s borders.” Numerous recent assessments reveal Iran may be on the cusp of having the wherewithal to develop a nuclear weapon. The Biden-Harris administration has failed to check Iran’s aggression through its proxies or Tehran’s direct attacks on Israel.

There have been few times in America’s recent history when the threat to the US homeland has been as significant. As Election Day looms, voters must consider the US position in a dangerous world. It is not growing less perilous. The DIA report is a call to action.

The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

 

Read More From Dave Patterson

North Korea and the 13 Disappearing Submarines

The DPRK sleight of hand has piqued the interest of international military observers.

By Dave Patterson | Sep 5, 2024 @ Liberty Nation New, Tags: Articles, Military Affairs, Opinion

In what observers of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) military moves called strange, North Korea registered 13 submarines of its estimated 64-86 underwater vessels with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on Aug. 27. The next day, all 13 were removed from the IMO’s Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS). What is puzzling for analysts is that warships are normally not listed in the GISIS.

North Korea Seldom Explains Its Actions

When North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un senses his position in world affairs is being ignored, he foments geopolitical acting out. The DPRK may launch a flurry of long- and short-range missiles or execute artillery exercises close to the South Korean border. But understanding the machinations behind the military actions of Kim’s fiefdom has been difficult. Consequently, the sudden and inexplicable post of 13 submarines on the GISIS public international registry of commercial ocean vessels was as odd as its quick removal.

The 24-hour peek at the North Korean submarines brought to public scrutiny Kim’s large underwater capability. First to break the news of the public revelation of the DPRK’s underwater craft was the Voice of America (VOA), which observed:

“It is unclear what motivated Pyongyang’s initial registration of the submarines, which was first reported Tuesday [Aug.27] by VOA Korean. Besides the 11 Sang-O II-class submarines, Pyongyang registered the Yongung, which is capable of launching ballistic missiles, and the Hero Kim Kun Ok, which is believed to have the capability to carry nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The Hero Kim Kun Ok was described by North Korea as its first operational ‘tactical nuclear attack submarine’ at a launch ceremony in September 2023 … “

The data revealed in the registry included assigning an IMO identification number, the flag under which vessels are registered, the type (Submarine), and the date built. There is nothing particularly noteworthy in the information other than it was there and then it wasn’t. According to an NTI (Nuclear Threat Initiative) assessment, North Korea’s 40 Sang-O II-class or “Shark-Class” submarines became operational in 2011 and are primarily coastal patrol vessels. NTI assessed, “Despite the size of North Korea’s submarine fleet, experts doubt that all of the country’s submarines are operational given the age of the vessels.”

The Hero Kim Kun Ok Number 841 is the newest of the DPRK submarines to be launched and is believed to be nuclear-ballistic-missile capable. “Analysts said the vessel appears to be a modified Soviet-era Romeo-class submarine, which North Korea acquired from China in the 1970s and began producing domestically. Its design, with 10 launch tube hatches, showed it was most likely armed with ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, analysts said,” according to Reuters. Although newly launched, the latest submarine is a derivative of 1970s technology, so it is not quite modern by submarine standards, is slow, and has a short range when submerged. North Korea has no nuclear-powered submarines; all are diesel-electric powered.

More DPRK Submarines Are in the Works

However, according to 38 North, a publication of the Stimson Center, a Washington, DC-based think tank providing in-depth analysis of North Korea, “Over the past few months, construction equipment and submarine components — including three hull sections and supportive jigs — have been brought into the shipyard. The first jig was observed on imagery from late December 2023, with two more present by mid-February 2024.” These activities are evidence of North Korea’s intense efforts to keep “in line with Kim Jong Un’s announced plans to bolster the size of the North’s submarine arsenal,” 38 North reported.

Though the DPRK’s submarine fleet is clearly growing, it is by no means as capable as modern submarines possessed by the United States and other Western navies. However, as Joseph Stalin observed, “Quantity has a quality all its own.” The threat represented by a large fleet of North Korean submarines increases an identifying and tracking challenge to the United States and its allies. Should the DPRK begin coordinating and integrating its newer subs with those of Russia and China, that would significantly increase the surveillance tasks of the West.

North Korea’s purpose for registering its 13 submarines with the IMO and immediately removing them is a mystery. Whatever the motivation, it snagged the attention of those keeping track of what Kim Jong Un is doing with his underwater craft. More eyes looking at North Korea’s military capabilities is good.

The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

 

Read More From Dave Patterson

Did North Korea Use Sex to Target Politicians in D.C.?

Daniel Greenfield November 14, 2023 @ Sultan Knish Blog 

One Asian brothel was within walking distance of Northrop Grumman, one of the largest defensecontractors in the country, along with the Defense Health Headquarters, and General Dynamics IT which “delivers consulting, technology and mission services to every major agency across the U.S. government, defense and intelligence community.”

The Pentagon and the headquarters of the CIA were also within easy driving distance.

Another brothel operated in Tyson Corners near the complex of hotels where high-level government and political conferences are being held on a constant basis.

A third was set up in Watertown, MA: half a mile from the site of the old US Army Material Technology Lab and a short walk from the new wave of biotech companies springing up in the area. A fourth in Cambridge, MA was 18 minutes away from MIT, 4 miles from IBM’s AI lab and a little further out from research centers for everyone from Merck to Microsoft.

A fifth, also in Cambridge, was walking distance away from Raytheon, a regular in DARPA’s high end defense industry research, and which is upgrading Taiwan’s early warning systems.

In Dedham, Massachusetts, a town of 25,000 that no one would ordinarily pay much attention to, the Asian brothel had come down and decided to run its secret setup 7 minutes away from General Dynamics Mission Systems which works on submarines, aircraft and satellites. It also has extensive contracts with the intelligence community.

Brothels tend to exist where there are wealthy men, but this network of “high-end” Korean brothels recently busted appeared to be interested in only some areas and some men.

According to the Justice Department press release, the brothel’s clients included, “elected officials, high tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, attorneys, scientists and accountants.”

Prostitutes and their pimps tend to only be out for the money, but the Lees, Han Lee, James Lee, Junmyung Lee, seemed to be more interested in the background of their ‘johns’.

Anyone interested in procuring the services of the women on the premises of the expensive apartments secretively tucked away near government offices and research labs had to “respond to a survey and provide information online, including their driver’s license photos” and “their employer information”. Brothels aren’t normally interested in where their customers work.

The setup more closely resembles a modern twist on the classic ‘honey pot’ operation often used by foreign intelligence services. But instead of circulating prostitutes around high-end hotels, a bad idea in places like Cambridge and Fairfax, they set up websites with local place names that were likely to lure in government officials, executives and researchers who would be visiting these areas or were temporarily living in them without being very familiar with them.

The brothel apartments were often close to not only defense contractors, government facilities and research labs, but also the hotels like those in Tyson Corners, that would be likely to draw visitors attending conferences, members of Congress getting a tour, generals and brass, and researchers from out of town or out of the country interviewing for positions at local labs.

The Asian brothel network was not just following the money, but appeared to be focused on D.C. bedroom communities and research communities in Massachusetts. That’s very specific.

All of that could be a coincidence

But using “honey pot” traps was a longtime speciality of North Korean intelligence. Two decades ago, South Koreans learned through the defection of a top North Korean official that the brutal Communist regime had made extensive use of “honey pot” operations that included secretly recorded videos and blackmail of foreigners. Including Americans.

The defector revealed that there were North Korean spies operating in the United States and that their tactics included using “women to entice them.” There’s a history of this that goes back to Col. John Baird’s affair with a North Korean spy in 1949. Sexual abuse and trafficking are commonplace in the Communist regime where people are seen as state commodities.

While prostitution is officially punishable by hard labor or even execution, the regime’s elite have made use of an extensive formal prostitution network, the ‘kippumjo’, recruited as virgins by the Communist Party, trafficked and then married off to military officials to spy on them and ensure their loyalty, and an informal one that runs through North Korea’s entertainment industry whose ‘actresses’ and ‘pop stars’ are also expected to sexually service Communist Party leaders.

North Korea’s external sex espionage is a reflection of the Communist commodification of relationships between men and women as embodied by socialist ideas going back to Fourier. The regime’s prostitution networks extend beyond its borders into China, where refugees are often trafficked to brothels, and into South Korea where some were sent as spies.

The Korean brothel network in the U.S. would have been positioned to solicit ideal targets, high-ranking married men on the road, record them in the apartments that it controlled, and then blackmail them. There is no evidence that this actually took place but the Justice Department’s involvement is also unusual for an operation that involved fairly few women and clients.

What actually triggered a “multi-year investigation” by the DOJ into the Korean brothels? The DOJ targets sex trafficking across state lines, but devoting so many resources to a small-scale operation run by three people appears to be unusual. The Justice Department press release emphasized the high-level status of the clients and mentioned that some twenty “buyers” were interviewed, but not named or charged. Did any of them face blackmail efforts or detect a red flag when they were asked questions about their jobs or had their phones tampered with?

Han Lee moved to America from Korea in 2014. Junmyung Lee came here on a student visa in 2018. Some of the women they were transporting were coming in from South Korea. While South Korea does some spying on us (as do most countries, including our allies) but it usually takes the form of conventional efforts to recruit informants and intercept information. A honey pot operation on this scale would be uncharacteristic of South Korea’s spy operation.

But it would be entirely in keeping with North Korea’s efforts to model itself on China.

What really enabled this “high-end brothel network” to operate was an open immigration policy that allows foreign criminals and spies to enter the United States. The Lees were not only able to come to this country, but to transport women from Korea into the United States of America.

National security cannot be distinguished from immigration security. Without immigration security, we are prey for every spy agency, information operation and terror group in the world.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading. 

Tags: espionage, North Korea, recent

 

UN Official: North Koreans Are Hungry, Desperate

By Newser Editors and Wire Services Aug 17, 2023

Volker Turk, UN human rights chief, speaks via video call Thursday at UN headquarters.   (AP Photo/John Minchillo) North Korea is increasing its repression of human rights, and people are becoming more desperate and reportedly starving in parts of the country as the economic situation worsens, the United Nations rights chief said Thursday. 

Volker Türk told the first open meeting of the UN Security Council since 2017 on North Korean human rights that in the past the nation's people have endured periods of severe economic difficulty and repression, but "currently they appear to be suffering both." He added, "According to our information, people are becoming increasingly desperate as informal markets and other coping mechanisms are dismantled, while their fear of state surveillance, arrest, interrogation and detention has increased." 

 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un closed the borders of the northeast Asian nation to contain COVID-19. But as the pandemic has waned, Türk said the government's restrictions have grown even more extensive, with guards authorized to shoot any unauthorized person approaching the border and with almost all foreigners, including UN staff, still barred from the country. As examples of the increasing repression of human rights, he said, anyone found viewing "reactionary ideology and culture"—which means information from abroad, especially from South Korea—may now face five to 15 years in prison. And those who distribute such material face life imprisonment or even the death penalty, he said..........To Read More........

Daniel Greenfield Unleashed

By Sheer Coincidence, Biden’s DOJ Goes After Likely Senate Candidate - If you thought election interference was bad in 2016 and 2020, just wait.   In free societies, you just read the newspaper. In unfree ones, you understand that the meaning of one story can only be found by cross-cutting it with a seemingly unrelated story.............Sheer coincidence. And if you think it’s not, you’re a conspiracy theorist, election denier, DOJ denier and a spreader of disinformation who also needs to be investigated by the DOJ. While the Biden admin and the Dems have mixed feelings about Manchin, they really don’t want to lose the WV Senate seat especially since, unlike Georgia, they’re not just going to be able to get it back by focusing on demographics and minority voter turnout. And that seat would prove to be quite crucial in holding on to the Senate..........If you thought election interference was bad in 2016 and 2020, hang on to your horses, this is going to be the big one. .................

Cancel Culture Means Every Org Has Its Own Secret Police -  “We have an anonymous complaint we have to ask you about” Every now and then some lefty culture warrior will announce to the sound of terrified clapter that “cancel culture is just accountability.” Well yeah, so were the Spanish Inquisition, the Cheka, and the Gestapo. If you want to live in a system of political terror in which you constantly have to account to somebody… enjoy. Here’s the New York Times pondering that perhaps embedding a cancel culture secret police squad inside every single organization may not be as much fun as it sounds...........

Senator Tom Cotton, Mike Pompeo Respond to FrontPageMag Expose of Anti-Israel Activist on Holocaust Museum Board  - “No one leading a group that wants to destroy the one Jewish state should be on the board of the Holocaust Museum.”...........Human Rights Watch has repeatedly and falsely accused Israel of “apartheid”. Its personnel have advocated for terrorists and for the murder of Jews, and even spread traditional blood libels. Senator Cotton responded to the FrontPageMag expose by tweeting that, “No one leading a group that wants to destroy the one Jewish state should be on the board of the Holocaust Museum. Another terrible pick from President Biden.”..............

 

The Second Irish Famine Will Be ‘Green’ - With kids going hungry, Gov wants to cull 10% of Ireland’s cattle for ‘climate targets’.  Environmentalism is just genocide misspelled. For Nuala O’Connor, a chef at a Barnardos centre in Dublin, food poverty in a young child is sometimes less about what they look like, and more about what they do. “Sometimes you just know by looking at them, that they are not getting what they need,” she said. “Then we have had children over time [who are] literally ravenous, literally taking it with their hands, they can’t get enough of it into their mouths and can’t get it in quick enough." Children are hungry. Time to get rid of the meat. Maybe if they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat more environmentally friendly bugs..................

Biden Admin Threatens North Korea: “The Door has Not Closed on Diplomacy” Kim is shaking in his boots.    I don’t know if the Biden administration set out to recreate that scene from Team America World Police, but it could hardly have done better with this ridiculous message to North Korea.............Really? The door has not closed on diplomacy..........

Cuomo Began Work on How He Beat Pandemic Book as the Dying Began “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic”.  I have always said that the former New York governor was a stone-cold sociopath, but this is still really something. And since Cuomo is trying to relaunch his career, it’s still unfortunately relevant.............If two pros were working on it on March 30, 2020, it would have gotten started earlier. How much earlier? Who knows. But Cuomo would have run it by his staff, by an agent and probably by a publisher or two...............

Half of All New German Citizens are Muslims There will not be a Germany in a generation.  This is what national suicide looks like...............  A rough calculation pegs the number of new citizens from Muslim countries at around 80,000 or half the 168,500 number of total citizens. This is fairly consistent with the 2021 numbers................

More Israelis Have Been Killed in 5 Months of Biden Than 2 Years of Trump Biden and the Democrats are funding the murder of Jews.  The Muslim terrorist campaign, funded by foreign aid from the United States, continues. The latest casualty is Meir Tamari...............Meir Tamari is the 20th victim of Islamic terrorism in Israel so far this year. That tops the combined number of Israeli deaths in all of 2019 and 2020 under Trump. At this rate, there will likely be more Israelis killed in 2023 than during the entire Trump administration.  As I wrote earlier this year, this is due to the Biden administration’s decision to provide political support and funding for the terrorists.

The Life of Brian Used to Offend Christians, Now It Offends Wokes “I want to be a woman. … It’s my right as a man”   Comedians who used to be considered heroes by liberals for offending the religious feelings of conservatives, if they lived long enough have become woke villains..........There was a time when Life of Brian offended Christians and Jews. That time was 1979..............Fast forward to 2023 and Life of Brian has to be censored to avoid offending the wokes over a joke that was originally mocking male leftist feminists that accidentally ended up ruthlessly deconstructing the political embrace of the transgender.movement and its senseless fight for the right of men to be women..........

The IRS Went Down to Georgia to Steal an Election - The Democrats were in a bind, falling behind and looking to make a steal. An estimated 3.5 million people voted in the Georgia Senate runoff election. State Voices, a leftist nonprofit, claimed that it had made 3 million voter contacts for the runoff. ProGeorgia, the local partner for State Voices, bragged of having conducted “31,000 face-to-face conversations, 10 million texts, and 133,000 phone conversations” and of registering “tens of thousands for the midterm election” so that “voters of color turned out in early voting at higher levels than their white counterparts”. Such an outcome was inherently partisan and could and only did benefit one particular party: the Democrats............And it could not have happened without the complicity of the IRS.........

The CEO Behind Target’s Corporate Culture War - CEO Brian Cornell has turned over the chain to criminals and perverts. 

[Editor’s note: Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s masterpiece contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]  

Target projects over $1 billion in losses due in large part to shoplifting. And that is its own fault.  Target CEO Brian Cornell responded to the BLM race riots with a memo claiming that, “the murder of George Floyd has unleashed the pent-up pain of years, as have the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.” Much of that pain was directed at robbing Target.  After a massive wave of arson and looting, targeted its own chain stores, Target doubled down on its Racial Equity Action and Change strategy. The Target Foundation was one of the signatories of the Philanthropic Collective to Combat Anti-Blackness & Realize Racial Justice statement attacking the criminal justice system...........Target’s decision to put woke politics over its customers and shareholders has been disastrous. Cornell claimed that Target’s “focus on diversity and inclusion and equity has fueled much of our growth over the last nine years.” In reality, it’s lost the company billions of dollars............

Memorial Day in a Divided Nation - And once more, we called each other brothers. It has been over 150 years since our nation’s last civil war. Time enough has passed that we have come to associate the holiday once known as Decoration Day with the graves of soldiers fallen on other continents far from home. It is important to honor our wartime dead. But Memorial Day has a powerful meaning that we have forgotten. It was the holiday that reunited our country after the Civil War. It began when Americans, from the North and the South, entered the cold gray stone fields of the dead, and decorated the graves of the fallen from the Grand Army of the Republic and the Confederacy with freshly cut flowers.........

Like the Rest of Us, Sen. Feinstein Isn’t Sure What Kamala is Doing as VP  - “What is she doing here?” Feinstein asked, according to the report. Democrats and their media claim that Sen. Jon Fetterman (D – Psych Ward) is absolutely fit to be in the Senate despite not being able to understand what anyone is saying and having to occasionally be institutionalized. Sometimes his handlers have to electroshock him, but he’s completely qualified. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D – One Party State) on the other hand is being pressured to retire so Gov. Newsom can oversee a deathmatch between black, Latino and Asian groups over who gets appointed to the sinecure because she is reportedly “out of it”. Since the same is true of Joe Biden, who’s running for a second term, the party is being accused of sexism for demanding that Feinstein, but not Fetterman or Biden, retire. But the latest leaked rumor about Feinstein’s incapacity, spread by Dem operatives and their media, seems to suggest that she might be the sanest member of her party............ 

My Take - Chuckling, now that's rich.  Her wondering what Kamala is doing there makes her the sanest member of the party. Ya just gotta see the humor in that. 

North Korea tells starving citizens to eat less: Report

by Misty Severi, Breaking News Reporter October 27, 2021

North Korea is telling its hungry citizens to be prepared to eat less for a few years.  Pyongyang, which closed its Sino-Korea border early last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, said there is only a slim chance of it reopening before 2025. This situation, which includes the restriction of trade, puts a significant pinch on the country of 25 million where people are already starving to death because of skyrocketing food prices, according to Radio Free Asia . 

“The food situation right now is already clearly an emergency, and the people are struggling with shortages. When the authorities tell them that they need to conserve and consume less food until 2025 … they can do nothing but feel great despair,” an unnamed resident of the northwestern border city of Sinuiju told the outlet this month..........To Read More....

 My Take - It appears there's more than enough money for it's military and advanced weapons production, but not enough to feed the people.  That's the "utopia" the communists offer.  We call it dystopia, and that's where the Biden administration and the leftist lunatics in his government are taking America.  

 

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un: Citizens Suffering from ‘Grim’ Economy

Gabrielle Reyes 11 Oct 2021 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Sunday urged officials of his country’s ruling party to work on improving citizens’ quality of life amid a “grim” economic situation, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday.

North Korea faces “huge tasks for adjusting and developing the state economy,”.......“The only way for dynamically pushing forward the unprecedented crucial work despite grim situation is for the entire Party to get united [sic],”............North Korean government officials “should always consider whether their work infringe upon the interests of the people or cause trouble to the people [sic],........“People’s access to food is a serious concern and the most vulnerable children and elderly are at risk of starvation,”..................“Essential medicines and medical supplies are in short supply and prices have increased severalfold as they stopped coming in from China, and humanitarian organizations have been unable to bring in medicines and other supplies,” the report states..............“The current worsening humanitarian situation could turn into a crisis and must be averted".............To Read More....

 My Take - The little piglet isn't going to tighten his belt I'm willing to bet.  This "humanitarian crisis that must be averted' is a cyclical pattern in North Korea because of Kim and his band of commie misfits.  He also seems to have plenty of cash for his military as noted in this piece,  Kim Vows North Korea Will Build 'Invincible Military".  And how can he do that economically?  The same way Mao did.  Starve the people of North Korea to death.  

Refugee Sounds Alarm Over What Leftists Are Doing

By  Daily Wire News Jun 15, 2021 DailyWire.com

 

Yeonmi Park, a 27-year-old who escaped from sex slavery in China after fleeing North Korea, is warning that leftist professors inside America’s top academic universities are indoctrinating students with extreme ideologies that remind her of North Korea. 

“I fell in love with this country; this is such a wonderful country. I never been accepted more than this country was,” Park told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “And at Columbia University, literally every professor was saying that, you know, the problems that we have on today’s world is because of white men, how they colonize Africa… that’s how they mess up everything. And they are the one who needs to be blamed.” “And I couldn’t believe that, am I sitting in North Korea’s classroom or in America?” she continued. “Actually, I couldn’t believe why people are hating their own people that much.”...........To Read More.....

Columbia University is to the left of Kim Jong-un

June 15, 2021 By Andrea Widburg

If you're paying any attention to what's going on in America's colleges and universities, you know that these places work hard to indoctrinate students into American Marxism, which substitutes race, sex, and climate change for Karl Marx's original ideas about capitalists and workers. Naturally, Democrats and other leftists have pushed back, saying conservatives are exaggerating for effect so they can take over those institutions, kick out all the minorities and gays, and institute a "Handmaid's Tale" regime. But what if it's not a conservative saying academia has gone off the leftist deep end? What if it's someone who escaped from North Korea who says this?

Well, that's just who's saying it. In 2016, Yeonmi Park, who escaped from North Korea at great cost to herself, transferred from a South Korean university to Columbia University. Columbia, as you know, is the institution from which Obama graduated, and that still protects his undergraduate grades by keeping them sealed in a deep vault to which no one may ever have access.

Park was shocked by what she found at Columbia. According to what she told Fox News, the indoctrination is more aggressive and unending than what takes place in North Korea itself:.........To Read More....

The Unbearable Lightweightness of Kamala Harris

June 11, 2021 By J. Robert Smith

It’s faint praise at best to describe someone as not smart or dumb.  In fact, I don’t know that Kamala Harris is dumb.  She may have brains, but she doesn’t much show them.  She comes across as a woman who’s well over her head, and that should disturb anyone who cares about the welfare and safety of the nation.  After all, this Californian who spent a chunk of her formative years in Montreal is, as the cliché goes, “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” 

Harris mouths talking points and reads from scripts like a robot.  She often displays an inappropriate, grating cackle-of-a-laugh, which suggests nervousness and lack of confidence.  

Her recent interview with Lester Holt was sophomoric.  Does anyone not think that profilers in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea aren’t taking copious notes?  Wonder if tyrants Xi Jinping and Vlad Putin wake up in cold sweats at night dreading Harris’ ascendency to the presidency?  

Key question is, does the long corrupted and daft Joe Biden have enough gas in his tank to stay president for the full ride?.......To Read More.....

 

North Koreans are ordered to hand over 'decadent and bourgeois' pet dogs for 'restaurant meat' as the country is rocked by food shortages

Daily Mail, by Julian Ryall Original Article

Kim Jong-un has declared that pet dogs are a symbol of capitalist 'decadence' and ordered that dogs in Pyongyang be rounded up - and owners are fearful that their beloved pets are being used to solve the nation's food shortages. Dictator Kim announced in July that owning a pet is now against the law, denouncing having a dog at home as 'a tainted trend of bourgeois ideology'. 'Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down', a source told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper........... Original Article

My Take -  Dog is a very fine meal quite common in Asia.  So what's the problem?  It's just being  omnivorous.  When they run out of dogs, then they can eat the rats.  This is known as Communist pest control, and most importantly, it's an "all natural" pest control solution.   

Just think how much better off they're going to be after the rats are all gone.  That way they can then eat the cats.  Cat is a very fine meal too.  Tastes like chicken I'm told!  Of course none of this changes the need to build rockets and nuclear bombs, no matter how expensive that may be.  

Now ,there are those who may pooh pooh this analysis and think this is an excellent example of socialist dystopia.  Starvation, disease, misery, poverty, squalor and early death, but that's..........oh....wait....that's what it is.  

MANK: Make America North Korea

Fascism and communism are both left wing concepts.  They are two sides of the same coin. Socialism!

By Rich Kozlovich

The North Korean tyrants have been in power for three generations, and like all tyrants they want their people to be ignorant and subservient.  And like all tyrants, they’ve had a history of misappropriation of funds, food and a total disregard for human life.

Stalin deliberately starved tens of millions of his citizens to death for resisting collectivization of their farms. And after collectivization occurred, he starved even more due to incompetence and the idiotic Marxist ideology.  All because of one man with total and complete power to decide life and death. Stalin!

China deliberately starved to death over 30 million Chinese because Mao needed capital to buy arms, so he sold the food they needed just to survive.  Mao felt that may just be the beginning, and it was. All due to the actions of one man who held absolute power to decide life and death.   Mao!

Castro overthrew a government where in 1957 before the revolution Cuba had an economy and social structure where:

"the Cuban social structure is a large middle class," the Geneva-based International Labor Organization said in a 1957 report. "Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8 hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6%. In the U.S. the figure is 70%, in Switzerland 64%. 44% of Cubans are covered by Social legislation, a higher percentage than in the U.S."......."Remember, this is before the revolution!"

He died a tyrant!  A murderous monster who left a one time economically sound beautiful country in shambles. All because one man had the power to decide life and death.  Fidel Castro!

What happened when communists took over in Cambodia was a human disaster of inhuman proportions. What's going on in Venezuela is absolutely criminal, and almost as inhuman.   

 

North Korean is no different!  More than 40% of North Koreans are undernourished and make no mistake about this. Often times whether or not they get needed food is based on the intensity of their loyalty to their communist tyrants. 

 

During a period of flooding and famine in the 1990’s up to 2 million people died, ten percent of their population. Moscow and Beijing stopped funding them and they found themselves in very real economic straits, even playing around with the value of their currency, which always has been a disaster for the common people. 

The long term impact for children with improper nutrition is really serious. If during these important development years children are malnourished it will impact them physically and mentally for the rest of their lives.  That will impact their societal structure negatively for decades.  The averge size of North Koreans is noticably smaller than their Southern cousins.  "It seems that this height statistic reveals a tragic fact - that as South Koreans have got richer and taller, North Korean children are being stunted by malnourishment".

Less than 1% have Internet access:

“merely owning a computer requires permission from local government authorities, and all personal computers are registered with the police as if they were shotguns.” 

......“Private ownership of fax machines is banned outright, and sending a single fax requires high-level authorization. Meanwhile, pirated DVDs of South Korean TV dramas are so illegal that North Koreans caught with them in regular police sweeps can be sentenced to years in labor camps.”

And yet:

“the UN Security Council found that North Korean hackers had stolen more than $670 million worth of foreign currency and cryptocurrency, according to Nikkei Asian Review. The hackers' big hauls included $81 million from Bangladesh Bank, $13.5 million from Cosmos Bank in India, and $10 million from the Bank of Chile's ATM network”.

Of course the normal question that needs answering is this: If the North Korean government controls the Internet so strictly, how could that have happened without the government’s approval?

North Korea at night. 

There are 25 million people living in North Korea. Their economy is for the most part non-existent with most making less than $2000 a year. North Korea is an extremely mineral rich nation, but as in all communist systems, because corruption and incompetence, they fail to take advantage of those resources.

Remember how the Obama administration not only failed to exploit American’s oil resources, they actually tried to impede oil exploitation. The Obama people disingenuously point out that oil production rose during his administration, and that’s true. But that was a lie of omission. The reason oil production rose was due to exploitation by capitalists on private property, not government owned or controlled property and areas such as off shore drilling.

The nation of North Korea is a virtual slave camp of abuse and corruption. According to Time,

“Rape, summary executions, slavery and mass imprisonment are among the horrors the North Korean regime routinely inflicts upon its own population to maintain its Stalinist political system, claims a searing new report by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council…………. According to an advanced outline leaked to the Associated Press, the U.N.’s Commission of Inquiry (COI) says Kim Jong Un’s government is involved in “extermination, crimes against humanity against starving populations and a widespread campaign of abductions of individuals in South Korea and Japan.”

And where’s the World Court? Nowhere as far as I can tell, since they’re wasting their time attempting to find Israel guilty of crimes against humanity for having the temerity to defend themselves against terrorist attacks.

But, in spite of all this suffering, Kim Jong Un is obscenely living it up on expensive imported luxury goods, just like his father and grandfather. So, where does all this money come from for such a life style?

Ben Franklins!

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

"The Federal Reserve on Tuesday began circulating a redesign of a US currency note that may be the most counterfeited monetary unit in the world: the $100 bill. Graced with Mr. Franklin’s bemused gaze on one side and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on the other, the bill is the first new version of the C-note to be distributed by US monetary administrators in a decade" ………."The new design incorporates security features that make it easier to authenticate, but harder to replicate………”

And why? The article goes on saying:

"North Korean forging prowess is so advanced that US law enforcement officials have dubbed the fake, “nearly perfect” $100 bills “supernotes.” According to a 2009 Congressional Research Service report, at least $45 million in supernotes of North Korean origin have been detected in circulation, and Pyongyang may earn between $15 million and $25 million a year from counterfeiting. North Korean diplomats often play roles in getting fake bills into circulation, lugging suitcases packed with bad money to their home embassies, then spending the bills in small, innocuous amounts in stores, casinos, restaurants, or elsewhere……….According to the Korean newspaper The Chosun Ilbo, one North Korean embassy in Eastern Europe generated US$30 million by exchanging counterfeit notes a year."

Apparently money isn't all they counterfeit:

“North Korea is unique in that it is the only country in the world to manufacture cigarettes, drugs like Viagra, hard currency; this is an essential instrument of regime preservation……..The regime relies on criminal activities, because it has no other means for generating revenue”.

Socialist all claim they care about people offering all sorts of remedies to fix things that aren’t broken.  They promise utopia and consistently fail.  What they're successful at delivering is corruption, incompetence, tyranny, misery, suffering and early death. It's dystopia, the opposite of utopia.  They're not offering equal opportunities, they're offering equal outcomes. Everyone except the elite suffer equally. 

All this because of one man who has the power to decide life and death.  Kim Jong Un! 

The left hates MAGA, Make America Great Again, hats symbolizing conservative thinking and goals.  But what kind of hat could the left adopt that would symbolized who and what they are?  How's this:

• MANK - Make America North Korea
• MAV, Make America Venezuela
• MAC, Make America Cuba. 

Take your pick, just like these leftist candidates, they're pretty much interchangeable, because that's what all these socialists running for President of the United States desire.  Absolute power to decide life and death.  As David Horowitz says, "

"Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out.  The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator." 

Perhaps you don't think Bernie Sanders believes that?  Well, you should, since one his own staff has stated that's what they wish to impose on any who oppose them.  In effect letting Americans know either do what we want, or we'll beat you, kill you, burn your property and run riot over society.  Does that sound like normal American politics, or leftist fascism? 

Bernie, has yet to act on it or fire the staff member who spouted his criminal intent for violence against Americans!  Why?  It appears his staff is filled with people completely in harmony with the violence and brutality described in the video.  This is the typical kind of projection constantly practiced by the left; fascists calling normal people fascists, and accusing them of what they are doing themselves. 

Nor, as far as I can tell, has any of his fellow Democrat candidates disavowed these comments or condemned the staffer who uttered them.  Are their staffs infested with the same kind of lunatics also? 

Finally, we need to get this right once and for all.  Fascism is a form of socialism.  Fascism is the right wing of socialism as communism is the left wing of socialism, two sides of the same coin.  But they're both left wing creations.  They are not conservatives.  They are not the right wing of Democracy in America.  That belongs to conservatives who believe in the rule of law, truth, justice and the American way.  Please view, The Fascist Roots Behind Today's Justification of Political Violence by Doug Petrikat, which appeared yesterday at American Thinker.

Democrats running for President of the United States, along with their allies in the media and universities that promote leftism, are the true fascists of American politics.  And in spite of all the atrocities, disasters, and abject failures of socialism, 40 % of American embrace some form of socialism. 

There are even people in Russia who declare that Stalin really didn't kill all those people. I guess Hitler didn't kill all those Jews either.  In so many socialist tyrannies that seems to be a recurring theme. So many bodies turning up in mass graves no one killed.

H.L. Mencken was right when he said: “No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

Is Trump Luring Kim and Xi into a Death Trap?

October 12, 2019 By Robert Arvay

One of the Machiavellian principles of power, at least inferred, is that dictators must surround themselves with their enemies. This sounds illogical, but it's true. Mafia bosses must surround themselves with a protective layer of brutal, murderous thugs, who will willingly carry out orders to kill potential enemies. Yet how many mafia bosses have been murdered by their own supposed protectors?

A dictatorship is nothing more than an organized crime mob on steroids. The head of state must brutally suppress (read: murder) anyone and everyone who poses even a remote threat to his power. Dictators do not get voted out of office. They get carried out, feet first.

Kim Jong-un, the dictator of North Korea (the title of chairman is a euphemism), is exceedingly paranoid. Paranoia in a dictator is not a disorder; it is a necessary survival mechanism. Kim not only murders anyone and everyone whom he even suspects of disloyalty, but takes nonlethal measures as well. He even takes his own toilet with him wherever he travels, in order to prevent his DNA from falling into the hands of analysts who might deduce his physical infirmities........

Trump is using this fact to maneuver Xi into acceding to American demands regarding trade fairness. This places Xi on the horns of a dilemma............The same applies to Kim, but in spades..........to have Trump immediately reject Kim's request — and leave Hanoi, with Kim standing empty-handed at the altar............they live in terror of him, but not panic.

What other American president (other than, arguably, Ronald Reagan) has ever disabled our enemies so quickly, and without firing a shot? What future president ever will? To Read More.......

Feel the Bern: Another North Korean Nightmare.

By Rich Kozlovich

On July 18, 2019 Josh Smith posted an article with Reuters entitled, Malnutrition, disease rising in North Korea: aid organization, saying:

"Rates of malnutrition and disease are increasing in North Korea as it faces a harvest that is half of what was expected, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Thursday."

As a result of “erratic weather with drought and floods, and a lack of access to resources could lead to a food crisis in a country”.

Let's take a moment and think about this.  If weather is the reason for their crop failures, why isn't South Korea facing the same problem?

Why is there a lack of access to resources? Well, I guess that makes it our fault....right?  Because N. Korea is “under strict international sanctions over leader Kim Jong Un’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.”

It isn’t because of corruption of the N. Korean government. It isn’t because of the incompetence, greed and stupidity of those in power. It isn’t due to an economic system that has never failed to deliver anything except suffering, misery, disease, starvation and early death.  It isn't because they keep threatening the world with missiles and nuclear weapons.  By implication - it’s our fault because the sanctions caused “widening trade deficits, foreign currency shortages and a deepening cash crunch”.

Well, isn’t that what sanctions are supposed to do?

Unfortunately, “rates of malnutrition and water borne diseases like diarrhea and colitis are on the rise”. Furthermore, “North Korea is expected to exhaust its crop reserves earlier than usual this year”.

This isn't anything new for North Koreans. "In the 1990s, a nationwide famine killed as many as one million people.” In 2014 this was a nation of 25 million people, and in 1990 the population may have initially been larger since in the mid nineties North Korean birth rate dropped about 50%.  Based on the 25 million number, the million people who starved to death amounts to about 4% of N. Korea's population.  To get the full impact of that we have to realize if that happened in America that would amount to 12,400,000 people starving to death.  A national human disaster by any calculation. 

To expand on this please note that almost 5% of the North Korean population is serving in the military.  That's close to 1.3 million people in a nation of 25 million people!  How can any nation justify that kind of military spending when the people of the nation are starving? 

The United States has a population of over 325 million people and only has "1.3 million men and women on active duty," and "another 1.1 million serve in the National Guard and Reserve forces." That comes to just a little over 2.4 million people.  Approximately .75%.  If you add in civilian employees, which I doubt North Korean figures do, that's another 669,281 coming to just under 1%.  And America has been actively involved in military action for decades. 

What war is Kim fighting?  Well, actually the Korean War.  It never ended with a treaty, just an armistice.  So Kim keeps telling his people they have to suffer in order to keep the United States and South Korea from conquering them.  Wouldn't that be terrible with starvation and oppression ending.  Of course the people are left in the dark about that by a lunatic who not only kills his own people, he kills his own family. 

The world is now producing food in such quantities there's absolutely no reason why any nation should have starvation.  How could any national leader allow that to happen when the world's food supply is so amazingly abundant unless he's insane. 

What has Kim Jong Un and his cutthroats done to keep this from happening again?   He and his gang continue “to import millions of dollars worth of luxury goods, including at least two armored limousines valued at $500,000 each”.  All for their own benefit without one iota of concern about the poor suffering North Korean people.

It’s reported:

“South Korea will donate $4.5 million to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), and announced it was also providing 50,000 tonnes of rice for delivery to its northern neighbor. South Korea also recently donated $3.5 million to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for humanitarian projects in North Korea.”

First of all, I have to wonder how much of that will really get to the people.  N. Korea has in the past imposed a "military first" policy for food and allowed the civilian population to starve.  A population divided into three castes based on loyalty to the regime.  About 25% are in the third caste, which are considered a threat to the regime, and make no mistake about it, they starve.  Secondly, what did South Korea get in return for their generosity and humanity? Kim just recently announced his bankrupt starving country might start testing missiles again.

He can’t find the money to feed his people but he can find the money for luxuries and missile testing?

So he threatens to double down on the activity that caused sanctions and the resulting suffering in the first place.  Why?  I have to believe this is an attempt to intimidate the west into giving him money and food for his starving people. Which will free up money - money he doesn't really have - to promote insanity.  Why insanity?  Because if he ever used any of those missiles with a nuclear device, he and his nation would cease to exist in 24 hours. 

But what about the starving people of his nation? 

He clearly doesn't care about them.  If you're a moral person you have to feel for the pain, suffering and the terrible impact this will have on the people of this nation.  Especially the children. Even if they survive, malnutrition during those development years impacts them negatively for the rest of their lives.

What should be done? 

One thing has been made clear to me over the years is governments like N. Korea, with the Kims, Venezuela with Muduro, Zimbabwe with Mugabe for decades, and others, devastate their citizens to the point it seems impossible for them to rid themselves of these monsters.  And in the cases where outside forces cleared them out and attempted to bring Democratic principles into play, they vote in the same kind of people that devasted them, which we've seen in Muslim controlled nations. 

If we provide medical care and food for these people it merely helps keep the monsters running these countries in power, prolonging the misery and agony they impose.   If we refuse to aid them innocent people suffer and die now.  Either way, these nations represent no threat to the rest of the world because of the greed, corruption and mismanagement of their governments.  North Korea is the exception.  They represent a danger to their neighbors and even the United States because of their missile and nuclear programs, which would have never come into being except for Jimmy Carter and the Clintons.

That, in my opinion, leaves only the military, and not the senior military personnel.  The younger members at the next level down is where any overthrow would have to come from. Is that possible?  No one has any idea, and no one has connections in North Korea to tell anyone, at least as far as has been published, but who knows, except there's a possibility either China or Russia could have access to personnel in N. Korea who they would support in secret.  But they won't!

What would I do? 

Let it all play out no matter how miserable it would make me feel. Stand firm and expand the sanctions.  Prevent their ability to import "luxuries", including food.  Let the leadership survive on what the nation produces and hope someone has what it takes to overthrown the Kim dynasty.  But will they be any better? 

Sometimes you don't have the privilege of being able to pick between a good choice and a bad choice.  Sometimes you're only left with the best bad choice. 

If doubt what I've said please feel free to peruse my N. Korea files, and you may find my article, N. Korean Crisis: Will This Lead to WWIII? profound and provocative. 

The American Retreat, Part III: the Korean Peninsula

By Peter Zeihan on July 5, 2019 @ Zeihan on Geopolitics

(Editor's Note:  There are statements here with which I seriously disagree, and I think some of this is being overstated, but the overall article is enlightening and I want to make sure to run the entire series.  I think Peter Zeihan is brilliant, but he's on the left, and he admits it. I think that clouds some of his views.  You may make up your own mind. RK

Join our mailing list

Visit the archives to re-read and share

Not one to collect moss, Donald Trump shot directly from the G20 summit to South Korea July 1 where he nearly skipped the pro-forma niceties with the South Koreans for a tete-a-tete with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Not only did the meeting happen in the DMZ itself, Trump became the first sitting American leader ever to cross into North Korean territory proper. The bulk of the talking heads in the American foreign policy community had a series of minor strokes at the sort of friendly PR Trump laid out for a guy who remains one of the most violently repressive leaders on the planet. They’ve got a point.

In (partial) contrast, I’m one of the people who was cautiously optimistic when the White House announced Trump would be meeting face-to-face with Kim both last year and this week. My feelings are less because I had high confidence in Trump personally or the new approach of engagement in general, and more because nothing else in the past seventy years had worked so why not try something new?

There were two things about the American-NorK summit that caught my eye.

First, personnel.

Trump is a bit hard on his staff. He’s impulsive, rude, belittling, and he becomes supremely bored and more than a bit aggroed when folks start presenting him with… information. He particularly loathes the sorts of details that accompany a contextual briefing. (I’m certain he would despise my work, for example.)

His cabinet, therefore, tends to fall into four general buckets. First, the blindingly incompetent (think HUD Secretary Ben Carson). Second, the sycophants (think Secretary of State Mike Pompeo). Third, those in charge of departments Trump just doesn’t care about (think Education Secretary Betsy DeVos). And fourth, those precious few who know how to say just the right thing to their boss so he gives them real leeway on real issues.

Of this last category only two staffers remain. The first is U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. This newsletter is about harder security issues than are on Lighthizer’s remit, but if you’d like a bit of refresher you can review my thoughts on the current USTR here and here.

The second is National Security Advisor John Bolton.

When I read about how many people dislike John Bolton, I’m reminded a bit about Ronald Reagan – even those who hated Reagan’s policies admitted Reagan was pretty damned effective at getting his way. John Bolton is capable and competent in that vein and he lives and breathes all things foreign policy. Which most certainly does not mean he is an easy man to work with. Most who have had the dubious pleasure would never call him a prick because that would insult pricks everywhere. He is brash, aggressive, rude, and has little regard for things like diplomacy, tradition, alliances, institutions, or human rights. (Which come to think of it, is probably why he’s lasted as long on TeamTrump as he has.)

Two of Bolton’s pet projects are that he believes the Iranian and North Korean governments should be overthrown, preferably by force. And as the National Security Advisor he has the ability to shout that into Trump’s face (Bolton’s not the ear-whispering type) at every opportunity.

He’s had lots of opportunities of late.

Relations with Iran have been getting steadily sharper for months, what with the Americans laying on the sanctions thick while the Iranians have once again spun-up their nuclear program. Similarly, relations with North Korea aren’t exactly peachy, what with the North Koreans continuing to proceed with their own nuclear program in violation of clear American preferences. Bolton has repeatedly and forcefully advised Trump that the best counter to the Iranian and NorK positions involves ammunition.

Bolton has not gotten his way. A few days ago the Iranians shot down a large American surveillance drone. Bolton led the charge within the administration to retaliate with strikes on Iranian military facilities. Trump called off the strikes at the last minute.

But it is on North Korea that issues are proceeding in a new direction. Trump didn’t even let Bolton tag along to a summit with a foreign leader. Instead Trump sent Bolton off elsewhere.

It is one thing to overrule an advisor. After all, Trump is the president and it is his prerogative that matters, not Bolton’s. But to banish the only competent foreign policy hand in your administration to literally Mongolia (seriously folks, I cannot make this shit up!) is something entirely different.

 

 

I’ve never been worried that Trump would start a war. Despite his trademark fire-breathing rhetoric, Trump has time and time again shown that upon reflection he’d rather de-escalate hostilities. But no matter what I feel about Bolton personally or professionally, I think it is an eminently good idea for at least one person in an administration to be able to locate Canada on a map. It appears Trump may be ushering out that one person.

The second issue is more… wishy washy, but has far grander implications than any mere personnel shift.
  
Even if Trump believes and trusts everything Kim says and Kim believes and trusts everything Trump says, the straight-up denuclearization of North Korea was never really on the table. North Korea lives in a tough neighborhood. Prickly (nuclear-armed) Russia to the north, nationalist (nuclear-armed) China to the west. Resurging (nuclear-capable-in-a-long-weekend) Japan to the east. And anxious (nuclear-capable-in-a-month) South Korea to the south. For the North Koreans these days, the American strategic preferences as regards the Korean Peninsula isn’t much more than a supportive footnote further justifying a program already viewed as core to national survival.

That seems to be reflected in Trump’s Korea policy. If the Americans are to step back from the world writ large, it is impossible for them to continue keeping the five-way strategic competition among Taiwan, China, South Korea, North Korea and Japan locked in ice much longer. There is something to be said for establishing a regional balance of power …and then simply leaving. To that end the handshake “deal” struck at the first Trump-Kim summit last year appeared to be that North Korea could keep their nukes so long as they forgo the developing of an intercontinental missile system. Put bluntly, North Korea’s nuclear program was being drop-kicked from being America’s problem to North Korea’s neighbors’. Kind of a dick move, but hey, geopolitics isn’t often about hand-holding. 

 

The problem with this strategy – and the reason I’m hesitant to put my personal stamp of approval on it – is what happens next? Any Korean Peninsula without active American involvement is one in which the South Koreans have no choice but to go nuclear (just as any East Asia without American involvement is one in which both the Japanese and Taiwanese have no choice but to go nuclear.)

The American retreat will unlock a series of regional grievances that have been on hold for decades, but with the technologies of the now. An Asia without America is going to be a bit of a free-for-all, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t emerge on top.

My bet is entirely on Japan. The Japanese economy is the only one (aside from North Korea) that is not dependent upon international stability for its functioning. Put simply, everyone in Asia faces challenges as the world’s economic and strategic norms disintegrate, but for Northeast Asia, Japan’s challenges are the least extreme and Japan’s capabilities are the most advanced.

Fast forward less than a decade and Japan emerges from the post-Order maelstrom as Asia’s first power.

At that point Japan will not only have broken Chinese power, but will have massively added to what is already the world’s second-most capable expeditionary navy and it will be nuclear armed. A future America-Japanese dust-up is not inevitable, but history (strongly) suggests the future’s two most powerful naval forces will stumble across a few spots in the Greater Pacific where they rub each other the wrong way.

I’m fully willing to admit that the current East Asian balance of power is far from sustainable, but that hardly means I’m looking forward a Japanese-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere with a nuclear chaser.

                                

BOOK PETER FOR YOUR NEXT EVENT

BUY A SIGNED COPY OF THE ABSENT SUPERPOWER