We may see magnification and misrepresentation of some things Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s chief of atomic energy, said.
Let’s get an accurate translation first: Ariane Tabatabai speaks Persian. Her tweetstream starts here. I’ll collect what she translates for easier reading. Read More
Russian propaganda is an issue in the questions about the 2016 election. Sputnik News is an organ of the Russian government. If you’ve been thinking that it just provides another viewpoint, read this.
20 Questions That Should Be Answered by the Russia Investigations
Nice summary of what Trump’s threats against North Korea have done.
Backgrounder on Guam. Map of Guam at top from University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Read More
Excellent article by Vipin Narang and Ankit Panda on why Donald Trump’s threats against North Korea are so destabilizing. MAD doesn’t apply.
Second- and third-order effects of foreign policy actions. And every action has them. This is something that Trump chooses not to understand, or perhaps is incapable of understanding.
Seven experts: Are we on the brink of war with North Korea? Probably not.
Letter from 62 members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, asking Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to urge Trump to STFU on war with North Korea. Read More
I had a conversation last night on Twitter with Ankit Panda (@nktpnd), who has been following the North Korean situation. Panda is a senior editor with The Diplomat magazine.
I contend that the North Korean statement issued in response to Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” threat contains an invitation to negotiations. As is often the case, that invitation is not stated as such. Diplomacy guards such invitations so that nobody loses face when they don’t work. Neither Trump nor his people understand this, and they ignore the State Department and are doing their best to gut it. This is the sort of thing that the State Department specializes in. Read More
Two South Carolina utilities are abandoning two unfinished nuclear reactors, half of the new reactors being built in the United States today. A decision on the other two will be made later this month. The South Carolina project is far behind schedule and far over projected costs, the recurring story of civilian nuclear reactor projects in the United States. China and Russia seem to be doing better with reactor-building, but their state-run companies can cook the books in ways that private companies can’t. Read More
Michael Lewis has an extensive article on the Trump administration’s approach to the Department of Energy. It’s worth reading. I’ll add some observations and objections.
The biggest thing I object to is the framing of scary. Nuke stuff is always framed as scary. There’s some basis for that, particularly in the time of Trump, but being scared is not the best way to deal with problems. Read More
