| | | | Why North Korea War Claim Has Experts "Extremely Worried" | | | North Korea's decision to ratchet up the rhetoric in its war of words with the Trump administration by claiming the U.S. had declared war -- and that it is willing to shoot down U.S. bombers -- is "one of the most serious threats the North has leveled to date," writes Zack Beauchamp for Vox. "[A]nd it has experts extremely worried." "The reason for his increased anxiety is clear: The U.S. frequently flies warplanes over the Korean Peninsula. [Ri Yong Ho's] comments appear to be a direct response to such a flight conducted on Saturday, in which US B-1B bombers flew along the North Korean coast while remaining in international airspace. It was the farthest north of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea that any US fighter jet or bomber has flown in the 21st century, according to the Pentagon," Beauchamp writes.
"The idea behind these flights is to deter a war, not start one. They're designed to show the North Korean government that the US is willing to use force if it does something provocative, and thus deter the North from trying anything.
"But the recent tensions between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seems to be making the North more aggressive, not less. North Korea's foreign minister's comments suggest the country may no longer tolerate this kind of defensive signaling from the US, and may begin treating these flights as aggressive acts of war even if they don't cross into North Korean airspace." - U.S.: No, we didn't declare war. White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Monday that the United States hasn't declared war on North Korea, adding: "Frankly, the suggestion of that is absurd."
| | Germany Is Becoming a "Normal" Country. That's Not Good | | Germany is looking increasingly like a "normal" country in the wake of Sunday's election. And that's not a good thing, argues Gideon Rachman, who notes that "more than one in five Germans voted for populist, anti-establishment parties."
"That level of populist support is still well below the substantial proportion of voters (nudging 50 per cent in each case) who elected Mr Trump, delivered Brexit and opted for far-right or far-left candidates in the first round of the French presidential election," Rachman writes in the Financial Times. "But the strong showing of the populists, and particularly the [right-wing] AfD, puts an end to the fond hope that the 'burden of history' means that Germany is immune to extremism. On the contrary, many German observers were shaken by the undercurrent of anti-establishment rage revealed by the election campaign. At many of her rallies, Ms Merkel was drowned out by jeering and whistling, a new development in German politics."
| | The Biggest Problem with Trump's Latest Travel Ban | | Don't be fooled by the latest incarnation of President Trump's travel ban. The biggest extremist threat to the United States is homegrown. And that makes the ban in all its forms so far "a solution to a problem that doesn't exist," write Peter Bergen and David Sterman for CNN Opinion.
"The new travel ban portrays the selection of banned countries as the result of a review process around the world that identified these countries as having insufficient security measures or that are unwilling or unable to cooperate with the United States on security. However, the Trump administration has given little reason to trust its review process or assessments when it comes to the travel ban and immigration policy," they write.
Meanwhile, "[t]he two non-Muslim countries were easy additions to the travel ban. After all the number of North Korean visitors to the United States is negligible. Similarly, the Venezuelan ban only affects a number of the country's diplomats and their families.
"The travel ban…rather than originating with a well-thought-out review process of security measures, regardless of religion, it began with Trump calling during his campaign for a 'total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.'
"Try as his advisers might, the shadow of that initial motivation hangs over their attempts to craft a ban that meets legal scrutiny." "Chad has proved to be one of the United States' most willing counterterrorism partners in the region. In March, about 2,000 U.S. troops staged a military exercise in Chad aimed at bolstering regional security forces. In recent years, Air Force personnel have used the country as a staging ground for Boko Haram surveillance missions."
| | Egypt: Respect the Flag, Or Else | | It wasn't just Americans who were battling over the issue of patriotism this past weekend, The Guardian's Ruth Michaelson reports. On Friday, Egypt's education minister "ordered students to respect the Egyptian flag or risk jail time."
"Students who mock or desecrate the flag could be fined 30,000 LE ($1,700) and sentenced to up to a year in prison, said the education minister, Tarek Shawki," Michaelson reports.
"The former president Adly Mansour criminalized desecrating the Egyptian flag with the same punishments in 2014, but Shawki's order singles out younger Egyptians for the first time.
"This month students at Egypt's public universities began their academic year by saluting the flag, after a decree by the Higher Council of Universities aimed at 'boosting patriotic sentiment.'"
| | ISIS Is Changing. But It Isn't Going Away | | ISIS is losing ground on the battlefield. But that doesn't mean the group is going to disappear. Indeed, it group has already been laying the groundwork for what comes next, argues Colin Clarke in Foreign Affairs.
"The transition from insurgency to terrorism will lead ISIS to shift resources to bolster existing franchises in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. It will simultaneously also seek to gain entry into other failed states and ungoverned territories sympathetic to its Salafi-jihadist ideology, from the North Caucasus to Southeast Asia," Clarke writes.
"Part of the revised ISIS strategy will likely include a rejuvenated focus on planning and conducting spectacular attacks in the West, part of an effort to garner attention and prove that the group is, if anything, resilient in the face of suppression. Toward this end, ISIS may rely heavily on Turkey as a logistics hub, using the country's geographic proximity to Europe as a conduit for militants attempting to infiltrate the continent." | | President Trump is scheduled to meet with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy at the White House on Tuesday. The meeting comes as Spain's government has battled to stop an independence referendum called by the country's Catalonia region from taking place on Sunday. The AP reports: "The Constitutional Court has ordered the referendum suspended while it studies its legality but Catalan authorities says the region's desire to vote overrides this."
Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday. The meeting comes after Turkey announced earlier this month that it had agreed to buy the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system. "The deal cements a recent rapprochement with Russia, despite differences over the war in Syria, and comes as Turkey's ties with the United States and European Union have become strained," the New York Times reported after the announcement. | | | | | | |
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