Trump Would be ‘Very Disappointed’ in Kim if North Korea Rebuilding Rocket Sit
Jeff Mason and David Brunnstrom | Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would be very disappointed in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if reports about rebuilding at a rocket launch site in North Korea were true. Two U.S. think tanks and South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday that work was underway to restore part of North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station even as Trump met with Kim at a second summit in Hanoi last week. “I would be very disappointed if that were happening,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, when asked if North Korea was breaking a promise.
After the Hanoi Summit, North Korea Experts Propose a New Strategy: Contain the Threat, Encourage Change
Simon Denyer | Washington Post
North Korea is not about to surrender its nuclear weapons, because the regime considers them essential to its survival. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cannot be starved into submission, and sanctions will only make him more hostile and unpredictable. Those views, shared by many North Korea experts, are reflected in a report released Thursday that recommends upending decades of unrealistic and inconsistent American policymaking in favor of a strategy that can be broadly summarized as contain, engage and transform: Reduce the security threat by capping North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and preventing proliferation, engage diplomatically with allies and Pyongyang on subjects as varied as humanitarian aid and prison camps, and encourage the transformation of North Korea from within.
S. Korea, U.S. Vow Close Coordination on N. Korea Amid Concern About Rift
Lee Chi-dong | Yonhap News Agency
The top nuclear envoys of South Korea and the United States have agreed to continue close consultations on North Korea, Seoul's foreign ministry said Thursday amid news reports of a possibly budding rift between the allies in the tumultuous denuclearization process. The two sides agreed that, "The current moment is a very sensitive period for progress in North Korea-U.S. dialogue, going forward," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. It was summing up the results of emergency talks between Lee Do-hoon, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and his American counterpart, Stephen Biegun, in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday (local time).
U.S. Doesn’t Yet Have a Plan to Prevent Russia From Building More Missiles as Treaty Collapses, Top General Says
Paul Sonne | Washington Post
The top American general in Europe said the U.S. military does not yet have a plan to prevent Russia from building more nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles once a treaty between Washington and Moscow banning the rockets ends in five months. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the United States and its allies were still looking at options after the Trump administration withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on Feb. 1, triggering a six-month period before its formal dissolution. “We in fact have told our allies in NATO that we will do this planning in collaboration with them. We have begun that. So, I don’t know that we have a plan today,” said Scaparrotti, supreme allied commander for Europe and head of the U.S. European Command. “I know that we are working on what we think that plan might be.”
DARPA Inks a Contract for Hypersonic Weapon Research
David Larter | C4ISRNET
Raytheon has inked a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to work on its hypersonic tactical boost glide weapon. The contract, worth $63.3 million, is part of an Air Force effort and includes a critical design review, according to a March 5 press release from Raytheon. The weapon will use a rocket to get to hypersonic speed — in excess of Mach 5, or nearly 4,000 miles per hour — where the payload will separate and glide unpowered the rest of the way to the target. The system can be maneuvered in flight but will no longer accelerate.
The India-Pakistan Crisis is More Dangerous Than Ever
Srinath Raghavan | Carnegie India
India and Pakistan have fought four wars, of which three—in 1947–1948, 1965, and 1999—have centered on the territorial dispute over Jammu and Kashmir. The other conflict, in 1971, was triggered by the secessionist struggle in Bangladesh. The current crisis was sparked by the largest-ever terrorist attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir. On February 14, 2019, the Pakistan-based outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) killed over forty Indian paramilitary personnel in Pulwama. The Indian government responded with an air strike on a JeM camp in Balakot, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The following day, the Pakistani government hit back with an air strike, resulting in aerial combat that led to the downing of an Indian aircraft and the capture of its pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. India has claimed that its air force shot down a Pakistani F-16 as well. On March 1, the Pakistani government returned the pilot to India as a “gesture of peace,” which appears to have calmed the situation for now.