A short but telling post:
Google News, Tues., 4/11/17 10:10 PM EDT.
The U.S. news cycle is very weak. Audiences have about a 7 day attention span.
Like network detective series.
One week after another.
Same formulae; different plots.
But always the same sponsors.
Buy Geico!!!
No!!! Buy Farmer’s!!!
Weak.
AG
Before celebrating the Syria shoe-drop, allow that it might be a 1-2 punch that is being thrown in Hail Mary foreign policy.
The battle group headed by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson (remember him?) is somewhere between Okinawa and the Korean peninsula. It is being joined by a number of Japanese Defense Force destroyers. (Japan since World War II does not officially have a military.) They are off to a US-Japanese-South Korean[?] regularly scheduled exercise off the coast of North Korea, supposedly training in coordinating between the ships and exchanging US and Japanese personnel at sea. The question about South Korea has to do with the recent impeachment of the South Korean (female) President. Dilma Roussef (Brazil), Park Geun-hye (South Korea)–it wasn’t a great year for female heads-of-state and their legislatures.
So we have military exercises as a distraction off the coast of North Korea (obviously political coup-counting). And a group called 38North.org asserting that North Korea is readying another nuclear test to occur on one of the upcoming political anniversaries.the birthday of Kim il-Sung and the anniversary of the founding of the DPRK. And a possible missile test as well while the US-Japan exercises are going on. In other words, 38North is catapulting the propaganda drumbeat for a strike to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons site and its missile facilities.
Now that Russiagate is back, will Trump use this occasion to assert US power in a pre-emptive strike against facilities that even China will be relieved are gone. The model for this obviously is Israeli’s Operation Opera against Iraq. (It would be interesting to know if there was actually any nuclear program going on then, but Saddam Hussein was a competent nationalist authoritarian.)
The further question since we are getting our scaries going here is whether this would be an occasion in which Trump would make a first nuclear strike on North Korea, consulting at some point with China and Russia (and other nations) about the why’s, when’s, and inevitability of the strike. Think about how many norms Trump would break with that one. And who would likely cheer along with the media. That, given the fading of the Syria SMACK, is the primary temptation facing the President right now.
From a capabilities standpoint, foreign intelligence services are likely trying to determine where US nukes are located at the moment.
Is there another shoe, and is it about to fall?
I wonder if the intent is to use this anti-missile system to shoot down any North Korean test missile?
I think a deal was made when the Xi visit to Trump’s joint.coincided with the Syria hit. N. Korea worries China too. Trump takes out the N. Korea threat by some kind of move…large, small, somewhere in between…and China’s hands remain clean.
Quid pro quo? Trade compromises down the road.
Could be…
We’ll find out, next move.
Watch.
AG
The Chines government expressed outrage at Trump doing that while meeting with Xi, but I wonder if they were really “Shocked. Shocked! To discover that gambling is going on in here!”
Or of course…the U.S. buildup off the shores of North Korea could just be a big, threatening stick to help China deal with N. Korea in a more…diplomatic…manner.
Trump’s recent tweet:
And:
Like dat.
Teddy Roosevelt:
Donald Trump:
Like dat, too.
Watch.
AG
He better be careful! “Face” is all important in Asia. What a Westerner would shrug off as trash talk is deadly insult to a Chinese or Japanese. Which the “Art of the Deal” guy should know, i.e. always let the guy you beat have a face-saving way to exit with dignity. The only opponents you insult are the ones you intend to destroy – as an example to others.
The above is basic Machiavelli. As true today as in 16th Century Italy.
That gratuitous MOAB bomb demonstration in Afghanistan, IMO, is another message to North Korea. If North Korea’s hardening of their nuclear research facilities are good enough to resist MOAB, then Trump will not hesitate to use a nuclear weapon to put them out of commission.
I sense that China is playing “good cop” at the moment trying to talk North Korea back into the IAEA at a minimum and complete denuclearization at best.
Japan has signed on with Trump’s operation with a few destroyers. Pence is going to South Korea.
The pieces are being put in place. High risk. High reward. If Trump does not pull a punch.
And that’s a big if.
A force for good in New York passed away – RIP.