The Hopes and Fears Surrounding the Second Trump-Kim Summit
Adam Taylor | Washington Post
President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are due to meet in Vietnam next week for their second summit on denuclearization. Like the first, which took place in Singapore, there will be much pomp and circumstance: The White House is already offering fans the chance to buy a commemorative coin. Trump has spoken warmly of his first summit with Kim. He has frequently claimed that Pyongyang has halted its overt testing of missiles and nuclear weapons, and he has offered glowing reviews of his relationship with the young North Korean leader. “We fell in love,” Trump said at a campaign rally in September. “He wrote me beautiful letters.” But now we are into the Vietnamese new year, and that romance looks complicated. Some analysts contend circumstances have changed too much, that if the second summit is simply a repeat of the first, it will be remembered as a failure.
A U.S.-Russia Pact Preventing Nuclear Armageddon is in Trouble
Sebastian Sprenger | Defense News
Chances are slipping for the timely extension of a landmark nuclear-weapons treaty that has successfully checked the impulses of the United States and Russia to build ever-growing atomic arsenals. That is the sobering message from last weekend’s Munich Security Conference, where the former Cold War enemies continued accusing each other of fouling the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The poisoned discourse puts into question whether that pact’s bigger sibling, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, will continue past its February 2021 expiration date, according to analysts. “The United States is mistrustful of Russia and treaty compliance after the INF experience,” Kori Schake, a deputy director-general of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Defense News. “And rightfully so.”
House Launches Probe of U.S. Nuclear Plan in Saudi Arabia
BBC News
The U.S. is rushing to transfer sensitive nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, according to a new congressional report. A Democratic-led House panel has launched an inquiry over concerns about the White House plan to build nuclear reactors across the kingdom. Whistleblowers told the panel it could destabilise the Middle East by boosting nuclear weapons proliferation. Firms linked to the president have reportedly pushed for these transfers. The House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee report notes that an inquiry into the matter is “particularly critical because the Administration's efforts to transfer sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia appear to be ongoing.”
U.S. Troop Withdrawals Aren’t on the Table for Trump’s North Korea Peace Talks – For Now
Leo Shane III | Military Times
Senior administration officials say U.S. troop withdrawals from the Korean Peninsula won’t be on the planned agenda for next week’s peace talks. Trump is scheduled to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next week for a second face-to-face summit aimed at bringing the rogue regime in line with international standards, including ending their nuclear weapons program. Whether President Donald Trump decides to add them in remains to be seen. The meeting, scheduled in Vietnam on Feb. 27-28, builds off the meeting between the two men last June and will follow the same format, according to White House officials. That means limited public visibility into the specifics of the talks, beyond what the leaders say after the fact. But in remarks at Stanford University late last month, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun said that the topic of withdrawing American forces from South Korea in exchange for denuclearization would not be on the table at the event.
Threatening U.S., Putin Promises Russians Both Missiles and Butter
Neil MacFarquhar | New York Times
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — facing an economically beleaguered, less-supportive public — used his annual state-of-the-nation speech on Wednesday to promise a raft of social spending, while also doubling down on threats against the United States. Mr. Putin said Washington was fueling a new arms race by withdrawing from a landmark nuclear weapons treaty and possibly deploying new missiles in Europe. Without mentioning any country in particular, he warned that if American missiles were deployed on the continent, within a few minutes’ flight of his country, Russia would aim its weapons at those missiles and at targets in the United States. “Russia will be forced to create and deploy new types of weapons that could be used not only against the territories where a direct threat to us comes from, but also against the territories where decision-making centers directing the use of missile systems threatening us are located,” he said. “The capability of such weapons, including the time to reach those centers, will be equivalent to the threats against Russia.”
China Rebuffs Germany’s Call for U.S. Missile Deal with Russia
Robin Emmott | Reuters
China rejected on Saturday German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s appeal to join a Cold War-era arms control treaty that the United States accuses Russia of breaching, saying it would place unfair limits on the Chinese military. Fearing a nuclear arms race between China, Russia and the United States after the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which the United States is withdrawing from, Merkel made her call for a global treaty. “Disarmament is something that concerns us all and we would of course be glad if such talks were held not just between the United States, Europe and Russia but also with China,” Merkel told the Munich Security Conference. Russia and the United States are the signatories to the 1987 INF treaty that bans land-based missiles with a range between 500 kilometers and 5,500 kilometers (300-3,400 miles) and which U.S. President Donald Trump started the six-month withdrawal from this month, blaming Russian violations.