Skidaway Island Republican Club
Presents:
True Perspectives
Should We Incorporate?
Pat Farrell (County Council)
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Plantation Club
Cocktails : 5:00 PM
Presentation : 5:30 – 6:30 PM
Sustaining members – Free
Regular members - $5
Non-Members - $10
All Welcome
There are potentially many changes going on in the area we call home. Chatham County may merge with the City of Savannah. We have the possibility of incorporating ourselves and becoming the City of Skidaway Island. All of these options have regulatory and financial implications.
Hopefully, Mr. Farrell’s presentation will help us to understand some of the advantages and disadvantages for our home, The Landings community.
Please join your friends and neighbors for this meaningful session. Come early for cocktails and mingle with your pals.
For reservations:
Jack Sherrill
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David Gelernter says everything I have said and believe but has done it better. (See 1 below.)
And
Poignant video of a Spontaneous Victory Parade in Honolulu in 1945. Take a look at this video-absolutely fabulous! Notice the cars, jeeps, and youth.
The guys in khaki or gray shirts and black ties are Navy officers or chiefs. The rest are Army or Marine. How young they all were to do what they did. This guy really captured a moment in history! (You can listen to Jimmy Durante singing "I'll be Seeing You" in the background, too) www.vimeo.com/5645171
Finally:
Contrast this great spoof: Snowflake's first day at work in the real world
And then watch this tragic reality:
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If Obamacare is allowed to continue it will bankrupt itself and then the nation but seldom does the mass media explain how many jobs it has cost.
Fake news is one thing. Failing to report news is even more contemptible.(See 2 below.)
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The more I think about the differences between Obama and Trump the more I understand why the anti-Trump crowd are so consumed with hatred and will continue to miss the boat. They find Trump repugnant because he is so unlike their idol. Consequently the intensity of their disgust for Trump is heightened and the fact that Trump is in a position to undo Obama has to be galling.
Obama was more style and an empty pressed suit. He could not speak contemporaneously but always needed to stay on script. He came across very controlled, very narcissistic.
Trump is more comfortable in his own skin, also narcissistic but he is a what you see is what you get kind of male. He also has plenty of self-confidence and though he is headstrong, he listens to what others think. Obama always considered himself the smartest man in the room and cared little about what others thought and surrounded himself with idolize-rs who were unlikely to challenge. He lived in a world of appointed lackeys.
Obama was quite rigid in his convictions and shoved his thinking and ideas down the nation's throat and now everything he did is coming apart at the seams. He never sought to build consensus and hated working with the opposition because he thought they were racially motivated. Both Trump and Obama are thin skinned but they react differently to attacks. Trump fights back as did Obama but in a more open and even vulgar manner. Obama is more self-controlled, snide and less likely to allow himself to lose his grip. Trump is blood red and Obama is ice cold.
I bought "Understanding Trump" by Newt Gingrich as my beach book and am interested to learn whether my analysis of Trump coincides with that of Newt. Newt's thinking is based on first hand experience and association, whereas, mine is distant, from afar and more intuitive.
I remain hot and cold about Trump because there is much about his manner and speech that I find offensive when I judge him against a traditional profile of presidents I have experienced. That said, I am virtually in total agreement with his various ideas on what is best for the economy, tax reform, military rebuilding, our role in the world, his desire to protect our nation from external radical Islamic threats, contempt for PC'ism etc. I believe his love of our country is genuine whereas, I never felt Obama had a passion for America. If anything, he was passionate against America.
I guess, if it ever came down to it, I would rather go to a ball game with Trump than with Obama and if I ever got stranded on an island I would choose Trump over Obama , hands down. Trump is more of a man warts and all. Obama is more of a cold fish creation who acts cool.
Both men are masters at manipulation but in different ways. Obama has the mass media protecting him, fawning over him and bowing to kiss his feet. Trump is constantly attacked by the mass media, is at war with them on an almost daily basis and winds up shooting himself in his own feet.
Trump built an empire. Obama sought to change an empire.
Many of my liberal friends believe I hate Obama and, at times, I have been somewhat overboard in my expressions about my distaste for the man but I have always based my criticisms on where I disagreed with him not because of who he was.
I wish Obama had the decency to drift away quietly but he cannot stand to be ignored. GW is a model of what an ex president should be like. He has engaged in good deeds, kept his thoughts to himself and taken up painting and trying to make amends with those wounded he sent into battle.
Obama could never be like that. He is too insecure. He is a product of a screwed up family and it shows. (See 3 below.)
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This was sent to me by a good friend and fellow memo reader and I found it quite insightful. I am sure it will offend a bunch of Greens who fear climate change more than N Korea. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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Know there is a lot of content but last memo for about a week as we family out at Tybee.
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Dick
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1)
If Obamacare is allowed to continue it will bankrupt itself and then the nation but seldom does the mass media explain how many jobs it has cost.
Fake news is one thing. Failing to report news is even more contemptible.(See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The more I think about the differences between Obama and Trump the more I understand why the anti-Trump crowd are so consumed with hatred and will continue to miss the boat. They find Trump repugnant because he is so unlike their idol. Consequently the intensity of their disgust for Trump is heightened and the fact that Trump is in a position to undo Obama has to be galling.
Obama was more style and an empty pressed suit. He could not speak contemporaneously but always needed to stay on script. He came across very controlled, very narcissistic.
Trump is more comfortable in his own skin, also narcissistic but he is a what you see is what you get kind of male. He also has plenty of self-confidence and though he is headstrong, he listens to what others think. Obama always considered himself the smartest man in the room and cared little about what others thought and surrounded himself with idolize-rs who were unlikely to challenge. He lived in a world of appointed lackeys.
Obama was quite rigid in his convictions and shoved his thinking and ideas down the nation's throat and now everything he did is coming apart at the seams. He never sought to build consensus and hated working with the opposition because he thought they were racially motivated. Both Trump and Obama are thin skinned but they react differently to attacks. Trump fights back as did Obama but in a more open and even vulgar manner. Obama is more self-controlled, snide and less likely to allow himself to lose his grip. Trump is blood red and Obama is ice cold.
I bought "Understanding Trump" by Newt Gingrich as my beach book and am interested to learn whether my analysis of Trump coincides with that of Newt. Newt's thinking is based on first hand experience and association, whereas, mine is distant, from afar and more intuitive.
I remain hot and cold about Trump because there is much about his manner and speech that I find offensive when I judge him against a traditional profile of presidents I have experienced. That said, I am virtually in total agreement with his various ideas on what is best for the economy, tax reform, military rebuilding, our role in the world, his desire to protect our nation from external radical Islamic threats, contempt for PC'ism etc. I believe his love of our country is genuine whereas, I never felt Obama had a passion for America. If anything, he was passionate against America.
I guess, if it ever came down to it, I would rather go to a ball game with Trump than with Obama and if I ever got stranded on an island I would choose Trump over Obama , hands down. Trump is more of a man warts and all. Obama is more of a cold fish creation who acts cool.
Both men are masters at manipulation but in different ways. Obama has the mass media protecting him, fawning over him and bowing to kiss his feet. Trump is constantly attacked by the mass media, is at war with them on an almost daily basis and winds up shooting himself in his own feet.
Trump built an empire. Obama sought to change an empire.
Many of my liberal friends believe I hate Obama and, at times, I have been somewhat overboard in my expressions about my distaste for the man but I have always based my criticisms on where I disagreed with him not because of who he was.
I wish Obama had the decency to drift away quietly but he cannot stand to be ignored. GW is a model of what an ex president should be like. He has engaged in good deeds, kept his thoughts to himself and taken up painting and trying to make amends with those wounded he sent into battle.
Obama could never be like that. He is too insecure. He is a product of a screwed up family and it shows. (See 3 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++
This was sent to me by a good friend and fellow memo reader and I found it quite insightful. I am sure it will offend a bunch of Greens who fear climate change more than N Korea. (See 4 and 4a below.)
+++++++++++++++++
Know there is a lot of content but last memo for about a week as we family out at Tybee.
++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
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1)
The Conservative ‘Resistance’ Is Futile
The right has never made one significant move against the liberal culture machine.
By David Gelernter
Democrats, in their role as opponents of President Trump, have taken to calling themselves “the resistance.” But I was startled a few days ago when a thoughtful, much-admired conservative commentator used the same term on TV—casually, as if “the resistance” was just the obvious term. Everyone is saying it. It’s no accident that the left runs American culture. The right is too obsessed with mere mechanics—poll numbers and vote counts—to look up.
Democrats, in their role as opponents of President Trump, have taken to calling themselves “the resistance.” But I was startled a few days ago when a thoughtful, much-admired conservative commentator used the same term on TV—casually, as if “the resistance” was just the obvious term. Everyone is saying it. It’s no accident that the left runs American culture. The right is too obsessed with mere mechanics—poll numbers and vote counts—to look up.
“Resistance” is unacceptable in referring to the Trump opposition because, obviously, it suggests the Resistance—against the Nazis in occupied France. Many young people are too ignorant to recognize the term, but that hardly matters. The press uses it constantly. So when a young innocent finally does encounter the genuine French Resistance, he will think, “Aha, just like the resistance to Trump!” And that’s all the left wants: a mild but continuous cultural breeze murmuring in every American ear that opposing Trump is noble and glorious. Vive la Résistance!
This abuse of “the resistance” happens everywhere. Many Republicans hate Mr. Trump and love to denounce him—which lets them show their integrity and, sometimes, a less-praiseworthy attribute too.
Many intellectuals think Mr. Trump is vulgar. That includes conservatives. They think he’s a peasant and talks like one. Every time he opens his mouth, all they hear is a small-time Queens operator who struck it big but has never had a proper education, and embarrasses the country wherever he goes, whatever he says. It never dawns on them that the president can’t stand them any more than they can stand him. Yet they expect him to treat them with respectful courtesy if he ever runs into them—as he should, and on the whole does. Conceivably they should treat him the same way.
Conservatives regret the collapse of authority, dignity and a certain due formality in the way Americans treat each other. They are right to complain when any president diminishes his office. Mr. Trump ought to think more seriously about what he owes the great men among his predecessors, and the office itself. But it’s not clear that commentators make things any better when they treat the president himself like a third-rate clown.
I’d love for him to be a more eloquent, elegant speaker. But if I had to choose between deeds and delivery, it wouldn’t be hard. Many conservative intellectuals insist that Mr. Trump’s wrong policies are what they dislike. So what if he has restarted the large pipeline projects, scrapped many statist regulations, appointed a fine cabinet and a first-rate Supreme Court justice, asked NATO countries to pay what they owe, re-established solid relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia, signaled an inclination to use troops in Afghanistan to win and not merely cover our retreat, led us out of the Paris climate accord, plans to increase military spending (granted, not enough), is trying to get rid of ObamaCare to the extent possible, proposed to lower taxes significantly and revamp immigration policy and enforcement? What has he done lately?
Conservative thinkers should recall that they helped create President Trump. They never blasted President Obama as he deserved. Mr. Obama’s policies punished the economy and made the country and its international standing worse year by year; his patronizing arrogance drove people crazy. He was the perfect embodiment of a one-term president. The tea-party outbreak of 2009-10 made it clear where he was headed. History will record that the press saved him. Naturally the mainstream press loved him, but too many conservative commentators never felt equal to taking him on. They had every reason to point out repeatedly that Mr. Obama was the worst president since Jimmy Carter, surrounded by a left-wing cabinet and advisers, hostile to Israel, crazed regarding Iran, and even less competent to deal with the issues than Mr. Carter was—which is saying plenty.
But they didn’t say plenty. They didn’t say much at all. The rank and file noticed and got mad. Even their supposed champions didn’t grasp what life under Mr. Obama was like—a man who was wrecking the economy while preaching little sermons, whose subtext was always how smart he was, how dumb they were, and how America was full of racist clods, dangerous cops and infantile nuts who would go crazy if they even heard the words “Islamic terrorism.” So the rank and file was deeply angry and elected Mr. Trump.
Some conservatives have the impression that, by showing off their anti-Trump hostility, they will get the networks and the New York Times to like them. It doesn’t work like that. Although the right reads the left, the left rarely reads the right. Why should it, when the left owns American culture? Nearly every university, newspaper, TV network, Hollywood studio, publisher, education school and museum in the nation. The left wrapped up the culture war two generations ago. Throughout my own adult lifetime, the right has never made one significant move against the liberal culture machine.
So go ahead, proclaim it from the rooftops: the anti-Trump opposition is a virtual French Resistance! If we’re not going to fight anyway, let’s surrender and get it over with.
Mr. Gelernter invented Lifestreams, the first social network.
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2) How Many Jobs Does ObamaCare Kill?
2) How Many Jobs Does ObamaCare Kill?
We surveyed managers at small businesses and put the count at 250,000.
By Casey B. Mulligan
Democrats loudly complain that people will lose health insurance if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. They never mention those who lose jobs because the ACA remains.
The ACA includes a penalty on employers that fail to provide “adequate” insurance for full-time workers. Thanks to the ACA, hiring the 50th full-time employee effectively costs another $70,000 a year on top of the normal salary and benefits.
Many business owners have described how this penalty prevents them from hiring and has caused them to reduce work hours to below the full-time threshold. ACA supporters dismiss these statements as “mere anecdotes” not corroborated by national sampling and statistical analysis. But did any of them rush out to gather the national samples, especially after Jan. 1, 2016, when the employer penalty took full effect?
In partnership with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, in March 2017 I was able to commission Hanover Research to survey small businesses nationwide regarding their hiring and compensation practices. The result was a sample of 745 small businesses, representing every major industry and together employing almost 50,000 people.
We asked managers (almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans) how many people each business employed and whether it offers health insurance. Many businesses, when they do not offer coverage, keep their payrolls just below 50 full-time employees and thereby narrowly escape the ACA’s penalty. This pattern is not visible among businesses that offer coverage.
When we followed up, the businesses employing just fewer than 50 often said the ACA caused them to hire less and cut hours below the full-time threshold. The penalty caused payrolls to shrink or prevented them from growing.
Nationwide, we estimate the ACA-inspired practice of keeping payrolls below 50 has cost roughly 250,000 jobs. This does not count jobs lost when businesses close (we didn’t survey closed businesses) or shrink because of other ACA incentives.
The tally of lost jobs is bound to grow because the penalty itself automatically grows and the IRS is still learning how to enforce it. And the businesses we surveyed disproportionately say that they reduce hiring and hours for new employees rather than existing employees. They may continue to shrink until their payrolls are fully turned over.
Does the ACA at least spur small business to offer coverage? About a third of those now offering coverage began doing so after the ACA was passed. But two-thirds of those now not offering coverage previously did offer it. Some of the managers said the exchanges are a new option and that offering coverage at work would render employees and their families ineligible for taxpayer assistance.
No doubt a few of the 250,000 lost jobs are replaced at businesses that weren’t seeking to duck the 50-employee threshold. But even reallocated jobs are a problem, because the reallocation is motivated by uneven federal incentives unrelated to creating value in the marketplace.
The ACA is an important reason why the growth rates of employment, wages, productivity and GDP continue to be substandard. Maybe it is time for repeal.
Mr. Mulligan is author of “Side Effects: Economic Consequences of Health-Care Reform.”
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3) Making no apologies, President Trump replaces Obama Doctrine with American Exceptionalism
By Charles Hurt - The Washington Times
ANALYIS/OPINION:
Nearly a decade after Barack Obama snuffed out America's beacon of freedom to the world, President Trump has relighted the hopeful flame.
At nearly this exact point in Mr. Obama’s presidency, he launched his famous “apology tour,” traveling the globe seeking forgiveness for all America’s transgressions.
Warmongering, torture and slavery had become the ugly birthmarks of America. In Mr. Obama’s eyes, anyway.
That was before Mr. Obama went on to become the first president in history to wage war with every heartbeat of his presidency. Or the rise and spread of ISIS, which plumbed new depths of depravity in torturing innocents. Or the explosion of slavery, rape and human trafficking from South and Central America spawned by Mr. Obama’s heartless open-orders policies.
He traveled to Egypt with unrivaled credibility as the son of a Muslim to beckon the Muslim world into modernity? To teach the radical notions of free speech, self-governance and religious freedom? Instead, he apologized for America’s role in creating the internet, with its twisted view of “sexuality” and “mindless violence.”
Really? You have women living as covered servants and gays thrown off rooftops and America’s president apologized for the internet?
He also claimed it was “part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
Seriously? Can you believe that huckster peddled himself as a “constitutional scholar”? No wonder he suffered so many unanimous beat-downs by the Supreme Court during his presidency.
The problem with Barack Obama — other than having never actually read the Constitution — is that he never understood the radical notion of self-governance upon which America was founded. He views government as a great force of paternal benevolence.
It is why he gave us government-run Obamacare, which is just a fancy, self-idolizing term for socialized medicine and rationed health care. Most Orwellian of all, Mr. Obama named it the “Affordable” Care Act.
Well, sir, if it is so “affordable,” why does the federal government have to mandate everyone buy it?
Maybe if you shut up long enough and listened to the great people of Poland and other Eastern European countries for which you had such disdain, they would have happily explained it to you.
Socialism didn’t work there, and it will not work here.
Among Mr. Trump’s earliest initiatives was undoing the Obama Doctrine of apology and appeasement.
Mr. Obama’s commitment to Defeat without Peace and America Last have been replaced by an era of American Exceptionalism. America's Beacon of Hope shines brightly once again.
In Warsaw, Mr. Trump celebrated our warm friendship with the “soul of Europe.”
“You stood in solidarity against oppression, against a lawless secret police, against a cruel and wicked system that impoverished your cities and your souls,” he said. “And you won. Poland prevailed. Poland will always prevail.”
And this gem, which certainly went right over Mr. Obama’s head, but may as well have been aimed directly at the heart of Obamacare: “The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.”
Mr. Trump’s entire powerful and elegant speech reminded me of so many thrilling lines from “Casablanca.” In particular, this one near the end of the film when Victor Laszlo turns to Rick after getting the letters of transit and says: “Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.”
• Charles Hurt can be reached at churt@washingtontimes.com and on Twitter by @charleshurt.
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4)
The Constitution is very clear about this. “No state shall enter into any treaty.” Governor Cuomo of New York has been equally clear. “New York State is committed to meeting the standards set forth in the Paris Accord regardless of Washington's irresponsible actions.”
Cuomo's statement conveniently comes in French, Chinese and Russian translations.
“It is a little bold to talk about the China-California partnership as though we were a separate nation, but we are a separate nation,” Governor Brown of California announced.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, the radical leftist described California as “a real nation-state”.
Brown was taking a swing through China to reassure the Communist dictatorship of California’s loyalty to an illegal treaty at the same time as EU boss Juncker was bashing America and kissing up to Premier Li Keqiang at the EU-China summit. It’s one thing when the EU and China form a united front against America. It’s quite another when California and China form a united front against America.
The Climate Alliance of California, New York, Washington, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, Virginia and Rhode Island looks a lot like the Confederacy’s Montgomery Convention. Both serve as meeting points for a secessionist alliance of states to air their grievances against the Federal government over an issue in which they are out of step with the nation.
"We’re a powerful state government. We have nine other states that agree with us," Brown boasted.
Two more and Jim Jones' old pal could have his own confederacy.
All the bragging and boasting about how much wealth and power the secessionist states of the climate confederacy represent sounds very familiar. But that wealth and power is based around small enclaves, the Bay Area and a few dozen blocks in Manhattan, which wield disproportionate influence.
Like the slaveowner class, leftist elites are letting the arrogance of their wealth lead them into treason. And as they look out from their mansions and skyscrapers, they should remember that the majority of working class people in California and New York will be far less enthusiastic about fighting a war to protect their dirty investments in solar energy plants and carbon credits funded by taxes seized from many of those same people in these left-wing slave states.
The declared intention of the Climate Alliance, in words appearing on the New York State government website, is to treasonously “convene U.S. states committed to upholding the Paris Climate Agreement”.
States cannot and are not allowed to unilaterally choose to “uphold” a treaty rejected by the President. Their leaders are certainly not allowed to travel to enemy nations to inform foreign powers of their treasonous designs and to solicit their aid against the policies of the United States government.
This is all the more treasonous at a time when the United States is on a collision course with the People’s Republic of China over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and trade agreements.
“It’s important for the world to know that America is not Washington," Brown declared. "Yes, we’re part of the union, but we’re also a sovereign state that can promote the necessary policies that are required for survival.”
Governors don’t normally feel the need to declare that their state is still part of the union. But they also don’t announce that they’re a separate nation and then set off to cut separate deals with enemy powers. No state should be issuing, “Yes, we’re part of the union, but” disclaimers before going to China.
The disclaimer is the first step to leaving the union.
Governor Brown's trip to China isn't funded by California taxpayers. That might be a relief to that overburdened tribe except that it's partially being paid for by the Energy Foundation. Behind that generic name for a pass through organization are a number of left-wing foundations who have been paying for American politicians to travel to the People’s Republic of China.
Donors to the energy foundation include Ecocrat billionaire Tom Steyer who has pumped millions into EF. Steyer’s finances are entangled with China and even with members of the Chinese government.
Steyer has accused President Trump of treason for rejecting the unconstitutional Paris Climate Treaty. But who are the real traitors here?
Other major EF donors include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bloomberg and George Soros.
There is something deeply troubling about a governor’s treasonous trip being funded by private interests with business ties to a foreign power. If Democrats were really serious about rooting out influence by foreign powers, they would be taking a very close look at Brown’s backers.
But the greater outrage is that the governors of secessionist states are using a manufactured crisis to conduct “diplomacy” with foreign governments in defiance of the policies of the United States.
Washington’s Jay Inslee was recently talking Global Warming in a meeting with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau. “We’re both very strongly engaged on issues of climate change, on issues of openness to trade, on leadership on refugees as well,” Trudeau declared.
“We share an incredible commitment to defeating climate change,” Inslee flattered him. “And it is a great pleasure we have a national leader on the North American continent who is committed to that.”
And he didn’t mean the President of the United States.
Inslee’s fondness for the illegal Paris Climate treaty is unsurprising as his own efforts on Global Warming similarly depended on unilateral moves that lacked legislative support. But that is a problem for Washington’s Constitution. His participation in a secessionist pact is a problem for our Constitution.
And the problem isn’t limited to the Climate Alliance.
California and many of the other entities declaring that they will enforce an illegal treaty are also sanctuary states and cities. They are choosing not to follow Federal law while implementing foreign treaties that they have no right to unilaterally participate in.
This is a treasonous situation that is more troubling in some ways than the original Civil War because it involves states making open alliance with enemy powers such as China and welcoming them in. State governments are undermining the united front of the national government in the face of the enemy.
"California will resist this misguided and insane course of action," Governor Brown ranted. The logic of “resistance” has inevitably turned into treason.
A civil war is underway. In the last election the territorial majority of Americans rejected the rule of a minority of wealthy and powerful urban enclaves. Outside of their bicoastal bases, the political power of the Democrat faction has been shattered. And so it has retreated into subversion and secessionism.
“China is moving forward in a very serious way, and so is California,” Brown declared. “And we're going in the opposite direction of Donald Trump.”
While Democrats have spent the better part of the previous week waving their arms in the air over a back channel with Russia, one of their faction’s leading governors is openly allying with China against the President of the United States. And the treasonous Democrat media is cheering this betrayal.
Brown and his colleagues are in blatant violation of the Logan Act. Their actions are in violation of the United States Constitution. And all this is another dark step on the road to another civil war.
If the climate confederacy is not held accountable for its treason, the crisis will only grow.
4a)
Krauthammer: On North Korea, the Rubicon is crossed
· By Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post Writers Group
Across 25 years and five administrations, we have kicked the North Korean can down the road. We are now out of road.
On July 4, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile apparently capable of hitting the United States. As yet, only Alaska. Soon, every American city.
Moreover, Pyongyang claims to have already fitted miniaturized nuclear warheads on intermediate range missiles. Soon, on ICBMs.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's initial reaction to this game changer was not encouraging. "Global action is required to stop a global threat," he declared.
This, in diplo-speak, is a cry for (multilateral) help. Alas, there will be none. Because, while this is indeed a global threat, there is no such thing as global interests. There are individual national interests and they diverge. In this case, radically.
Take Russia and China. If there's to be external pressure on North Korea, it would come from them. Will it? On Tuesday, they issued a joint statement proposing a deal: North Korea freezes nuclear and missile testing in return for America abandoning large-scale joint exercises with South Korea.
On July 4, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile apparently capable of hitting the United States. As yet, only Alaska. Soon, every American city.
Moreover, Pyongyang claims to have already fitted miniaturized nuclear warheads on intermediate range missiles. Soon, on ICBMs.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's initial reaction to this game changer was not encouraging. "Global action is required to stop a global threat," he declared.
This, in diplo-speak, is a cry for (multilateral) help. Alas, there will be none. Because, while this is indeed a global threat, there is no such thing as global interests. There are individual national interests and they diverge. In this case, radically.
Take Russia and China. If there's to be external pressure on North Korea, it would come from them. Will it? On Tuesday, they issued a joint statement proposing a deal: North Korea freezes nuclear and missile testing in return for America abandoning large-scale joint exercises with South Korea.
This is a total non-starter. The exercises have been the backbone of the U.S.-South Korea alliance for half a century. Abandonment would signal the end of an enduring relationship that stabilizes the region and guarantees South Korean independence. In exchange for what?
A testing freeze? The offer doesn't even pretend to dismantle North Korea's nuclear program, which has to be our minimal objective. Moreover, we've negotiated multiple freezes over the years with Pyongyang. It has violated every one.
The fact that Russia and China would, amid a burning crisis, propose such a dead-on-arrival proposal demonstrates that their real interest is not denuclearization. Their real interest is cutting America down to size by breaking our South Korean alliance and weakening our influence in the Pacific Rim.
These are going to be our partners in solving the crisis?
And yet, relying on China's good graces appeared to be Donald Trump's first resort for solving North Korea. Until he declared two weeks ago (by tweet, of course) that China had failed. "At least I know China tried!" he added.
They did? Trump himself tweeted out on Wednesday that Chinese trade with North Korea increased by almost 40 percent in the first quarter, forcing him to acknowledge that the Chinese haven't been helping.
Indeed not. The latest North Korean missile is menacing not just because of its 4,000-mile range, but because it is road mobile. And the transporter comes from China.
In the calculus of nuclear deterrence, mobility guarantees inviolability. (The enemy cannot find, and therefore cannot pre-empt, a mobile missile.) It's a huge step forward for Pyongyang. Supplied by Beijing.
How many times must we be taught that Beijing does not share our view of denuclearizing North Korea? It prefers a divided peninsula, that is, sustaining its client state as a guarantee against a unified Korea (possibly nuclear) allied with the West and sitting on its border.
Nukes assure regime survival. That's why the Kims have so single-mindedly pursued them. The lessons are clear. Saddam Hussein, no nukes: hanged. Moammar Gadhafi, gave up his nuclear program: killed by his own people. The Kim dynasty, possessing an arsenal of 10-16 bombs: untouched, soon untouchable.
What are our choices? Trump has threatened that if China doesn't help we'll have to go it alone. If so, the choice is binary: acquiescence or war.
War is almost unthinkable, given the proximity of the Demilitarized Zone to the 10 million people of Seoul. A mere conventional war would be devastating. And could rapidly go nuclear.
Acquiescence is not unthinkable. After all, we did it when China went nuclear under Mao Zedong, whose regime promptly went insane under the Cultural Revolution.
The hope for a third alternative, getting China to do the dirty work, is mostly wishful thinking. If we want to decisively alter the strategic balance, we could return U.S. tactical nukes (withdrawn in 1991) to South Korea. Or we could encourage Japan to build a nuclear deterrent of its own. Nothing would get more quick attention from the Chinese. They would face a radically new strategic dilemma: Is preserving North Korea worth a nuclear Japan?
We do have powerful alternatives. But each is dangerous and highly unpredictable. Which is why the most likely ultimate outcome, by far, is acquiescence.
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