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FOREIGN POLICY

How to Defuse the Crisis with North Korea By Herbert E. Meyer

The looming crisis with North Korea provides a perfect illustration of what’s gone wrong with the way Washington works. Everyone is so eager to propose a policy, no one can be bothered to articulate an objective. So policymakers start arguing about what to do, before deciding what they want to accomplish. That’s like arguing over what route to take, before deciding where you want to go. (Which, to point out the obvious, is why we keep ending up in the middle of nowhere, or upside down in a ditch.)

Here’s one possible objective that would defuse this crisis and perhaps even bring a few decades of stability: to turn North Korea into a modern version of East Germany.

For those of you too young to remember the Cold War, during those decades after World War II Germany was divided. West Germany was free, prosperous, and an American ally. East Germany was a miserable dictatorship, not very prosperous, and a Soviet satellite. (To get a feel for what life was like in East Germany, watch the great movie The Lives of Others, and the German television series Weissensee.) But during all these decades, East Germany was never a threat to West Germany, or to the U.S. Its communist regime wanted only to be left alone. And in return, the West Germans and the Americans made it absolutely clear they had no intention of unifying Germany by attacking or otherwise bringing down the East.

When the Korean war ended with an armistice in 1953, that country was divided. South Korea became free, prosperous, and an American ally. North Korea became a miserable dictatorship, not very prosperous, and a sort-of satellite of China. The difference between Germany and Korea is that while East Germany wanted only to be left alone, North Korea keeps threatening to conquer South Korea and reunify the country under its control, and to fire nuclear-armed missiles at the U.S. itself.

President Trump’s Got Their Attention

But now, for the first time in its history — and thanks entirely to President Trump — North Korea faces the real possibility of a massive military attack, certainly to destroy its nuclear facilities and perhaps even to obliterate the regime itself. And there’s nothing like the looming prospect of an attack by the United States to get a government’s attention.

Simply put, it may be possible to defuse the current crisis without a war by cutting a deal along these lines: If North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons and cease threatening South Korea and the U.S., the U.S. and South Korea will guarantee North Korea’s sovereignty.

Once again, there’s an historic parallel between Korea and Germany: Adolf Hitler was crazy; a foaming-at-the-mouth, chewing-the-carpet raving lunatic. He was also a brilliant, cunning politician who not only held onto power, but who kept within his grip the total loyalty of Germany’s military leaders. These generals weren’t crazy; they were hard, practical, highly intelligent men who had fought and lost World War I and then rebuilt Germany’s war machine. They knew in their bones that another world war would devastate their country. They understood that invading Russia would end in catastrophe.

Trump eyes Afghanistan Although Obama declared the U.S. combat mission was over in 2014, the Taliban keeps fighting Jed Babbin

Over the past two weeks National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary James Mattis have taken quiet trips to Afghanistan. They are the president’s eyes on the war our military has been fighting for almost 16 years.

Their trips come more than two months after Army Gen. John Nicholson, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, “I believe we’re in a stalemate.” Gen. Nicholson said that while he has sufficient counter-terrorism forces he needs a few thousand more troops to continue training the Afghan military. U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan is now close to 10,000.

Gen. Nicholson described a stalemate that was created by former President Obama’s Afghanistan policy, which kicked the can down the road so that his successor would have to deal with it.

In early 2009, Mr. Obama said that our policy was to “secure” Afghanistan but that “victory” wasn’t our goal. Mr. Obama described Afghanistan as “the just war” in his speech accepting his aspirational Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. From then on he micromanaged the war and created the existing stalemate.

Later in 2009, Gen. Stanley McChrystal — then U.S. commander in Afghanistan — sent Mr. Obama a report that requested about 40,000 more troops and said that unless those reinforcements were received, we would reach the point where defeating the Taliban was no longer possible.

Mr. Obama fussed and fretted over the report for months. When he finally decided his policy, it was not what Gen. McChrystal wanted. Instead, Mr. Obama came up with a policy that amounted to “McChrystal lite.”

Remaking World Affairs By Herbert London

With much fanfare President Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to his Florida retreat for face-to-face meetings weeks ago. According to press accounts, Trump was eager to press Beijing to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and martial spirit.

But there was more there than meets the eye. For one thing, the Trump delegation arrived later than Xi, a breach of diplomatic protocol. Was the occupant of the White House sending a message? And second, sometime between salad and entrée, Trump let on that he is attacking Syria with 59 Tomahawks, the same Assad government China supports. It has not been reported whether Xi had indigestion.

The Trump team seemingly ushered in a new stance towards China. For decades, policy analysts in both parties contended that integrating China into the global economic, diplomatic and securities architecture would ultimately serve the interests of the West and yield stability across the globe. But this hypothesis has not been borne out by the evidence.

Since 2008 China has embraced protectionism in defiance of trade agreements. It has boosted state owned enterprises to the detriment of foreign owned firms. And it has extorted intellectual property for Chinese entities as the price for participation in Chinese markets.

On the foreign policy front, China has asserted its territorial and maritime claims with a unilaterally generated air perimeter zone, one that was drawn in a coercive and hostile manner. It has increased its support for North Korea and rejected United Nations actions against its dubious ally. Yet despite, these actions and many others, there persists the belief U.S. and China can establish a modus vivendi. Based on recent assertions and a Chinese willingness to assist in restraining the North Korean nuclear program, a new level of understanding may be emerging. Washington does have its skeptics.

Palestinians: Embattled, Weak Abbas Comes to White House by Khaled Abu Toameh

The joke among Palestinians is that were it not for Israel is sitting smack in the middle, the two warring Palestinian states [the West Bank and the Gaza Strip] would be dispatching rockets and suicide bombers at each other.

Abbas is well aware that the Palestinian house is on fire. Instead of working to extinguish the blaze, however, Abbas spends his time spreading the lie that peace in our time is possible, if only Israel would succumb to his demands.

The story of Gaza — which went straight to Hamas after Israel handed it to Abbas — is not a tale Abbas likes to tell. The same scenario is likely to be repeated in the West Bank if Israel makes a similar move.

This week, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump will sit down together to talk. This is the first such meeting since the US presidential election, and it comes at a time when the Palestinian scene is characterized by mounting internal tensions, fighting and divisiveness. The disarray among the Palestinians, where everyone seems to be fighting everyone else, casts serious doubt on Abbas’s ability to lead the Palestinians towards a better future. The chaos also raises the question whether Abbas has the authority to speak on behalf of a majority of Palestinians, let alone sign a peace agreement with Israel that would be acceptable to enough of his people.

Abbas, however, seems rather oblivious to the state of bedlam among the Palestinians, and appears determined to forge ahead despite the radical instability he is facing.

He is travelling to Washington to tell Trump that he and his PA leadership seek a “just and comprehensive” peace with Israel through the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

In the meeting, Abbas is likely to repeat his long-standing charges that Israel continues to “sabotage” any prospect for peace with the Palestinians.

Abbas is not likely to mention the mayhem that the PA leadership is facing at home. Nor is the fact that the Palestinians are as far as ever from achieving their goal of statehood likely to be a preeminent subject. Why bother discussing inconvenient truths, such as the deep divisions among the Palestinians and failure to hold presidential and parliamentary elections, when you can point the finger of blame at Israel?

Abbas’s trip to Washington coincides with a peak of tension between his PA and Hamas, the Islamic movement that rules the Gaza Strip. The rivalry between Hamas and Abbas’s PA, which climaxed in 2007 when the Islamic movement violently took over the Gaza Strip from Abbas loyalists, has created a reality where the Palestinians are divided, physically, into two separate entities.

How to Defuse the North Korean Threat China’s interests are aligned—for the moment—with those of the U.S., Japan and South Korea. By Mark Helprin

Mr. Helprin, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute, is the author of “Winter’s Tale,” “A Soldier of the Great War” and the forthcoming novel “Paris in the Present Tense.”

North Korea has embarked at breakneck speed upon a slipshod effort to field land-, mobile-, and submarine-based ICBMs with nuclear warheads. Unlike the eight other nuclear powers, North Korea’s doctrine resides unknowingly and capriciously in the mind of one man.

All nuclear doctrines are different, but most never go beyond the conditional when treating their arsenals as instruments of deterrence. North Korea, however, issues an unrelenting stream of histrionic threats that comport with its recklessness in the shelling of South Korea and sinking of one of its warships, the kidnapping of Japanese citizens in Japan, assassinations abroad, executions and Stalinist gulags at home, criminal sources of revenue, proliferation of missilery, and, tellingly, its perpetual war footing.

The totality of its declarations, behavior, and accelerating nuclear trajectory cannot be ignored. Nuclear weapons alone radically change the calculus of any strategic problem. Given the complexity and fragile interdependence of the structures of American life, nuclear detonations in only a few of our cities constitute a true existential danger. North Korea’s successful August test of the KN-11 submarine-launched ballistic missile—along with its construction of a second ballistic-missile submarine and its development of longer-range land-based missiles—will put North America at risk.

Note that North Korea has no defensive need of nuclear weapons. Because of the vulnerability of South Korean population centers, it can exercise an almost equivalent deterrence with its conventional forces and huge stockpile of chemical weapons.

Over two decades the U.S. has run the extremes from President Clinton’s foolish or deceptive claim that his diplomacy had solved the North Korean nuclear problem, through the serial procrastinations of subsequent administrations, until the belated realization that if nothing else works the U.S. will have to attack North Korea full force. The first option has failed. The second, to which it is possible we may be compelled, is catastrophic.

The heart of South Korea’s economy and half its 50 million people are densely concentrated within range of the approximately 10,000 North Korean artillery pieces, rocket launchers, and short-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering chemical munitions, of which North Korea has an estimated 5,000 metric tons. Even conventional explosives would have a devastating effect. No matter how fast South Korean and American forces raced to suppress such fires, not to mention a nuclear attack itself, millions would probably die.

With such shock and escalation there is no guarantee that China or Russia would not come to North Korea’s aid. Russia could also take the opportunity to feast upon Eastern Europe if American power were monopolized by the battle, as it would be.

As undesirable are the two extremes of a North Korean nuclear strike or pre-emptive war in armament-saturated East Asia, America cannot accept the former. The U.S. will be forced to the latter if it fails to exploit the considerable ground that still lies between them.

Convergence of US-Israel national security interests Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

In 2017, the national security interests of the US and Israel have converged, in an unprecedented manner, in response to the anti-US Arab Tsunami; anti-US Islamic terrorism; the declining European posture of deterrence; drastic cuts in the US defense budget; an increasingly unpredictable, dangerous globe; Israel’s surge of military and commercial capabilities and US-Israel shared values.

Contrary to conventional wisdom – and traditional State Department policy – US-Israel and US-Arab relations are not a case of zero-sum-game. This is currently demonstrated by enhanced US-Israel strategic cooperation, concurrently with expanded security cooperation between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other pro-US Arab countries, as well as stronger cooperation between the US and those same Arab countries. Unlike the simplistic view of the Middle East, Arab policy-makers are well aware of their priorities, especially when the radical Islamic machete is at their throats. They are consumed by internal and external intra-Muslim, intra-Arab violence, which have bled and dominated the Arab agenda, prior to – and irrespective of – the Palestinian issue, which has never been a core cause of regional turbulence, a crown-jewel of Arab policy-making, nor the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Israel’s posture as a unique ally of the US – in the Middle East and beyond – has surged since the 1991 demise of the USSR, which transformed the bi-polar globe, into a multi-polar arena of conflicts, replete with highly unpredictable, less controllable and more dangerous tactical threats. Israel possesses proven tactical capabilities in face of such threats.

Thus, Israel provides tailwind to the US in the pursuit of three critical challenges, which impact the national and homeland security of the US, significantly transcending the scope of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue:

1. To constrain/neutralize the Ayatollahs of Iran, who relentlessly aspire to achieve mega-capability (nuclear), in order to remove the mega-obstacle (the US) from the Persian Gulf, and achieve the mega-goal (domination of the Muslim World and subordination of the “modern day American Crusaders”).

2. To defeat global Islamic terrorism, which aims to topple all pro-US Arab regimes, expand the abode of the “believers” and crash the abode of the “infidel” in the Middle East and beyond.

3. To bolster the stability of the pro-US Arab regimes, which are lethally threatened by the Ayatollahs and other sources of Islamic terrorism.

Moreover, Israel has been the only effective regional power to check the North Korean incursion into the Middle East. For instance, on September 6, 2007, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Syria’s nuclear site, built mostly with the support of Iran and North Korea, sparing the USA and the globe the wrath of a ruthless, nuclear Assad regime.

The Middle East According to Madeleine Albright by Andrew Harrod see note please

Mme. Halfbright is runner up to John Kerry for the worst Sec. of State in recent history. rsk
Does the Middle East need to take responsibility for charting its own future? According to a recently released report from the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, the answer is yes. But critical analysis of that report reveals serious flaws that must be addressed.

MEST co-chairs former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley presented the report to a standing-room-only audience in Washington, D.C. Albright acknowledged that people around the world are all affected by the “toxic brew” of challenges centered in the Middle East – such as terrorism and refugee flows. In response, Hadley pointed out the report’s theme of a “different, smarter way of engaging with the Middle East that does not require a Marshall Plan or a 2003 Iraq invasion.”

Under the report’s Compact for the Middle East, nations that adopt reforms will gain greater diplomatic, economic and technical support from outside countries like the United States, according to Albright, who referenced the report’s extoling of “green shoots of citizen-based entrepreneurial and civic activity occurring throughout the region.

She added,

Across the region, civic activists are working to make their local communities stronger and more resilient. Entrepreneurs are building small and medium-sized businesses rather than relying on the government to be the employer of first resort. And some leaders are beginning to recognize that the region’s greatest resource is not its oil, but its people.

Hadley said that he believes future foreign assistance should encourage “governments acting more effectively, inclusively and justly in empowering their citizens to realize their full potential and to win their loyalty. Fundamentally, it is a bet on the people of the region and a strategy to empower them,” he said, analyzing the report’s strategy, which included proposals for a regional development fund for reconstruction and reform. It also features a regional framework for dialogue and cooperation akin to regional organizations like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Although it cites certain advances to living in the Middle East (e.g., the Arab world’s literacy rate, which surged from 58 percent to 80 percent between 1990 and 2010), the report does highlight the enormous hurdles hindering a peaceful and prosperous Middle East. “The Middle East crisis is the most difficult global challenge since the end of the Cold War,” Albright and Hadley wrote. “The world will be wrestling with this set of problems for a long time.”

The real collusion story : Richard Baehr

In the six months since last November’s U.S. presidential election, there has been a near ‎avalanche of innuendo-filled stories, based primarily on leaks from ‎‎”government or intelligence officials,” suggesting (while providing no actual ‎evidence) there may have been nefarious activity involving Trump campaign ‎officials or supporters and the Russian government and people connected to it, to influence the election.

One popular MSNBC cable TV host has given more ‎than half her airtime to weaving tales of how the two sides may have colluded, ‎proving mainly that a loyal left-wing audience can put up with repetition of material ‎utterly absent of substance for a long time, as long as it bashes the right ‎individual and political party. The conspiracy theory is that Donald Trump was bought by ‎the Russians, who got him elected and now he is doing their bidding. The fact that ‎the Trump administration has not behaved toward Russia or its proxies in a ‎fashion consistent with this conspiracy theory has done ‎little to quiet the true believers of the collusion litany. Neither is there any evidence ‎of Russians blocking Clinton voters from showing up in Wisconsin, Michigan, ‎Pennsylvania, or Florida, or providing troops to keep Hillary Clinton from making ‎campaign appearances in some of these states. ‎

In the last few weeks, there has been a counterpunch of sorts from Trump ‎supporters, alleging that former President Barack Obama’s officials in the Justice Department and intelligence ‎services launched a surveillance operation during the campaign to potentially ‎derail the Trump campaign, and after the election, to keep the Russian story alive ‎through leaks to eager journalists, to delegitimize his presidential victory and his ‎ability to govern. ‎

At this point, based on what is known as opposed to what is ‎believed or hoped for by partisans, it is highly likely that both themes are probably exaggerated, ‎and maybe even totally false, though the leaks from Obama loyalists still in ‎government seem to provide some support for the charge that there has been an ‎organized campaign to damage his successor.‎

In the meantime, a blockbuster story in Politico provides much new information on how far the Obama ‎team was willing to go to get a nuclear deal with Iran done, and then to please the ‎mullahs in any number of ways after the agreement was reached, to demonstrate ‎U.S. allegiance to their needs and demands. In any case, no journalist sympathetic ‎to the Obama narrative on the Iran deal would dare call it collusion. ‎

The Politico article revealed for the first time the extent of the trade the Obama ‎administration was willing to make with Iran to obtain the release of five American ‎prisoners. The U.S. announced the release of seven Iranians, ‎described by the administration as civilians, none involved with terrorism. In fact, ‎several were regarded by Obama’s Justice Department as clear national security ‎threats, involved in weapons procurement. The administration also dropped ‎charges and arrest warrants against 14 other Iranians, all of them fugitives, ‎several of them also involved in weapons procurement for Iran’s nuclear program, ‎‎. ‎

‎”Through action in some cases and inaction in others, ‎the White House derailed its own much-touted National ‎Counterproliferation Initiative at a time when it was ‎making unprecedented headway in thwarting Iran’s ‎proliferation networks,” the report said. “In addition, the Politico ‎investigation found that Justice and State department ‎officials denied or delayed requests from prosecutors ‎and agents to lure some key Iranian fugitives to friendly ‎countries so they could be arrested. Similarly, Justice ‎and State, at times in consultation with the White ‎House, slowed down efforts to extradite some suspects ‎already in custody overseas, according to current and ‎former officials and others involved in the counter‎proliferation effort.”‎

When critics of the Iran deal argued that despite the agreement, Iran was ‎continuing to develop and procure long-range missiles and spread havoc through ‎its expansionist aggression in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen and support of ‎terrorism, Obama officials always chimed in that the deal only dealt with ‎eliminating the nuclear threat, and not any other issues. Of course, the deal ‎eliminated nothing. Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was reduced, but not ‎eliminated (similar to Syria’s supply of poison gases after Obama wimped out on ‎enforcing his own red line), and Iran’s centrifuges, many of them now an enhanced ‎variety, continued to operate. In any case, every time a report surfaced about Iran ‎violating some term of the deal, the president’s team, led by then-Secretary of ‎State John Kerry, was quick to provide a legal brief on their behalf.‎

Our World: The agenda for the Trump-Abbas meeting : Caroline Glick

Israeli society was nearly torn apart in the one year and eight months between Sharon’s surprise announcement and the expulsion of Gaza’s Jews in August 2005.

The day after Israel celebrates its 69th Independence Day, US President Donald Trump will greet PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas at the White House. The date of their meeting, May 3, is notable not least for its timing.

The timing of the meeting presumes a linkage between the establishment of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state. This is not merely obnoxious, it is also blind to reality.

In reality, an independent state of Palestine has existed for the past 12 years in Gaza. Rather than build that up and declare independence, Abbas and his comrades surrendered Gaza to Hamas in 2007.

Hamas, in turn, transformed independent Palestine into a base for jihad.

Abbas’s failure to declare independence in 2005 – and the subsequent failure of his US-trained forces to defend their control over Gaza in June 2007 from Hamas terrorists – is generally overlooked. But it is critical that Trump understand the significance of his behavior before he meets with Abbas.

Since the inception of the peace process between Israel and the PLO in 1993, the professed goal of the PLO has been to establish an independent Palestinian state on any territory over which it was able to take control from Israel. Yet 12 years ago, when Israel withdrew its citizens and military from Gaza, the PLO refused to take responsibility for the area insisting ridiculously that Gaza was still controlled by Israel.

Then 10 years ago, US-trained PLO forces fled to Israel rather than defend their control of Gaza when Hamas took up arms against them.

There are, it seems, two main reasons for Abbas’s behavior. The first is directly related to how he understood Israel’s decision to withdraw.

In December 2003, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon stunned the country when he adopted the platform of the Labor Party – which he had just massively defeated in the general elections – and removed all Israeli communities and military installations from Gaza, including from the border with Egypt, by the end of 2005.

Israeli society was nearly torn apart in the one year and eight months between Sharon’s surprise announcement and the expulsion of Gaza’s Jews in August 2005. The media hemorrhaged with continuous propaganda that demonized the Israeli residents of Gaza and the religious Zionist community in general.

A reminder of that toxic period came earlier this month, when Haaretz published a column by veteran reporter Yossi Klein in which he alleged that religious Zionists posed a graver danger to the State of Israel than Hezbollah.

Abbas and his lieutenants viewed the domestic chaos that engulfed Israel at the time as proof of Israel being on its way off the stage of history.

What’s the Best Way for Trump to Persuade China to Up the Pressure on North Korea? A ChinaFile Conversation –

China’s President Xi Jinping called U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday morning urging American restraint in reaction to North Korea. Tensions between the United States and North Korea have risen to new levels ever since Pyongyang’s April 16 failed missile test. Top U.S. officials have repeatedly warned Pyongyang against more provocations—a warning Pyongyang does not seem likely to heed. “We’ll be conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis,” a high-ranking North Korean official recently told the BBC. After that, Trump’s number two, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, said that “The president and I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea,” adding a reminder that Trump had earlier said. “if China is unable to deal with North Korea, the United States and our allies will.” Meanwhile, China’s trade with North Korea in the first quarter of 2017 has actually increased, by a whopping 37.4 percent from the same period last year. Will Beijing start enforcing sanctions? How can the U.S. persuade China to push Pyongyang to denuclearize—a stated goal of both great powers? —The Editors
Comments
Michael Swaine

The Chinese clearly believe that events regarding North Korea are escalating to a dangerous level. And they have sent some signals that they are today even less happy with Pyongyang than before and notably concerned about Trump’s bottom line and willingness to use force. As a result of these two factors, and Xi’s recent positive conversations with Trump, the Chinese are arguably already willing to support more onerous sanctions, to a point. It is highly unlikely that they are going to shut off all economic intercourse with North Korea (and certainly not indefinitely) in the hopes of forcing denuclearization talks. It could just as easily lead to conflict. They do not want to take such a high risk. This ever-cautious stance was also indicated by Xi’s phone call to Trump on Sunday evening Washington time in which he reportedly yet again urged the president to exercise restraint and seek to engage the North Koreans.

Trump could of course try to escalate pressure or incentives on Beijing by threatening some type of kinetic strike (e.g., against any North Korean missile launches), or offering various trade incentives, or even a reduction in arms sales to Taiwan (thus violating the Six Assurances), but these are unlikely to prove possible politically or to prove successful. And a full-blown attack on North Korean missile and nuclear sites would only generate war and result in a catastrophic failure of U.S. policy beyond anything yet seen.

The real question is: What is Trump’s game plan if something less than a full-court press on sanctions (either with or without China) fails in the near term, neither stopping missile or nuclear testing nor bringing Pyongyang back to the table for denuclearization talks? What then?

The Chinese are not the key to solving this problem. But the U.S. does need their active cooperation in any way forward, to stand any reasonable chance of “success.” They could play a positive role in pressuring and/or encouraging Pyongyang to avoid actually deploying a nuclear-armed missile of any range, which should be the near- to medium-term goal, followed by a freeze. Temporary Chinese suspensions of oil and other trade could be used to achieve such goals. The Chinese might agree to that, on a limited basis.

Long term, what is needed is a dialogue with Beijing, Seoul, and Japan about the future of the peninsula and a revived Structural Framework-type arrangement, presenting Pyongyang with a very stark choice between isolation and irrelevancy or security and development.
Bruce Klingner

There is a stark dichotomy between how Trump administration officials privately describe the recently completed North Korea policy review and the impression one gets from the blustery, swaggering public threats of preemptive attack. The policy that has been blessed by the interagency process includes emphasis on restrengthening the U.S. military to reverse degradations in capability resulting from defense budget cuts and an augmentation of ballistic missile defense.

What is likely to be the most striking difference from the Obama Administration will be a willingness to actually use existing legal authorities to more vigorously impose sanctions on North Korea and Chinese violators. While Obama talked a good game on sanctions, he only timidly and incrementally enforced U.S. laws. U.S. bureaucrats privately comment that they have long had lists of sanctionable entities but were prevented by senior Obama officials from targeting them.

Trump’s declarations before and after his summit with Chinese President Xi Jingping reflect the adage about March weather, “coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb.” In the run-up to the summit, President Trump vowed to press China to “solve” North Korea, vowing to use Chinese trade with the U.S. as leverage to force greater Chinese action against North Korea.

Yet, after the summit, Trump quickly flip-flopped, abandoning his strong rhetoric and instead proclaiming President Xi Jinping was “going to try very hard” on North Korea and that “I think he wants to help us with North Korea.” Trump acknowledged that his softer position on China was due to its perceived help on North Korea, asking, “Why would I call China a currency manipulator when they are working with us on the North Korean problem?” Trump continued to heap praise on China, declaring that “Nobody’s ever seen such a positive response on our behalf from China.”

It is disturbing that the president so quickly abandoned his strong rhetoric and pledges to increase pressure on Beijing to fully implement required U.N. sanctions and no longer turn a blind eye to prohibited activities taking place on its soil. The Trump administration’s intent to enforce U.S. laws, including imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese violators, is now on hold pending Beijing fulfilling pledges made privately during the summit.

Trump would benefit from reviewing China’s previous pledges to “do more” on North Korea. After each of North Korea’s previous nuclear and missile tests, some U.S. experts have assessed that Beijing had hardened its position toward North Korea, ended its unconditional support to Pyongyang, and predicted that some forthcoming provocation (now long since passed) would trigger even more decisive action by China.