Iran Threat Debate Is Set Off by Images of Missiles at Sea
Julian Barnes, Eric Schmitt, Nicholas Fandos, and Edward Wong | New York Times
The intelligence that caused the White House to escalate its warnings about a threat from Iran came from photographs of missiles on small boats in the Persian Gulf that were put on board by Iranian paramilitary forces, three American officials said. Overhead imagery showed fully assembled missiles, stoking fears that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps would fire them at United States naval ships. Additional pieces of intelligence picked up threats against commercial shipping and potential attacks by Arab militias with Iran ties on American troops in Iraq. But just how alarmed the Trump administration should be over the new intelligence is a subject of fierce debate among the White House, the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and America’s allies.
Trump, Frustrated by Advisers, is Not Convinced the Time is Right to Attack Iran
John Hudson, Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey, and Anne Gearan | Washington Post
The Trump administration has been on high alert in response to what military and intelligence officials have deemed specific and credible threats from Iran against U.S. personnel in the Middle East. But President Trump is frustrated with some of his top advisers, who he thinks could rush the United States into a military confrontation with Iran and shatter his long-standing pledge to withdraw from costly foreign wars, according to several U.S. officials. Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving tensions and wants to speak directly with Iran’s leaders. Disagreements over assessing and responding to the recent intelligence — which includes a directive from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that some American officials interpret as a threat to U.S. personnel in the Middle East — are also fraying alliances with foreign allies, according to multiple officials in the United States and Europe.
U.S. Officials Say New North Korean Missile Appears Aimed at Evading U.S. Defenses
Daivd Cloud | Los Angeles Times
A newly tested North Korean short-range ballistic missile appears to be a copy of an advanced Russian design that could greatly improve Pyongyang’s ability to evade U.S. missile defense systems, according to U.S. officials. President Trump, who has sought unsuccessfully for the last year to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons, has dismissed the new missile as “very standard stuff.” But military and national security officials see a potential threat to U.S. forces and allies in northeast Asia.
Why North Korea is Testing Missiles Again
Ankit Panda and Vipin Narang | Foreign Affairs
After 522 days without a ballistic missile test, North Korea is at it again. On May 4, two months after the failed Hanoi summit, Pyongyang fired a new type of solid-fuel short range ballistic missile and tested two separate multiple rocket launch systems. Any hope that the test was a one-off evaporated just five days later, when North Korea again launched several of the new short range ballistic missiles, one of which traveled as far as 420 kilometers. Both South Korea and the United States went to great lengths to downplay the tests’ significance. To be sure, Kim hasn’t broken any promises he has made to the United States since 2018. North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on missile testing, declared explicitly in April of that year, applied only to intercontinental range ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In an interview following the May 4 test, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that the United States believes that North Korea remains in compliance, noting that the moratorium “was focused, very focused, on intercontinental missile systems, the ones that threaten the United States for sure.” Pompeo did not mention standing UN Security Council Resolutions that prohibit any ballistic missile tests by North Korea.
Senators Press U.S. Arms Control Officials on Fate of Treaties
Radio Free Europe
U.S. senators clashed with two top arms control officials over the fate of several major treaties with Russia, as President Donald Trump's administration has suspended compliance with one and is undecided about a second. The May 15 hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the question of arms control, and roiling relations between Moscow and Washington, among other issues. Senators pressed Andrea Thompson, the undersecretary of state for arms control, on whether Trump would seek to extend the New START treaty when it expires in 2021. She testified along with David Trachtenberg, one of the Defense Department's main arms control officials.
The Nuclear Weapons Sisterhood
Carol Giacomo | New York Times
In the mid-1990s, Laura Holgate, then a senior Defense Department official, was in Moscow leading a delegation to discuss ways the United States could help the Russians secure plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons. After a male Russian official gave a confusing explanation about the Kremlin’s storage plans, she sought clarification. The Russian, his voice dripping with sarcasm, offered to “put this in terms a woman would understand” and then described loading plutonium into a “cooking pot and putting a lid on it.” “I was so startled, I wasn’t really in a position to push back at that moment,” Ms. Holgate, now with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, told me in an interview. “It was incredibly disrespectful.” For women, people of color and transgender people, sexism, discrimination and harassment are often barriers to being hired, promoted or taken seriously in the national security bureaucracy — overseas and at home.