Good News<\/b><\/div>\nThe Korean Summit.\u00a0<\/b>The recent decision by\u00a0<\/b>President Moon Jae-in (South Korea), Kim Jung-un (North Korea) and President Trump is promising. Of course, it may go nowhere, and, worse case, could enflame tensions more severely than ever. However, for the time being the prospect of not hearing about \u201cfire and fury\u201d, \u201crocket man\u201d and the size of nuclear buttons, is a welcome change.<\/p>\n
Department of Defense Audit.<\/b>\u00a0It is hard to believe, but in December, David Norquist, the Defense Department Comptroller announced that this year an audit would be issued on\u00a0November 15<\/span><\/span>, to be repeated in the years to come. For years members of Congress have demanded such an audit, while other groups like the General Accountability Office have claimed it was impossible. Reportedly, \u00a02400 auditors will be assigned to the project, many from independent public accounting firms.<\/p>\nNo First Use Bill.<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0In November 2017, Congress Adam Smith, Democrat from the 9th<\/sup>\u00a0Congressional district of the State of Washington, and a member of the House Armed Services Committee, \u00a0introduced HB 4415 which would have the USA adopt a policy not to be the first to use a nuclear weapon. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA33) have proposed similar measures. President Obama is said to have seriously considered this policy, but ultimately was talked out of it.<\/p>\nBad News<\/span><\/b><\/p>\nThe turnover continues.\u00a0<\/b>John Bolton replaces Lieutenant General HR McMaster as chief National Security Advisor. We are told that McMaster didn\u2019t click with President Trump; that the President felt he was too cautious and boring in his briefings. In his place Trump wants a long-time hawk. Bolton tried to deal with Iran Contra as deputy Attorney General to President Reagan; later, he argued, and still does for the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, and as recently as last month he was stating the case for a preemptive strike in North Korea. On Fox news he also has claimed that Iran should be bombed. Is this the person we need coordinating strategy analysis for the President?<\/span><\/div>\n\n
\n
\u00a0Trump Doubles down on Saudi Arabia.<\/b>\u00a0As President Obama was leaving office he decided to block the transfer of \u201cprecision\u201d weapons to Saudi Arabia. The concern was that in its war against the Houthi rebels, \u00a0there were unacceptably civilian casualties. The President and Mad dog Mattis see it differently. They have approved the sale of 6700 US made (Raytheon) anti-tank missiles to Saudi Arabia. All told, the military aid to S.A.will add up to around one million dollars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Our old favorite, the F-35.<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0The evening television news has footage of the latest and greatest joint strike fighters on aircraft carriers off the coast of Korea, with brave talk from the pilots. The problem is that, \u00a0although some 235 of the extremely expensive planes have been designated \u201ccombat ready\u201d, there is a lot that needs to be fixed.\u00a0\u00a0Selected 17 years ago to be built for around $40 or 50 million, the planes now cost on the order of $120 million per plane, and a recent report from the Pentagon\u2019s Operational Test and Evaluation Director lists 264 \u201chigh priority\u201d performance and safety deficiencies. The Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information – Project on Government Onsight has a recent article on F-35 shortcomings that will make you weep.<\/p>\n
Cluster Bombs.<\/b>\u00a0In 2008, the Defense Department agreed that the USA would cease using or selling cluster bombs in 2019. The idea was that by that time the newer versions of cluster bombs would be such that one or less percent would fail to explode, remaining on the ground to kill or maim subsequent civilians. At the end of November, the Pentagon reversed its policy, stating that any cluster bombs in its inventory could be used or sold to allies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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By Charlie Kindleberger Congress has just voted on a $1.3 trillion omnibus appropriations bill that will get us to the end of the fiscal year in September. And the President has reluctantly signed the measure thereby keeping the government from once again shutting down. At 2,232 pages there is something for almost everyone. Well not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5310"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5326,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5310\/revisions\/5326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}