Pence: The United States is Ready to Talk With North Korea
Josh Rogin | Washington Post
Despite the mutual chilliness between U.S. and North Korean officials in South Korea last week, behind the scenes real progress was made toward a new diplomatic opening that could result in direct talks without preconditions between Washington and Pyongyang. This window of opportunity was born out of a new understanding reached between the White House and the president of South Korea. Vice President Pence, in an interview aboard Air Force Two on the way home from the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, told me that in his two substantive conversations with South Korean President Moon Jae-in during his trip, the United States and South Korea agreed on terms for further engagement with North Korea—first by the South Koreans and potentially with the United States soon thereafter.
Pentagon Budget Seeks Billions for Modernizing Nuclear Arsenal, Missile Defense
Rebecca Kheel | Hill
The Trump administration is requesting $24 billion for nuclear deterrence and $12.9 billion for missile defense in fiscal 2019. The requests, part of the Pentagon’s total $686 billion budget proposal released Monday, come on the heels of the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review and ahead of the release of the Ballistic Missile Defense Review. “Modernizing the nation’s nuclear delivery systems is the department’s number one priority, and these programs are fully funded in the [fiscal] 2019 budget,” the Pentagon’s budget proposal reads.
Trump: U.S. Will Cease Building Nuclear Arsenal if Other Countries Stop First
Rebecca Morin | Politico
President Donald Trump on Monday had a message for countries building their nuclear arsenals: "If they stop, we'll stop." "We're increasing arsenals of virtually every weapon," the president said during a meeting with governors and mayors. "We're modernizing and creating a brand-new nuclear force. And, frankly, we have to do because others are doing it. If they stop, we'll stop."
A Pentagon Chart Misleadingly Suggests the U.S. is Falling Behind in a Nuclear Arms Race
Glenn Kessler | Washington Post
A former colleague suggested that a chart published in the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) might be worthy of a fact check, saying it reminded him of exaggerations concerning Soviet military power during the Reagan administration. Ordinarily, a chart buried in a government report might not merit a fact check, but clearly it’s important to the administration. As shown in the quote above, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis even cited it in testimony before Congress. The chart purports to show that Russia, China and North Korea have raced ahead of the United States in developing new nuclear systems since the last NPR was released in 2010. Ironically, the chart already had caused controversy because it initially suggested that Taiwan was part of China, an embarrassing error that led the Defense Department to pull the document and fix the image of China.
North Korea's Missile Parade: A Tale of Missing Missiles
Jeffrey Lewis | National Interest
North Korea held a large military parade at 10 a.m. local time. The parade was subdued by comparison to past parades. In fact, it was not carried live on North Korean state television, but rebroadcast later. This meant that it happened in the dead of night here in the United States and is sure to be buried by the coverage of the Olympics opening in South Korea. And yet, despite an obvious effort not to make headlines, the parade itself still contained some surprises, at least if you are, like me, interested in North Korea’s growing missile capabilities.
The President and the Bomb
Richard K. Betts and Matthew C. Waxman | Foreign Affairs
In November 2017, for the first time in 41 years, the U.S. Congress held a hearing to consider changes to the president’s authority to launch nuclear weapons. Although Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, insisted that the hearing was “not specific to anybody,” Democrats used the opportunity to air concerns that President Donald Trump might stumble into nuclear war. After all, he had threatened to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea, and he subsequently boasted in a tweet about the size of the figurative “nuclear button” on his desk in the Oval Office. General C. Robert Kehler—a former head of U.S. Strategic Command, the main organization responsible for fighting a nuclear war—tried to calm senators’ fears about an irresponsible president starting such a war on a whim. He described how the existing process for authorizing the launch of nuclear weapons would “enable the president to consult with his senior advisers” and reminded the senators that officers in the chain of command are duty-bound to refuse an illegal order.