National Security Strategy Must Combine Diplomacy, Might And Strong Alliances
(Philadelphia Inquirer)…Rudy deLeon and Winny Chen, Sept 28, 2008.
…But our 44th president will have a unique opportunity and a clear duty to steer the United States toward new and progressive national-security priorities. That effort should begin with a new National Security Strategy – one that integrates a strong U.S. military posture with diplomacy, economic assistance, and cooperation with U.S. allies.
Bet On Israel Bombing Iran
(New York Daily News)…Robert Baer, Sept 27, 2008.
Are we going to have an October surprise, an attack on Iran by either the Bush administration or by Israel to stop the regime from becoming a nuclear power?
Baer, a former CIA case officer, is author of the just-released “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.”
North Korea In The Midst Of A Mysterious Building Boom
(Los Angeles Times)…Barbara Demick, Sept 27, 2008
Who’s paying for the major face lift underway in Pyongyang? The impoverished nation says it is, but analysts are skeptical.
Census Planned in North Korea, Washington Post
September 28, 2008, Pg. 21
North Korea said it will conduct a census next month that is believed to be its first in 15 years, adding that the Oct. 1-15 survey will collect data about dozens of social and economic indicators.
North Proposes Military Talks, (Washington Times)…Unattributed, September 27, 2008
Pg. 8
SEOUL–North Korea has proposed holding military talks with South Korea in what would be the first official contact between the countries since Seoul’s new conservative government took office in February, a defense official said Friday.
The overture comes amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s decision to abandon a disarmament-for-aid pact and to begin reassembling its nuclear reprocessing plant in Yongbyon. Earlier this week, North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear monitors to leave the country and said it would reinsert nuclear material into a plutonium-producing facility within a week, causing alarm among its neighbors.
The North sent a message Thursday proposing the talks, and the South Korean government is discussing whether to accept the offer, an official at South Korea’s Defense Ministry said late Friday. The message was Pyongyang’s first official proposal for talks since South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s administration took office in February with a pledge to get tougher on the North. The North responded by suspending all government-level talks with the South.
Far-Reaching U.S. Plan Impaired N. Korea Deal(Washington Post)…Glenn Kessler, Sept, 26, 2008
The unraveling of the landmark deal to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs began just weeks after its high point — the televised destruction of the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor in late June — when U.S. negotiators presented Pyongyang with a sweeping plan for verifying its claims about its nuclear programs.
Pentagon Contest Sparks Ideas For Better Batteries
(San Francisco Chronicle (sfgate.com))…Dinesh Ramde, Associated Press, September 24, 2008
The final phase of a high-stakes military contest began this week in the California desert as teams tested battery systems designed to be powerful enough to sustain soldiers’ energy needs but light enough for them to wear on their vests.
Israel Asked US For Green Light To Bomb Nuclear Sites In Iran
(The Guardian (UK))…Jonathan Steele, Sept 25, 2008.
Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian.
Although international focus has been on North Korea’s threats to disrupt the six-party talks and on the health of Kim Jong Il, we must not lose sight of the fact that the North Korean government remains responsible for one of the most staggering human-rights and humanitarian disasters in the world.
On Nov. 4, Remember 9/11, (New York Times)…Jeffrey Goldberg
The next president must do one thing, and one thing only, if he is to be judged a success: He must prevent Al Qaeda, or a Qaeda imitator, from gaining control of a nuclear device and detonating it in America.
Many proliferation experts I have spoken to judge the chance of such a detonation to be as high as 50 percent in the next 10 years. I am an optimist, so I put the chance at 10 percent to 20 percent.
Success Through Quality's Weblog 