PS: To be clear -- we need to talk to North Korea. But Kim is not inviting Trump so that he can surrender North Korea's weapons. Kim is inviting Trump to demonstrate that his investment in nuclear and missile capabilities has forced the United States to treat him as an equal.
An ATACMs transfer to Ukraine seems like a proportionate response to Russian missile strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Again, if Russia objects to the use of such systems, I invite Moscow to set a positive example by ending its own extensive use of such missiles.
North Korea has been seeking a summit with an American president for more than twenty years. It has literally been a top foreign policy goal of Pyongyang since Kim Jong Il invited Bill Clinton. (1/3)
This isn't that complicated, people. There is a fire and a secondary explosion. There are literally none of the phenomena one sees with a nuclear explosion.
According
@googlemaps
, there is a "traffic jam" at 3:15 in the morning on the road from Belgorod, Russia to the Ukrainian border. It starts *exactly* where we saw a Russian formation of armor and IFV/APCs show up yesterday.
Someone's on the move.
What if, and I am just spitballing here, Iran agreed to join an international treaty prohibiting it from possessing nuclear weapons and then, as a further measure, accepted a plan of action with far more comprehensive IAEA monitoring and inspections than any other country?
This is literally how the North Korean film "The Country I Saw" ends. An American President visits Pyongyang, compelled by North Korea's nuclear and missile programs to treat a Kim as an equal. (3/3)
"Iran’s armaments industry is preparing a first shipment [to Russia] of Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar missiles, two well-known Iranian short-range ballistic missiles capable of striking targets at distances of 300 and 700 kilometers."
Let me say this one more fucking time: Policymakers do not have a right to perfect intelligence. Your job, collectively, was to make good decisions that were robust against uncertainty. You failed miserably and you don’t get to use the IC as a scapegoat, you pathetic coward.
The Iraq war began sixteen years ago tomorrow. There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years. After no WMDs were found, the left claimed "Bush lied. People died." This accusation itself is a lie. It's time to put it to rest.
I wonder if Trump's "aides" have explained that to him. Or, if in their toddler-handling, they have led him to believe that this offer is something unusual. Or perhaps he imagines that only he can go Pyongyang. (2/3)
Two more stations are now offline — and not just any two. This time it is a pair of radionuclide stations in the path of the drifting plume. I’d say we are out of coincidence territory.
I have spent my entire career doing
#OSINT
and even I think it’s weird that we were able to see the first signs of the invasion using
@googlemaps
’s traffic layer.
According
@googlemaps
, there is a "traffic jam" at 3:15 in the morning on the road from Belgorod, Russia to the Ukrainian border. It starts *exactly* where we saw a Russian formation of armor and IFV/APCs show up yesterday.
Someone's on the move.
In the recent days Ukraine has experienced Strikes on FOBs, by what I suspect to be North Korean KN-23 Ballistic Missiles. More below.
(1) FOB Containing alot of Trucks(Ural, Ural Tankers etc). The fact that the houses caught fire aswell indicates a resupply base in them.
Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything they can to bring the terrible
#NotreDame
fire under control. All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral.
STATEMENT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
President Donald J. Trump feels strongly that North Korea is under tremendous pressure from China because of our major trade disputes with the Chinese Government. At the same time, we also know that China is providing North Korea with...
....also a small apology for testing the short range missiles, and that this testing would stop when the exercises end. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un in the not too distant future! A nuclear free North Korea will lead to one of the most successful countries in the world!
“Diplomats say the North Koreans have canceled follow-up meetings, demanded more money and failed to maintain basic communications...”
🤔
“demanded more money”
🧐
“more”
🤦♂️
Time to let the cat out of the bag!
@tylerni7
and
@michaelnute
have been writing code to detect missile launches like tonight's North Korean ICBM test in GPS data. Missiles make ionospheric disturbances that GPS records. The yellow ripple is the ionospheric disturbance.
Merry Christmas. U.S.-S. Korea talks on military burden-sharing "back to square one," Yonhap reports, with just six days before existing agreement lapses at year-end.
CNN: officials believe John Bolton made the “Libya model” remarks deliberately to blow up the North Korea talks. Bolton’s concern was that the talks would not go in the right direction for the United States, the sources said.
@eliselabottcnn
Some senators seem unclear about what happened today.
Senator Gardner (R-CO): "I hope the North Korean people understand what Kim walked away from."
Senator Portman (R-OH): "Given the nature of the regime it’s not surprising that they canceled."
This is wild. A Japanese
#youtube
channel made a video showing how quickly different Japanese television channels broadcast the J-ALERT warning for North Korea's Hwasong-18 launch. The stations in commercial break didn't interrupt the advertisements, but rather waited to issue
New: Russia launched hypersonic missiles against Ukraine last week, the first known use of such missiles in combat, multiple US officials tell CNN. The US was able to track the launches in real time, the sources said.
Chuck Schumer said “the Summit was what the Texans call all cattle and no hat.” Thank you Chuck, but are you sure you got that right? No more nuclear testing or rockets flying all over the place, blew up launch sites. Hostages already back, hero remains coming home & much more!
Trump was duped and duped again into his Kim summit. He's now faced with a choice of admitting he was punked - or covering his initial error by trying to punk the country. I'm guessing he'll choose the latter. Me in
@TheAtlantic
today
Let's go through Netanyahu's dog-and-pony show. As you will see, everything he said was already known to the IAEA and published in IAEA GOV/2015/68 (2015). There is literally nothing new here and nothing that changes the wisdom of the JCPOA. 1/10
Wow, what a scoop by
@johnismay
. Russia has been firing Iskander missiles with penetration aids to fool missile defenses, meaning we get to see the Russian PENAIDS themselves. I never expected to see these.
A mystery munition first seen in Ukraine two weeks ago is an advanced countermeasure deployed by Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles to evade air-defense systems. Story w/ analysis by
@CAT_UXO
and
@ArmsControlWonk
:
IAF carried out a long range precision strike against a practice target to mark the second anniversary of the Balakot Operations. The strike was carried out by members of the same Sqn who carried out the actual operations.
#BalakotAirStrikes
Are the “intelligence sources” who claimed Kim Jong Un was brain dead last week the same ones claiming this week that
#COVID19
escaped from a Chinese lab? Asking for a friend.
Compare how Putin treated Gerasimov and Shoigu during the Kavkaz 2020 exercise with his demeanor during the recent Vostok exercise. The body language is very different.
It's remarkable to me that people in the national security sphere still don't understand that the earth is round. It's like, sort of an important fact.
Donald Trump is pissing on the Iran nuclear deal for the same reason he (reportedly) watched two hookers piss on a bed in a Moscow hotel room: Because Barack Obama makes him feel small and pathetic.
Again, this is a lie told by the White House. North Korea’s position has not changed. This is not China’s fault. It’s not Kim’s fault. It is Trump’s fault. Do not let him rewrite this history.
Trump said he's not happy with China appearing to influence Kim Jong Un to a more hardline position then puts Moon Jae-in on the spot by asking his opinion in front of reporters, adds with a grin: "I don't want to get him in trouble. He lives right next to China."
Why would Putin blow up his own pipelines?
Tom Schelling explained why in both "Arms and Influence" and "Strategy of Conflict" while distinguishing deterrence from compellence. Burning bridges or setting fire to the grass behind you can offer a bargaining advantage.
The White House Military Office Army aide was on “Football” duty this morning for President Biden’s departure for Hiroshima. The ~45-lb. satchel accompanies Biden 24/7, enabling him to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.
To clear up a misconception: The traffic data is most likely NOT from soldiers carrying smartphones. Instead, civilians are probably getting stuck at roadblocks and
@googlemaps
is recording that.
Bolton responded exactly the same way after he shattered the Agreed Framework with North Korea in 2003 and watched North Korea test a nuclear weapon three years later. He had no answers then; he has no answers now.
Another good day. Iran rips the mask off the idea it ever fully complied with the nuclear deal, or that it made a strategic decision to forswear nuclear weapons. Now, it's on to the real job: effectively preventing the ayatollahs from getting such a capability.
Libya and Iran struck nonproliferation agreements with the US.
North Korea did not.
I don’t suspect there is a lot of regret about that in Pyongyang tonight.
Just in: Washington, D.C.'s NFL team has announced it is officially retiring its name and logo — which is widely viewed as a slur against Native Americans.
The case for the Russian missile that struck Kharkiv on January 2 being a North Koran Hwasong-11 variant is a very, very strong. A short thread building on the work of the
#OSINTatMIIS
team, especially the amazing
@DuitsmanMS
.
'If failure is inevitable, Mr. Pompeo wants it to come more quickly this time,' so the administration can return to its maximum pressure campaign against NKorea,
@nytimes
reports. Experts say it may be too late for that.
In general, attempts to model and estimate the risk of nuclear escalation are extremely helpful in identifying paths to nuclear war and avoiding them.
This is not an example of that.
Here's why I think there's now a one-in-six chance of an imminent global
#NuclearWar
, and why I appreciate
@elonmusk
and others urging de-escalation, which is IMHO in the national security interest of all nations:
The yellow flash is the ionospheric disturbance created by North Korea's ICBM launch and recorded by the GPS network. This open source missile launch detection tool was created by
@tylerni7
and
@michaelnute
, members of the impossibly awesome
@ACWPodcast
Slack community.
North Korea's new ICBM is much larger than the Hwasong-15 ICBM (~2 m in diameter). Here are two stills from the parade that help illustrate the difference.
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!
Look, it's not complicated. Kim Jong Un won't disarm. So, why organize our entire policy toward North Korea around a fantasy? The answer is because we've never learned how to cut our losses and compromise. Which, you know, is how we wound up staying in Afghanistan for 20 years.
The actual interception rate for short-range ballistic missiles used by Russia against in Ukraine is ... 4.5%.
Again, this is why I argue that offense against launchers is usually a better investment than defense against the missiles. Shoot the archer, not the arrow.
For the first time, Ukraine discloses real missile interception rates, moving beyond 'all intercepted' claims—average success stands at 43%
Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi, reported that from February 24, 2022, Russian missiles and drones struck 11,879 targets in Ukraine 1/
In my telling, Gorbachev ended the Cold War when he refused to use force to preserve Soviet domination of Central Europe. Asked later whether Moscow should have sent in the tanks, Putin demurred. Today, in Ukraine, we see Putin’s answer and the difference between the two men.
"Most likely, Kim’s offer was a poison pill, meant to signal just enough flexibility to get Trump to Hanoi but to ensure that the negotiations would fail. Trump walked directly into the trap and doesn’t even seem to realize it."
Our friends at
@planetlabs
got a shot of a North Korean short-range ballistic missile just after launch at 10:54 am local time.
@DaveSchmerler
found it.