| | | | Fareed: The Remarkable Thing About Trump's Speech | | President Trump delivered a nationalist speech at the United Nations this week that suggested that he is "tired of being the world's leader," Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. "In striking that chord, Trump did something unusual, perhaps unique for a U.S. president: He encouraged, even embraced the rise of a post-American world."
"He whined in his speech that other countries are unfair in their dealings with the United States, and that somehow the most powerful nation in the world, which dominates almost every international forum, is being had," Fareed writes.
"Trump grumbled about the fact that the United States pays 22 percent of the U.N.'s budget, which is actually appropriate because it's roughly equivalent to America's share of global GDP. Were he to scale back U.S. support, he might be surprised how fast a country like China will leap in to fill the gap. And once it does, China will dominate and shape the United Nations -- and the global agenda -- just as the United States has done for seven decades. Perhaps the Chinese will suggest that the organization's headquarters be moved to Beijing. Come to think of it, it would free up acres of land on the East River where Trump could build a few more condominiums."
| | Why Germany's Far-Right Is Here to Stay | | The expected gains of far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in this Sunday's election are unlikely to be a temporary flare-up. Indeed, once it gets a foot in the door of the Bundestag, the party is unlikely to be going anywhere soon, Joerg Forbrig suggests in Politico EU.
"Once it reaches national representation, its campaign expenses will be partly refunded, and the party will be entitled to dozens of offices and hundreds of staffers," Forbrig writes.
"AfD parliamentarians will join the boards of public institutions, from broadcasting councils to state banks to educational institutes. Analytical resources and government data will be at their disposal, and support will be provided for their media outreach. These are levels of funding, influence and visibility of which earlier far-right radicals could only dream.
"Chances are the AfD is here to stay. And if its vicious campaigning ahead of Sunday's election is anything to go by, German democracy is about to face its biggest stress test ever."
| | What North Korea's H-Bomb Threat Means | | North Korea will at some point need to test its "combined missile-bomb capability," and that could mean that the country isn't bluffing when it warned it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific, a Reuters analysis suggests.
"While a missile would be the most ideal means of delivery, it is also possible to put a bomb on a ship and detonate on the surface of the ocean or in the sea," write Hyonhee Shin and Linda Sieg, citing experts. "Either way, the radioactive fallout could be significant, as well as the diplomatic backlash from around the world."
"Such an atmospheric test would be the first globally since China detonated a device in 1980, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency."
"Tests of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles are rarer still. The United States' only test of an operational ballistic missile with a live warhead was fired from a submarine far out in the Pacific Ocean in 1962." - Fareed says that it is both "disturbing" and "counterproductive" that President Trump has chosen to further escalate the war of words with Kim Jong Un's regime.
"Historically, American presidents have tried to tamp down these kind of flames, not pour fuel on them. But by raising the specter of destroying North Korea – not just threatening to decapitate the regime, but suggesting the United States could destroy the whole country – Trump presents the United States as an existential threat to all North Koreans. Think of what that sounds like to an ordinary North Korean and it's clear why they might feel that they really do need nuclear weapons.
"One of the unfortunate things about Trump's recent comments is that they come at a time when the administration is actually moving in some intelligent ways to try to turn the screws on Pyongyang. People tend to think that North Korea is the most sanctioned country in the world. It's not. The sanctions that the Obama administration put in place against Iran, for example, were much more extensive.
"So, one way of really putting pressure on North Korea is to get the people who are trading with North Korea to understand there's a big price to pay for doing so. And the big price America can exact is to say if you deal with them, you can't deal with American banks. That's one way. And we also have to continue to have a sustained strategic conversation with China.
"Unfortunately, the Trump administration seems to be of two minds on North Korea. They lay the groundwork for some sensible policies, but then the President seems to get irritated and feels like he has to one-up Kim and have the most quotable insult of the day."
| | Get Ready for More U.S. Drone Strikes | | U.S. drone strikes and commando raids could become more frequent – and take place "outside conventional battlefields" – under Trump administration plans to ease two Obama-era rules, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt report for the New York Times.
"First, the targets of kill missions by the military and the C.I.A., now generally limited to high-level militants deemed to pose a 'continuing and imminent threat' to Americans, would be expanded to include foot-soldier jihadists with no special skills or leadership roles. And second, proposed drone attacks and raids would no longer undergo high-level vetting," they write.
"But administration officials have also agreed that they should keep in place one important constraint for such attacks: a requirement of 'near certainty' that no civilian bystanders will be killed."
They add: "The policy paves the way for broader and more frequent operations against al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other jihadists. It would also apply in countries where the United States has targeted Islamist militants outside of regular combat for years, including Yemen, Somalia and Libya, and would ease the way to expanding such gray-zone acts of sporadic warfare to elsewhere in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where terrorists operate." | | | | | | |
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