Nuclear war

Wednesday

Richard Goldberg

Biden-Harris should help destroy Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure

Iran on Tuesday launched 180 ballistic missiles against Israel, a democracy the size of New Jersey. It was the largest escalation to date in a year-long, seven-front war waged by the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism against Israel, the United States, and global maritime shipping. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris must come to terms with the fact that this attack resulted from their own foreign policy — subsidized by billions of dollars in US sanctions relief, legitimized by strategic accommodations to Tehran, encouraged by pressure on Israel and invited by the non-stop signaling of American fear of escalation.

Monday

Tevi Troy

The Cuban Missile Crisis has become a cultural touchstone

At the beginning of 1962, President John F. Kennedy had high hopes for a peaceful year with the Soviet Union, the United States’ most dangerous adversary. On December 30, 1961, Kennedy issued a statement offering his good wishes for the new year to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet people. Ten months later, in October of 1962, the US and the Soviet Union were on the brink of war. The Soviets had moved missiles into Cuba, which initially went undetected by US intelligence. On October 14, an American U-2 spy plane took pictures showing missile base construction taking place in Cuba. The next evening, American analysts realized the implications of what that construction meant.

Thursday

James Snell

Down with the ‘Third World War’ doomsayers

Some people are always telling you that the world is soon to end. In the old days many of them would wear sandwich boards describing near-term doom, and not wash. Now, their cousins in the environmental movement glue themselves to oil refineries and don’t shave. In each case, they drip with urgency. The oceans will boil, the land will burn. Your children will fry. Or, alternatively, the Lord will return and take only the righteous to their reward. Be afraid and confess, before it is too late. Public life has these people, too, for this tendency is quite universal. Financial doom-mongering is a profitable little side-line for some economists. The great crash they predict is always upcoming.

world war three

Thursday

James Snell

The Kremlin’s clown prince

The beginning of the year has not gone as well as it could have for Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Mostly because he is now dead, but also because Zhirinovsky, a Russian politician of the “managed” (pro-Kremlin) opposition, predicted and vigorously supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If Zhirinovsky were able to follow the campaign from his hospital bed, it could not have met his expectations. The imperial Russia of his imagination ought to have come into glorious existence, but its armed forces instead suffered reversal and humiliation. Zhirinovsky was the long-time leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party — a grouping that, as many wags have separately concluded, was under his leadership neither liberal nor democratic nor, in some lights, a party.

Thursday

James Adams

Will Trump enter the hypersonic nuclear arms race?

The Pentagon is urgently reviewing just how and when the president might launch nuclear missiles as a dangerous new nuclear arms race breaks out. Hypersonic missiles are capable of flying at around 12,000 miles per hour, or Mach 20. That would reduce the US response time to as little as five minutes — too short for the president to enter the launch codes into the ‘football’ (actually a briefcase) that is never more than a few feet away. Instead, some officials argue that Artificial Intelligence should manage the US response. AI could gather information about launches, likely targets, and the most effective counter-responses — and be empowered to launch nuclear missiles without human intervention.

nuclear arms

Tuesday

Harry J. Kazianis

It’s time to tell the truth on North Korea

What if the foreign-policy elites in Washington, D.C. could admit the truth when it comes to North Korea? The fact is that there is next to nothing the Trump administration can do to rid the world of this nuclear nightmare unless Kim Jong-un’s regime is willing to deal his weapons away. At the moment, we are nowhere near a deal to denuclearize North Korea. Just trying to even figure out where we are in talks with Pyongyang is confusing enough. Inter-Korean détente is moving forward at a rapid pace. It should be called the Moon Miracle, since South Korea's president has staked his entire legacy on securing peace and deserves much of the credit.

kim jong-un north korea