The Trump administration is bending over backward to be, and to sound, hostile and confrontational toward Iran. This effort to flaunt a role for itself as a dedicated enemy of Iran has roots in the same factors that underlie the more widely established anti-Iranism in the United States, staying ahead of which is clearly an administration…
The election of Donald Trump as US President has seen the ramping up of US rhetoric about North Korea. Trump recently demanded that China should use its influence with the North Koreans and if China did not intervene, then, according to an interview Trump gave to the UK Financial Times, the “US would act alone.”…
China’s military were reportedly put on high alert this week, with US officials saying that Beijing is preparing to respond to any potential situation in North Korea. The “extraordinary” mobilization of bomber aircraft was reportedly acknowledged by China’s foreign ministry, giving no further details. The general assumption is that China is taking a defensive position in case the…
The US’s game of deception about the movements of the Carl Vinson during the North Korean crisis has damaged the US’s credibility and earned it deserved ridicule. The saga of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and its battle group serves as a good example of all that is wrong with the Trump administration’s conduct of…
Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the International Arctic Forum this week on the real and present dangers from falsifying history. He said such deliberate distortion of history erodes international law and order, creating chaos and leading to further conflict. The Russian leader deplored the use of history as an «ideological weapon» to demonize others, and he said…
Korea specialist Professor Bruce Cumings notes North Korea became a national security fortress-state as a result of “the holocaust the North experienced during the Korean War”. After the ‘Communist’ label and racial epithets were applied to dehumanize the populace, the US essentially wiped North Korea off the map, with hundreds of thousands or (more likely)…
