| | | | Lower Expectations for Trump and Kim | | After President Trump said he's in "no rush whatsoever" to secure North Korea's denuclearization, there's some debate as to whether such lowered expectations are a good thing, ahead of next week's Hanoi summit with Kim Jong-Un.
It's "unacceptable," the Japan Times editorializes: Even if North Korea has paused its nuclear testing (Trump's main priority, and a good thing), Kim can simply wait as the world grows accustomed to North Korea's status as a nuclear-armed state. The US might be playing a longer game, when it comes to North Korea, Huong Le Thu writes in the Nikkei Asian Review: to encourage a slow process of economic reform, similar to the path Vietnam took after America's war there. That resulted in normalized relations between Vietnam and the US, but not until decades later.
Partly for technical reasons, North Korea can't denuclearize rapidly anyway, Adam Taylor writes in The Washington Post. Better for Trump to seek a limited goal—like a roadmap to denuclearization down the line—than to reach for a grand deal and give away too much in the process. | | Legal Limbo for ISIS Fighters | | The world is still figuring out how to deal with about 850 former ISIS fighters imprisoned by Kurdish forces in Syria, and The Economist sums up the problem of what to do with them: If their home governments bring these fighters home and put them on trial, there's a risk they'll be acquitted and will walk free; deradicalization programs—an alternative to criminal trials—have had mixed results, and one program sparked a local backlash in France; and it's always easier for home governments to avoid the problem, refusing to bring back those who radicalized and left.
The case of women who left, to become "ISIS brides," brings a particularly tricky moral question, Mubaraz Ahmed writes for CNN: Should they be treated as victims, or criminals? The answer lies in the complicated details of why they left in the first place. | | | President Trump continues to rewrite the rules of international trade, and his latest move sets an unnerving precedent, the Financial Times writes: Trump has threatened to slap new tariffs on European auto exports to the US, but it's his rationale for doing so that's troubling.
Trump may deem European cars a threat to US national security, the same legal basis Trump has used to justify tariffs on steel and aluminum. By using this strategy again, Trump risks setting a dangerous precedent for trade, wherein countries can cry "national security" to do whatever they like, undermining international rules, the FT writes. The move may make things worse with European allies: The last time Trump did this, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it "insulting" that Canada was deemed a threat to US security, just for selling goods to its neighbor. | | The Opposite of the Iran Deal | | An American plan to export nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, as revealed in a House Democratic report, stands in stark contrast to President Obama's Iran nuclear deal, The New York Times hints in an editorial. Exporting nuclear technology to Iran's chief rival, Saudi Arabia, risks the latter developing nuclear weapons of its own; the result would be a Middle-East nuclear-arms race, reminiscent of India and Pakistan, which world powers sought to avoid through the Iran deal, in the first place.
And the initiative looks scandalous, the Financial Times' Edward Luce writes, alleging it smacks of self-enrichment for those involved. Whether or not that's true, House Democrats will proceed with their investigation and see what they can unearth. | | It's hard to fight a covert war when soldiers post about it on social media. That's why Russia is banning its troops from posting material on the Internet, Foreign Policy's Elias Groll and Amy Mackinnon write. From Ukraine to Syria to (reportedly) Venezuela, Russia has gained a reputation for using unofficially recognized or private forces to wage conflict; that's problematic when selfies blow their cover.
It's not just a problem for Russia: The NATO Stratcom Centre of Excellence recently reported it was able to collect sensitive information on NATO soldiers, including their locations, from social media. | | | | | | |
