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Iran Shoots Down American Drone in “Clear Message” to U.S.

IN THIS ISSUE: Iran Shoots Down American Drone in “Clear Message” to U.S., China’s Xi Says World Hopes North Korea-U.S. Talks Can Succeed, North Korea Talks in ‘Holding Pattern’ Over Key Word, U.S. Envoy Says, Leaked N. Korean Document Shows Internal Policy Against Denuclearization, Nuclear Weapons: Experts Alarmed by New Pentagon ‘War-Fighting’ Doctrine

Published on June 20, 2019

Iran Shoots Down American Drone in “Clear Message” to U.S.

CBS News

Both the U.S. and Iran said Thursday that Iranian forces had shot down an American military surveillance drone, but the two sides offered conflicting details on the incident, which is likely to further escalate already soaring tensions in the Middle East. U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News that a high altitude drone on a surveillance mission over the Strait of Hormuz was hit by an Iranian surface-to-air missile in international airspace.  Iran, however, said its elite Revolutionary Guard shot down an RQ-4 Global Hawk drone as it flew over southern Iran. Iran's Foreign Ministry issued a condemnation of the purported violation of its airspace and warned of a strong reaction to what it called a “provocative” act by the U.S. The U.S. military has denied that any of its aircraft were operating over Iran at the time, but officials confirmed to CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that an American drone was downed. President Trump tweeted on Thursday morning that Iran “made a very big mistake.” 

China’s Xi Says World Hopes North Korea-U.S. Talks Can Succeed

Ben Blanchard | Reuters

The world hopes North Korea and the United States can talk to each other and for those talks to be successful, Chinese President Xi Jinping told North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday, praising Pyongyang’s efforts toward denuclearization. Xi is visiting China’s reclusive neighbor North Korea, seeking to bolster a longtime ally hit by U.N. sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs, a week before Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump meet amid a bitter trade dispute. Xi, whose entourage includes the head of China’s state economic planner, will be in North Korea for two days, the first Chinese leader to visit in 14 years, and could bring fresh support measures for its floundering, sanctions-bound economy. Kim Jong Un and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, greeted Xi at the airport, Chinese state TV said. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, and officials who played prominent roles in recent nuclear talks with the United States were also on hand.

North Korea Talks in ‘Holding Pattern’ Over Key Word, U.S. Envoy Says

Elias Groll | Foreign Policy

A year after U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inked a historic nuclear agreement in Singapore, the two sides have still not arrived at a shared definition of the key term in the accord, “denuclearization,” Stephen Biegun, the lead U.S. negotiator, said Wednesday. The June 12, 2018, agreement committed North Korea “to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Pyongyang has historically interpreted the phrase “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” to mean broader security concessions by the United States, including U.S. troop withdrawal. But in the aftermath of the summit, U.S. officials made clear that they interpreted the phrase differently, as a commitment by North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

Leaked N. Korean Document Shows Internal Policy Against Denuclearization

Voice of America

An official North Korean document obtained by the Voice of America suggests Kim Jong Un does not intend to give up his regime’s nuclear weapons, a position that appears to contradict the Trump administration’s certainty that North Korea will denuclearize. The document is a teaching guide for instructing top military officials on Pyongyang’s official internal position prior to a second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. The document makes clear that Kim saw the meeting in Hanoi to strike “a final deal” as a means to acceptance as a “global nuclear strategic state.” Kim is quoted as saying he would use the meeting “to further consolidate nuclear power that we have created.” The Hanoi summit failed to reach a deal due to a clash of views on denuclearization and sanctions relief.

Nuclear Weapons: Experts Alarmed by New Pentagon ‘War-Fighting’ Doctrine

Julian Borger | Guardian

The Pentagon believes using nuclear weapons could “create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability”, according to a new nuclear doctrine adopted by the US joint chiefs of staff last week. The document, entitled Nuclear Operations, was published on 11 June, and was the first such doctrine paper for 14 years. Arms control experts say it marks a shift in US military thinking towards the idea of fighting and winning a nuclear war – which they believe is a highly dangerous mindset. “Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability,” the joint chiefs’ document says. “Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and create conditions that affect how commanders will prevail in conflict.” At the start of a chapter on nuclear planning and targeting, the document quotes a cold war theorist, Herman Kahn, as saying: “My guess is that nuclear weapons will be used sometime in the next hundred years, but that their use is much more likely to be small and limited than widespread and unconstrained.”

Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable. And They’re Starting a New Global Arms Race.

R. Jeffrey Smith | New York Times

On March 6, 2018, the grand ballroom at the Sphinx Club in Washington was packed with aerospace-industry executives waiting to hear from Michael D. Griffin. Weeks earlier, Secretary of Defense James Mattis named the 69-year-old Maryland native the Pentagon’s under secretary for research and engineering, a job that comes with an annual budget of more than $17 billion. The dark-suited attendees at the McAleese/Credit Suisse Defense Programs Conference were eager to learn what type of work he would favor. The audience was already familiar with Griffin, an unabashed defender of American military and political supremacy who has bragged about being labeled an “unreconstructed cold warrior.” With five master’s degrees and a doctorate in aerospace engineering, he was the chief technology officer for President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (popularly known as Star Wars), which was supposed to shield the United States against a potential Russian attack by ballistic missiles looping over the North Pole. Over the course of his career that followed, he wrote a book on space vehicle design, ran a technology incubator funded by the C.I.A., directed NASA for four years and was employed as a senior executive at a handful of aerospace firms.

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