President Trump announced that the United States would stop flying bombers over South Korea and suspend exercises there to facilitate diplomatic negotiations with North Korea. This echoes President Johnson’s March 1968 decision to halt the bombing of most of North Vietnam, also done to encourage negotiations. In 1968 the effort succeeded, at least in the short… Keep reading →

“This is an opportunity to hold their feet to the fire and see if North Korea is serious about this,” Rep. Thornberry said. “If they’re not serious, then it’s pretty easy to say those joint exercises that were scheduled for August are now going to happen in September or October.”

“I’ve never agreed with 100% of what this president says off the cuff like that,” Perdue said. The pledge to end exercises — deemed critical to allied military readiness — was not mentioned in the official joint statement, he noted, and therefore isn’t a binding commitment, only an expression of presidential intent predicated on continued cooperation from Pyongyang.

The Trump Pentagon is undergoing a major shift to focus on great power competition. And it’s looking for allies to step up in places that might come as a surprise.

WASHINGTON: There’s a new admiral in charge at the renamed Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Philip Davidson. Davidson, as we’ve noted, has relatively little firsthand experience with the peoples and region over which he will now command 60 percent of the US Navy fleet, along with substantial Marine, Army and Air Force assets throughout the region. Davidson, as… Keep reading →

HONOLULU: As Seoul residents awaken to the whoomp, whoomp of the first North Korean shells and air raid sirens wail, millions pour from their apartments to the street, desperate for the shelter of the city’s 1,500 miles of deep tunnels. Some stream to the city’s rivers, hoping to head south. North Korean special operations troops,… Keep reading →

HONOLULU:  More than 3.5 million Americans and South Koreans could be casualties should North Korea attack Camp Humphrey, the huge American military base. The camp, thought to be the most likely target for a North Korean nuclear weapon should war occur, is south of the South Korean capital, Seoul, but if Kim Jong Un used… Keep reading →

Figure 1: Launch of a Yemeni Burkan 2-H missile on December 19th 2017. DEN HELDER, Netherlands: The Saudi and US governments have accused Iran of manufacturing ballistic missile used in attacks by Houthis against targets in Saudi Arabia. The longest-ranged flights reached Riyadh, a distance of roughly 950 km, with a missile called the Burkan 2-H… Keep reading →

Pentagon planners aren’t only worried about North Korean ICBMs, but Chinese hypersonics and medium-range missiles. That means, according to analysts, that an array of distributed systems are needed to meet a wide range of potential threats.

While a Trump-Kim summit is a victory for South Korean diplomacy and the policy of maximum pressure, it is also a tremendous victory for Kim Jong Un, and this must be recognized.