Leverage

Pigs, it turns out, could lead to the denuclearization of North Korea.  The present US administration has made a resolution of the North Korea problem one of its top priorities.  North Korea teeters on the edge of starvation, at least for the vast majority of its population.  Now, North Korea has apparently been hit with “pig ebola” that has already struck neighboring China.  North Korea gets 80% of its protein from pork.  If this hits North Korea as hard as it has hit China, then it may provide an opening for the US to trade pigs for denuclearization.  Time will tell.

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Still playing with nukes

The USAF is still testing an developing aircraft dropped nuclear weapons.  Story here.  While an air dropped nuke may seem anachronistic in this day and age, it is worth keeping more options available.  The more options we have, the less chance we end up having to use one of them.

They need us…

…more than we need them.  This has been obvious for a while now, but only in the current administration have we begun to use this leverage.  It discomforts many companies in the US with strong interests in China (i.e. NBA, Nike) but that should not be our governments concern.

The NBA sucks

I hate NBA basketball.  While I enjoy the college game, the NBA is boring.  Not only is their product boring, but now the NBA has shown itself to be cowardly money-grubbers.  With the current controversy over the NBA, China and Hong Kong, this happened last night, not in China but in Philadelphia. 

An interesting story

...from the end of the cold war.  I recall that the Israelis did something similar stealing an entire SA-2 or SA-3 SAM radar unit from the Egyptians back in the 70s.

China

In light of this….

This is flat out amazing.  This isn’t the first time the guys from South Park have been ahead of the curve.

China

China held a military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the communist revolution.  Lots of interesting photos of drones and missiles and stuff.

 

Someone has some explaining to do

This story doesn’t make much sense to me. Given the sophistication of the Saudi military equipment, I would have thought that the Saudis would have a big advantage in this conflict, especially as they are not restrained by western sensibilities about civilian casualties.

Sharp Sword

Looks like the Chinese are testing a drone to operate off their first indigenously produced aircraft carrier.  We need to stop dumping our money into China which only ends up in the state coffers for weapons development.

Hotspot

As you know the South China Sea is a hotspot I watch closely.  However adjacent to it, in the  Sea of Japan (North China Sea) a little tussle is developing between North Korea and Russia.  These two nuclear armed, third-rate powers are apparently scrapping over fishing in each other’s waters.  Both countries are economically desperate and North Korea simply has to have as much protein as they can find so I could easily see this one flaring up.  Stay tuned.