Can Trump Cut a Deal With North Korea?

On November 29, I was in Tokyo standing in front of a room full of students and professors at Waseda University giving a lecture on the challenges of nuclear disarmament. Outside the lecture hall, the sky was blue. The leaves on the trees were peak yellow and red. When the question-and-answer session following my lecture reached a lull, I said, “Let me ask you a question.” My host, seated on the stage, chuckled at my forwardness. “I woke up at four this morning because of jet lag,” I began. “I looked at the news on my phone and saw that North Korea launched another missile that could carry a nuclear weapon all the way to the United States. The missile landed in the Sea of Japan. At first I tried to avoid thinking about what it means and what I could do about it. Then I realized I was not in Washington, but in Hiroshima. This made the situation much more disturbing. My question is: You live near North Korea and your country is the only one that’s been bombed with nuclear weapons. So how do you think about what North Korea is doing?”

Even after the Cold War, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the threat of nuclear destruction receded, the world’s nuclear states continued to follow the diplomatic and behavioral norms of that era. Years of inflammatory statements by North Korea and Russia, for example, were met with comparative calm from the United States, whose responses were carefully calibrated to deter aggression. Global leaders learned to look to the United States as a voice of nuclear reassurance.

A group of 58 retired American military leaders is making a rare public plea to President Trump, urging him not to take military action against North Korea and instead to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the current standoff. As North Korea has demonstrated its increasing technical abilities, including the capacity to send a missile anywhere in the United States, Trump and some of his top aides have suggested that a military strike on North Korea might be the solution.

Pope Francis on Sunday called on world leaders to work in favor of nuclear disarmament to protect human rights, particularly those of weaker and underprivileged people. The pontiff said that there was a need to “work with determination to build a world without nuclear weapons”, speaking from the window of the papal apartment overlooking St. Peter’s Square and citing his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si (Praised Be).

The U.S. Congress will allow a deadline on reimposing sanctions on Iran to pass this week, congressional and White House aides said on Tuesday, leaving a pact between world powers and Tehran intact at least temporarily. In October, Trump declined to certify that Iran was complying with the nuclear agreement reached among Tehran, the United States and others in 2015. His decision triggered a 60-day window for Congress to decide whether to bring back sanctions on Iran.

U.S. President Donald Trump has announced his intent to nominate Lisa Gordon-Hagerty as undersecretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy, the top job for managing America’s arsenal of nuclear warheads. The job includes filling the role of administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous department within the Department of Energy. While the Defense Department manages the delivery systems of the nuclear force — ships, planes and missiles — NNSA has oversight over the development, maintenance and disposal of nuclear warheads.