What Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un Don’t Know About Their Own Standoff
George Perkovich | Atlantic
Despite recent attempts at conciliation, it’s getting harder to see how Trump and Kim can make the mutual accommodations necessary for diplomacy to succeed. In fact, beneath the surface, the current situation resembles the prelude to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which historical research continues to show was much more dangerous than anyone knew at the time. If the Trump-Kim summit stays canceled, and saber-rattling returns as the dominant mode of communication, the odds of military crisis will rise dramatically. And, as the Cuba experience shows, once begun, a military crisis involving nuclear weapons will almost inevitably bring lots of surprises—ones that could make the shocking twists and turns of the summit buildup look pedestrian by comparison.
North Korea Nuclear Disarmament Could Take 15 Years, Expert Warns
William J. Broad and David Sanger | New York Times
As the Trump administration races to start talks with North Korea on what it calls “rapid denuclearization,” a top federal government adviser who has repeatedly visited the North’s sprawling atomic complex is warning that the disarmament process could take far longer, up to 15 years. The adviser, Siegfried S. Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, and now a Stanford professor, argues that the best the United States can hope for is a phased denuclearization that goes after the most dangerous parts of the North’s program first.
White House Halts New North Korea Sanctions in Mad Dash to Save Summit
Vivian Salama, Andrew Jeong, and Chun Han Wong | Wall Street Journal
The United States decided to defer launching a major new sanctions push against North Korea, part of a flurry of weekend moves by both sides aimed at reviving a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The White House was prepared to announce the ramped-up sanctions regime Tuesday but decided Monday to indefinitely delay the measures while talks with North Korea about the summit proceed, a U.S. official said, citing progress in efforts to repair diplomatic relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
China Steps Up Pace in New Nuclear Arms Race with U.S. and Russia as Experts Warn of Rising Risk of Conflict
Stephen Chen | South China Morning Post
China is aggressively developing its next generation of nuclear weapons, conducting an average of five tests a month to simulate nuclear blasts, according to a major Chinese weapons research institute. Its number of simulated tests has in recent years outpaced that of the United States, which conducts them less than once a month on average. Between September 2014 and last December, China carried out around 200 laboratory experiments to simulate the extreme physics of a nuclear blast, the China Academy of Engineering Physics reported in a document released by the government earlier this year and reviewed by the South China Morning Post this month.
China and Russia Push Into Iran, Exploiting Europe’s Caution
Benoit Faucon | Wall Street Journal
Chinese and Russian state-backed companies are maneuvering to profit from European firms leaving Iran, threatening the Trump administration’s bid to raise economic pressure on Tehran. Their efforts show how Iran’s business landscape has shifted since the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear pact, which lifted crippling sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, following 17 months of rising pressure. European executives who tried to make inroads in Iran since the Obama administration struck the nuclear deal in 2015 are now concerned Beijing and Moscow will seize an insurmountable advantage in a large, growing market.
Destruction at North Korea’s Nuclear Test Site: A Review in Photos
38 North
On May 24, North Korea invited a delegation of international journalists to the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site to document the destruction of its tunnels and buildings at the facility. A preliminary review of emerging images bring some insights into North Korea’s nuclear weapons testing regime.