North Korea Launches Suspected Cruise Missiles
Timothy W. Martin | Wall Street Journal
North Korea launched two suspected cruise missiles on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, in what would be the Kim Jong Un regime’s fifth weapons test of the month. The missiles were believed to be launched from an unspecified inland location, South Korea’s military said, without providing further details. North Korea’s state media didn’t immediately comment. Cruise-missile launches aren’t covered by United Nations Security Council resolutions that govern Pyongyang’s weapons activity. The resolutions pertain to tests of North Korea’s ballistic missiles, which are initially rocket powered. That provides a lofty trajectory that can give a weapon intercontinental reach, versus cruise missiles, which are typically jet-engine propelled, flying at much lower altitudes and traveling shorter distances in general.
Differences Splinter U.S. Team Negotiating With Iran on Nuclear Deal
Laurence Norman | Wall Street Journal
With talks to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran reaching a critical phase, differences have emerged in the U.S. negotiating team over how tough to be with Tehran and when to walk away, according to people familiar with the negotiations. U.S. officials confirmed over the weekend that Richard Nephew, the deputy special envoy for Iran, has left the team. Mr. Nephew, an architect of previous economic sanctions on Iran, had advocated a tougher posture in the current negotiations, and he hasn’t attended the talks in Vienna since early December. Two other members of the team, which is led by State Department veteran Robert Malley, have stepped back from the talks, the people familiar said, because they also wanted a harder negotiating stance.
THAAD, in First Operational Use, Destroys Midrange Ballistic Missile in Houthi Attack
Jen Judson and Joe Gould | Defense News
A multibillion-dollar missile defense system owned by the United Arab Emirates and developed by the U.S. military intercepted a ballistic missile on Monday during a deadly attack by Houthi militants in Abu Dhabi, marking the system’s first known use in a military operation, Defense News has learned. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, made by Lockheed Martin, took out the midrange ballistic missile used to attack an Emirati oil facility near Al-Dhafra Air Base, according to two sources granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak about the UAE’s activities. The Emirati base hosts U.S. and French forces.
Iran Signals Willingness to Engage Directly With US on Deal
Associated Press
Iran on Monday signaled a willingness to engage directly with the United States in ongoing discussions over the nuclear deal with world powers if it is necessary to reach a good agreement, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. In 2018, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, banned any negotiations with the U.S. saying negotiations with the U.S. would harm Iran. Earlier this month, however, Khamenei indirectly gave the green light to the Iranian negotiation team to talk with the U.S. and said negotiating and interacting with the enemy does not mean surrender.
Debris From Russian Missile Test Nearly Strikes a Chinese Satellite
Kristin Fisher | CNN
A piece of debris created by Russia’s recent anti-satellite test came within striking distance of a Chinese satellite Tuesday, in an encounter the Chinese government has called “extremely dangerous.” The Russian debris came as close as 14.5 meters (approximately 48 feet) from the satellite, according to the Space Debris Monitoring and Application Center of the China National Space Administration. If a collision did occur, it could've caused a “hypersonic shockwave,” said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who explained “it came close enough that it easily could have hit.”
Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile
Blake Stilwell | Military.com
Situated just 20 miles from Seattle, Naval Base Kitsap houses America's most powerful and secret deterrents, a weapon that is the first line of defense for U.S. national security: U.S. Navy dolphins. Since 1967, the Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions (and probably other marine life) for military applications such as mine clearing, force protection and recovery missions. The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program deployed military dolphins as early as the Vietnam War and as recently as the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.