The confrontation between the United States and North Korea has reached a critical point. Unlike his predecessors, President Trump does not have the luxury to kick the can further down the road. He must act quickly and he must act decisively.
The North Korean enigma is complicated by Pyongyang’s informal nuclear alliances with Pakistan, Iran, Syria, and to a lesser extent with China. Based on well-documented materials by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and corresponding intelligence reports by the Israeli Mossad, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, the cooperation between North Korea and Iran in developing ballistic missile and nuclear technology has been so close that the WMD programs of both states must be considered a single entity. Continue reading
Instead of freeing the Islamic states from the stifling autocracies that use religion to justify oppression of their subjects, the so-called “Arab Spring” has produced a flood of false revolutions. This disease first has infected Tunisia, then has rattled Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria, and already has flooded the rest of the world with desperate, mostly uneducated and hopelessly unassimilable refugees. Meanwhile, millions of Muslims are dying as the result of raging civil wars with no peaceful ends in sight. Alarmingly, in the present, the non-Muslim world does not know how to protect itself. More importantly, there is no consensus regarding the origin, the nature, and the potential of the Islamic disease that threatens to deform, destabilize, and even destroy the whole of mankind.
The topic with which this book is concerned is a very simple, yet fundamental one. It states that the main cause of the violent disorder in which the entire Muslim world have lingered for fourteen centuries has not been the result of foreign interference. On the contrary, this disease of which the entire Muslim world is dying has its roots exclusively in the teachings of Islam. Indeed, the internal crises that have devastated the Islamic world from the very inception of Muhammad’s exploits are themselves the result of something more profound—the politicization of a culture that knows no peace, no tolerance, and no love for the individual or the world at large. Therefore, the answer of the rest of the world to political Islam also must be a political one.
Peace and stability can only be restored in the Middle East and beyond by the unyielding political unity of democratic governments. That there is no other solution must be understood without any reservation. The alternative is more untold suffering to the overwhelming majority of Muslims and permanent misery for the rest of the world. For these reasons, the strategy of the United States of America and its allies is paramount—to fight for global welfare and not merely manage an unmanageable situation within the Muslim world.
By • Frontiers of Freedom
Despite many UN Security Council resolutions and even more numerous sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, North Korea has always refused to negotiate seriously about its nuclear ambitions. Indeed, neither Kim Jong-il nor his son Kim Jong-un have displayed any noticeable respect for the punitive actions of the UN, the United States and its allies, demonstrating almost on a daily basis their contempt for the toothless diplomacy of the rest of the world. Thus, the list of steady provocations by Pyongyang has been endless. The last one, the successful test firing of an ICBM that could reach the continental United States, just occurred at the end of July. In addition, most recent reports state that the regime is working on developing a hydrogen bomb. In this manner, Pyongyang has managed to keep the world in a state of permanent suspense about its belligerent nuclear fervor and its strategic quest for full military control over the Korean peninsula. Continue reading
About 40 years ago, Ronald Reagan and U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop shared breakfast at U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt’s ranch. Virtually no one knew that this meeting took place or understood how important it would be to America’s security. As friends shared breakfast, Wallop explained the need for a robust missile defense — including developing a space-based defensive system. Once elected to office, President Reagan made it a national goal to develop effective high-tech defenses against missile attacks. That policy objective was an important factor in the U.S. winning the Cold War. Simply stated, even before missile defense was able to shoot down a missile, it was helping America defeat the Soviets.
During most of the last decade, missile defense was de-emphasized. It was a self-evidently foolish policy decision even though some offered misguided defenses of it. But now, given recent news from North Korea, few could argue that the Obama Administration’s disdain for missile defense has served America’s interests. Kim Jong Un has pushed North Korea’s nuclear program to develop nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach our West Coast. Pyongyang intends to threaten not just the West Coast, but all of America. Iran is headed in the same dangerous direction as North Korea. Continue reading
By • Frontiers of Freedom
Since 1950, when North Korea launched its invasion against the south, the United Nations Security Council had been in a permanent diplomatic warfare against Pyongyang. Out of the twenty two resolutions, seventeen were adopted through the 1990s and the almost two decades of the 2000s. In particular, eight resolutions between January 2013, and June 2017, condemning North Korea’s tests of nuclear weapons, were unanimously approved by the Security Council. The North Korean despot, Kim Jong-un, has not recognized the right of the Security Council to sanction his regime for its serial violations of international law. For decades, the international community has alternated between economic pressure and diplomatic dialogue, without any noticeable success. Most recently, the Trump Administration and Congress have floated the option of military action, coupled with regime change, and possible unification ofthe two Koreas.
Because of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and its arsenal of heavy artillery aimed at the heavily populated Seoul region, there is no question that the entire situation in the Korean peninsula is an extremely complicated one. Continue reading
By • Frontiers of Freedom
Throughout its troubled history, the world has never quite witnessed anything like the North Korean regime of absolute fear and Kim Jong Un’s sick domestic and foreign policy reactions to it. The story of the Kim dynasty, reverentially called the Mount Paektu Bloodline, entails the most destructive totalitarianism of the founder Kim Il-sung, his son, Kim Jong-il, and his grandson, Kim Jong-un. Assuming power with the political and military assistance of the Soviet Union over the northern part of the divided Korean peninsula in 1948, Kim Il-sung quickly established his cult of personality, modeled after his mentor Josif Vissarionovich Stalin. Following the failed invasion of the south he enunciated his version of absolute leadership called Suryong and its ideological justification called Juche, an archaic version of national self-reliance, that became the founding political, economic, and cultural policy of North Korea.
His grandson, Kim Jong-un became North Korea’s Supreme Leader on December 29, 2011. In 2013, Paragraph 10 of Article 2 of the amended constitution, officially known as the Ten Fundamental Principles of the Korean Workers’ Party, enshrined the hereditary principle of the Kim family’s totalitarianism by stating that the party must be guided and the revolutionmust be led “eternally” by the “Paektu Bloodline.” Continue reading
By Peter Roff • The Jackson Sun
It’s true the U.S. government invented the Internet — but it took the private sector to make it ubiquitous. Left in the Pentagon’s hands we’d probably all be online but we’d still have to use external modems using a dial up connection to get there.
The private sector operates very differently from the government. In case there’s any doubt, that’s a good thing. Most all the great innovations we’ve seen over the last 100 years, if not longer, have been the result of private initiative backed by private capital financing private creativity that have produced breakthroughs that added to the public good.
The government, on the other hand, is bureaucratic and by design moves slowly. It is not a place where innovation is the order of the day, certainly not any done on the relative cheap. Moreover, it is constrained by rules and hidebound by layers of authority to such a degree it’s a wonder anything ever gets done. Continue reading
by Bill Gertz • Washington Free Beacon
The United States faces a growing threat of ballistic and cruise missiles from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, according to a military intelligence report.
“Ballistic and cruise missiles present a significant threat to U.S. and allied forces overseas, and to the United States and its territories,” states the latest report by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center in Ohio.
The report warns that both China and Russia are expanding their force of strategic nuclear missiles with new multi-warhead weapons.
North Korea now has three intercontinental-range missiles and is moving ahead with a submarine-launched ballistic missile. Continue reading
by Adam Kredo • Washington Free Beacon
An Iranian citizen identified as a senior member of the country’s Basij military force was caught trying to enter the United States posing as a cancer researcher, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation who told the Washington Free Beacon that the Trump administration should begin investigating how the individual was granted a U.S. visa in the first place.
Seyed Mohsen Dehnavi, who has been identified as a member of Iran’s highly vetted volunteer Basij force, was turned away from entering the United States at Boston’s Logan Airport.
Sources familiar with the situation said that Dehnavi is billing himself as a medical researcher and was to assume residency at a Boston-based hospital. He was detained earlier this week at Logan Airport along with his family and later sent back to Iran. Continue reading
by Peter Roff • Townhall
Since coming to office South Korean President Moon Jae-in has moved quickly to put the past behind him. Politically, this is wise. His countrymen are tired of the byzantine games and corruption that for decades influenced the system of government and drove his predecessor from office.
His need to put his country’s house in order defies ideological concerns. He faces daunting security threats, especially from the North, but also a restless and dissatisfied people hungry for change. He leads an Asian tiger whose economic power is being challenged and which desperately needs to improve its trade relations with the West.
U.S. President Donald Trump is making the most of South Korea’s internal turmoil to bolster the U.S. efforts to exert its political and economic influence in Korea. Just a week before the special election that brought President Moon to power, Trump summed up the existing free trade agreement with South Korea as “horrible” and vowed to renegotiate the pact. Continue reading
By • RedState
To project power and protect America the U.S. military requires a robust American sealift capability. Transporting materials and weaponry over across the high seas is a key component of America’s ability to protect its interests around the globe yet it is often overlooked, misunderstood and underappreciated.
History teaches this lesson unmistakably. In 1812, when the greatest army the world had seen up to that time launched an invasion of Russian. Napoleon had an army of almost 700,000 men. At first his troops routed the opposition wherever they engaged but, as he led his forces deeper and deeper into Russia, supplies ran short and his men began to starve.
As winter came, his men began to freeze, not from fear but from hypothermia. Napoleon was forced to beat a hasty retreat back to France, leaving 380,000 dead, 100,000 captured, and many so sick that they could no longer fight. His once great army had only 27,000 soldiers capable of fighting. Continue reading
About 40 years ago, Ronald Reagan and U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop shared breakfast at U.S. Senator Paul Laxalt’s ranch. Virtually no one knew that this meeting took place or understood how important it would be to America’s security. As friends shared breakfast, Wallop explained the need for a robust missile defense — including developing a space-based defensive system. Once elected to office, President Reagan made it a national goal to develop effective high-tech defenses against missile attacks. That policy objective was an important factor in the U.S. winning the Cold War. Simply stated, even before missile defense was able to shoot down a missile, it was helping America defeat the Soviets.
During most of the last decade, missile defense was de-emphasized. It was a self-evidently foolish policy decision even though some offered misguided defenses of it. But now, given recent news from North Korea, few could argue that the Obama Administration’s disdain for missile defense has served America’s interests. Kim Jong Un has pushed North Korea’s nuclear program to develop nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach our West Coast. Pyongyang intends to threaten not just the West Coast, but all of America. Iran is headed in the same dangerous direction as North Korea. Continue reading
As nuclear threats grow, the U.S. needs more advanced protection.
By • Wall Street Journal
Liberal opposition to missile defense has persisted since the 1980s, but the politics may be changing with technological progress and the rising threat from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons. Congress has an opportunity this summer to notch a rare bipartisan deal that enhances U.S. security.
Kim has already overseen more nuclear and missile tests than his father and grandfather combined, and the Defense Intelligence Agency warns that “if left on its current trajectory” Pyongyang will develop a capacity to hit Japan, Alaska, Hawaii or even the U.S. West Coast. The Trump Administration is pleading with China to stop the North, but Chinese leaders never seem to act and they’re even trying to block regional missile defenses in South Korea.
Meanwhile, the U.S. last month successfully tracked and shot down a mock intercontinental ballistic missile, akin to a bullet hitting a bullet. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD)—first fielded in 2004 but untested since 2014—has a success rate of nine in 17 intercept trials. But even the failures show the GMD is increasingly effective. Continue reading
After a decade and a half of actively fighting terrorism around the globe while simultaneously imposing tighter and tighter budget squeezes, our military faces clear and unmistakable shortages in critical systems like ready-to-deploy fighter jets. These gaps grow larger and larger with each passing year and in the near future become alarming. As our fleets age, more and more, air craft carrier groups and squadrons are running short of planes. Media reports of cannibalized aircraft in museums to keep military aircraft in the air are not comforting. We cannot continually choke our military and hope to defend ourselves against ever increasing threats.
The Trump Administration has correctly identified the need to rebuild and strengthen our defenses. And they have shown an interest in getting the job done “on time and under budget.” That too is an important focus. The good news is it that we can rebuild our military and give our war fighters the best tools and systems on the planet and “come in on time and under budget.”
Here is one way we can do both — reinforce our military and be mindful of the taxpayer’s wallet. While we need a next generation stealth fighter with capabilities like the F-35, an effective air defense needs a wide variety of tools with varying capabilities and not all of them must cost nearly $132 billion each. We may see all fighter jets as being just like the other ones — super fast, super maneuverable jets that shoot and bomb things. But the truth is there are different missions and different missions and roles for different planes and they are not all the same. Continue reading
By • Real Clear Policy - Real Clear Defense
Most Ground-based Interceptors to defend the homeland are located here in Alaska, the US State closest to North Korea. The previously deployed fleet of 26 GBIs will be expanded to 40 defensive missiles by the end of the year, plus another four at Vandenberg AFB, in California. With so much at stake, increasing our capability to take a volley of defensive shots is essential.
Missile defense also depends on radars across the North. At Clear, near Fairbanks, Alaska, a new Long Range Discrimination Radar will help improve the accuracy of our ground-based system. New communications links here and around the world help network space-based sensors, land and sea-based radars that direct theater and ballistic missile defense systems on our side, everywhere.
A new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies entitled Missile Defense 2020, lays out a roadmap for how the United States can improve the capability, capacity, and reliability of U.S. homeland missile defense. One of the most important next steps, however, concerns the “Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), the payload atop those fast Alaska and California defensive missiles. The EKV’s job, after being rocketed into space on a trajectory opposite an incoming missile, is to intercept and obliterate anything that’s aimed at us.
These EKVs, the so-called bullets that hit the enemy bullet, are the heart of missile defense. We want them ever more aware as they approach their target, agile as countermeasures are employed, and accurate in knocking out a warhead that could kill millions of our people. Improvements to the EKV capabilities are available to be deployed soon, in the form of a Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV), an important development effort currently underway by the Missile Defense Agency. Some argue we should skip the RKV effort entirely, and wait for a whole new generation of kill vehicle technology that will require years of development and testing. In the face of real North Korean missile advances, however, such a path would leave us too vulnerable.
Offensive missiles are much cheaper than defensive missile systems, however, and potential adversaries in North Korea, Iran and elsewhere are stepping up efforts to build attack weapons that are more mobile, can carry more payload, and can fly farther across the planet. Last year, then- NORTHCOM/NORAD Commander Admiral William E. Gortney told Congress, “We need to invest in the lethality of our kill vehicles, and in ways to get us to the right side of the cost curve.”
We should draw upon already amassed expertise to cost-effectively re-engineer the RKV and get it deployed as soon as possible, as well as a more flexible selectable-stage booster. Among the many capabilities that would be improved quickly is the ability to hit targets launched at us closer to home.
Over the longer-term, a new interceptor, known as the Multi-Object Kill Vehicle (MOKV) is envisioned as having the capacity to defeat multiple targets, thereby overcoming the problem of discriminating between the warhead and other debris or decoys, as well as potentially against multiple warheads. However, the threat today is from North Korea, Iran, or a ship-launched missile that might be acquired in some arms bazaar by a terrorist group. These threatening missiles are growing in number. They are less sophisticated than Russia and China’s arsenal, but still lethal.
Robust research and development on other missile defenses must continue.
Technology will allow us –someday– to field more effective defenses against attack missiles in the boost phase, minutes after launch when missiles are most vulnerable and unable to deploy countermeasures. Non-kinetic options, like lasers, have great promise to further even the costs between offensive missiles and defenses. Given that missiles can disable much of our electrical infrastructure and electronic devices with an electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion high above the earth hardening our civil power grid is a deterrent that should also rise on the agenda.
Donald Trump has pledged to develop a state-of-the-art missile defense for the United States. This is indeed exactly the right goal and is necessary for both deter and defeat current and future threats. Funding and fielding the Redesigned Kill Vehicle now, while still expanding root missile defense technologies, will improve that overall posture and help keep the peace..
Mead Treadwell, Lt. Governor of Alaska 2010-2014, is a charter member of the Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, which has since the mid-1990s studied and published independent views on how to deploy effective land, sea, air and space-based missile defenses for the U.S homeland and US forces and allies abroad.
