| | | | It's Not Just the Nukes, Stupid | | The focus on North Korea's nuclear program—and how to neutralize the threat—is understandable. But even with his aging military hardware, Kim Jong Un can still hold Seoul—and the US—hostage, suggests Kent Harrington for Reuters.
"To be sure, North Korea's artillery and armor aren't invulnerable. Precision weapons and airpower would take their toll, as would the US ability to transport soldiers and equipment to sustain the allies' campaign. But even with dated hardware and an army strapped by the North's sorry economic state, no US commander would underestimate the costs of neutralizing its firepower, or the devastation likely from the fight," Harrington writes.
"A strictly military calculus also misses the strategic point: even without nuclear weapons, the North Korean army holds Seoul hostage. With the vast majority the North's nearly 14,000 long-range guns and rockets near the DMZ, Seoul's metropolitan area is well within range of the forward-deployed artillery."
| | The Iran Deal Is All About Kim | | | President Trump's decision to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal wasn't just about reining in Tehran's ambitions, suggests Tod Lindberg in the Wall Street Journal. It was about getting serious with North Korea, too.
"Trump campaigned against the Iran deal not in principle, but because he saw its terms as bad for the US. Even if you disagree, taking his criticism seriously shows why the high-stakes negotiations with North Korea all but required Mr. Trump to dump the Iran deal," Lindberg writes.
"If he had kept it in place notwithstanding his power to withdraw, Mr. Kim could seize on its provisions as the starting point for the coming negotiations. Why would Mr. Kim accept a worse deal for North Korea than what Iran had obtained? Leaving one bad deal still active would have established the precedent for another bad deal."
"What would the public think if a North Korea deal allowed Pyongyang to resume its nuclear program after 15 years? And included inspection procedures that were inadequate to verify compliance? And stood silent on North Korea's rapidly advancing ballistic-missile program? And provided Mr. Kim with billions of dollars upfront in sanctions relief and other assistance? That would be a dubious deal by any light, and would certainly be bad by Mr. Trump's terms." | | Why Less Babies = More Populism | | | Of all the factors driving the rise of populism—in the US and internationally—there is one that is too often overlooked, write Philip Auerswald and Joon Yun: Declining populations.
"In the world's largest cities, where populations are densely concentrated and growing, economies are generally thriving and cosmopolitanism is embraced. Where populations are sparse or shrinking, usually in rural places and small cities, economies are often stagnant, and populism sells," they write in The New York Times.
"Why does it hold such appeal in these places? Nativist, nationalist rhetoric—'Make America (or Whatever Other Country) Great Again'—appeals because it promises to restore the rightful economic and cultural stature of 'common people' in relation to a decadent urban intelligentsia. In Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Thailand and Turkey, populism has been fed by the juxtaposition of rural population and economic decline against the growth and increasing prosperity of the largest cities." | | Forget the Libya Model. This Is How to Do It… | | You've likely heard of the Libyan model for denuclearizing North Korea—and why Kim Jong Un fears ending up like Moammar Gadhafi if his country follows suit. But there's another model that's far more appropriate for a country that, unlike Libya, is already in possession of nukes, writes Terence McNamee for Foreign Policy.
"For all the talk of the 'Libya model,' it is worth recalling that Tripoli was five to 10 years away from building its first bomb when Moammar Gadhafi abandoned its program. Getting rid of fully built and functional nuclear weapons, as [then-South African President F.W.] de Klerk did, is another thing entirely. North Korea is currently estimated to have 60 working weapons," McNamee writes.
"De Klerk's order to kill the program stunned defense officials. No one had ever discussed or considered dismantlement. The risks involved were monumental. Symbolically, if not practically, nuclear weapons were viewed as the ultimate guarantor of white dominance in South Africa […] A violent backlash, some say a military coup, was narrowly avoided."
| | How America Is Hurting Its Spies | | The President and his allies' insinuations about spies within the FBI—and the unmasking this week of a confidential source—aren't only attacks on America's political norms. They are hobbling its intelligence agencies' ability to keep the country safe, writes John Sipher for Lawfare.
"Intelligence officers leverage their personal relationships and seek to offer potential sources some form of assistance to make their willingness to engage in dangerous behavior more palatable. They also benefit by the credibility of the United States and what it stands for. However, the personal trust and professionalism of US intelligence officers is of little value if potential sources fear that their identities could become known due [to] the reckless and cruel political climate in Washington," Sipher writes.
"These actions will damage [...] the United States' ability to collect secret intelligence, protect itself from foreign spies and work with foreign partners—they break the trust necessary for intelligence officers and diplomats to do their work. Who would want to talk to the United States after this? If the leaders of the United States don't trust their own law enforcement and intelligence agencies, why should anyone else?"
| | Trump Is Turning America Into Japan | | President Trump's rhetoric about China sounds remarkably like his earlier criticisms of Japan. But the fixation on Beijing—and some solutions pulled right out of the 1980s—risk turning America into his former nemesis, suggests William Pesek for Politico EU.
"Becoming more like Japan might not sound so bad on the surface. With some of the highest living standards anywhere, ultralow crime, top-rate infrastructure and humankind's longest lifespans, the country hardly seems a cautionary tale. Japan's economy, though, is another story," Pesek writes.
"[A]s Trump girds for economic battle with China, he is making many of the same mistakes Japan made in the mid-1980s, leading to its current stagnation. Rather than opening the economy, embracing new ideas and technologies, and welcoming competition, Trump has pushed protectionist gimmicks, currency manipulation and tax cuts aimed at the 1 percent—an approach that risks walling off the United States from a global economy racing forward." | | | | | | |
