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All are invited to hear Savannah District Attorney Meg Heap speak on Tuesday, Sept 26, 2017.

Plantation Club: Cocktails/Cash Bar: 5:00 PM; Presentation: 5:30-6:30 PM

Costs: SIRC Sustaining members – Free; Regular members – $5; Non-Members – $10

Crime continues as a serious issue in Savannah (e.g. recent shooting at City Market)

How is gang violence being combatted?

For reservations, and advance planning, contact Jack Sherrill at

jack@sherrillandcompany.com, or 912- 629-7313

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Her Keinon is one of the more astute Israeli observers and commentators.

In this article he talks about the difference between Netanyahu's relationship with Trump versus that he endured with Obama and what it means in terms forNetanyahu's ability to leverage his relationship for the benefit of others.. (See 1 below.)
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While I am in the prediction business (see previous memo) I thought I would give my thoughts regarding N Korea.

We, and most every Western nation, have a tendency to avoid the unthinkable. Consequently, we allow our adversaries, who threaten us, to gain the upper hand either because we fail to take action when it best supports our own position and/or negotiate and eventually learn we have been taken to the cleaners.

This is the long history of our involvement with N Korea. Every time we negotiated and struck a deal they broke any agreement reached after we had bought them off with food etc.

As McMasters now says, we have basically run out of runway.

N Korea would like to unify with S Korea and become the dominant survivor. They also would like to force our military withdrawal from the region leaving S Korea and Japan vulnerable to N Korea's nuclear threats and China's continuing support of this renegade nation as well as their own expansionary ambitions.

Amb. Bolton is very clear eyed when it comes to N Korea and points to our over 30 years of failed results and engagement with N Korea. He, like myself, does not believe N Korea will voluntarily give up their nuclear capability. They have little else by way of a bargaining chip. History has proven this to be the case. Therefore, any thought that we can bring them to the negotiating table for the purpose of getting them to do this is naively myopic at best. Furthermore, history shows that should they negotiate whatever is agreed upon will ultimately be broken and disregarded by N Korea. They have played us for suckers for years.

Consequently, we will eventually have to either allow N Korea to win or we will have to engage them militarily - the unthinkable course we wish to avoid and which drives our every diplomatic action.

The second , and alternative course, is to force China to exercise their leverage over N Korea. China obviously has some of its own concerns regarding a strong nuclear N Korea on their border and particularly one they cannot control. On the other hand, a nuclear N Korea, driving America nuts and threatening our own forces on S Korea, our own homeland and that of our allies and which keeps America penned down, is a benefit both to China as well as Russia. Therefore, unless we are willing to squeeze China and Russia to the point of making them force N Korea to do our bidding, whatever leverage we have is also worthless and ineffective.

Sanctions and pronouncements from the U.N simply makes us look like the pitiful Gulliver we are.

The choice we have will eventually come down to a military one and if we blink it will send a clear message not only to N Korea, China and Russia but to Iran that America is no longer a nation upon which others can rely and that we are a paper tiger. This is the position feckless bargaining always places you in and we seem never to learn.

Whether you like Trump or not, whether you think he is boorish or not, whether you believe he is presidential or not this is the mess he inherited from other presidents who many thought were presidential and who actually enacted policies which have proven to be disastrous. You never feed a bully. It only increases their appetite. Clinton did not understand this and Obama did not care because he wanted to weaken America so other nations could have their day in the sun and supplant and/or curb America's aggressiveness.

N Korea's "Fat Boy," "Rocket Man," "Nuclear Nut," whatever you want to call him, understands when he is being fed a diet of weakness. He has thrived off the calumny we have been feeding him and his family for decades. It has only made him stronger and bolder and it is insane to keep repeating the same mistakes thinking things will change.

Stay tuned and prepare for what we have sought to avoid. Even if we achieve a negotiation it will eventually prove to be a ruse. You just cannot trust tyrants you often have to deal with and are stupid to believe you can. Our State Department is full of misguided foolish thinkers whose job is to prevent that which eventually occur because they cannot bring themselves to accept their approach is a failing one. (See 2 below.)
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Dick
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1)From tug of war with Obama to Trump's warm embrace: Netanyahu heads for UN

By HERB KEINON

Following the warm welcome Netanyahu received at the White House in February and Trump’s friendly visit to Israel in May, Monday’s meeting is expected to follow the same pattern. NEW YORK – One of the most striking elements in the run-up to Monday’s meeting in New York between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump is the lack of the apocalyptic background noise that preceded almost every meeting between Netanyahu and Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.

There was certainly a great deal of expectation of a boom about to be lowered when Netanyahu met Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in September 2009.

That meeting – which also included a brief trilateral meeting with Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – came after months of US pressure on Israel to announce a settlement moratorium, an initiative that up until that meeting Netanyahu had rebuffed, at the price of constant and intense tension with Washington.

That meeting took place after Obama had already unmistakably set the tone of his relationship with Israel by bypassing Israel on trips to the region that took him to Ankara, Riyadh and Cairo; by demanding a settlement freeze; and by talking about the need to put public daylight between the two allies.

So, before the two leaders met at the UN in 2009, there was already talk about administration anger toward Netanyahu and a crisis in the works. That set a pattern that repeated itself for the next eight years. Almost every Netanyahu-Obama meeting was preceded by dire descriptions of their relationship, and of trouble ahead for the US-Israel relationship. The forecast was always stormy.

Fast forward eight years to the scheduled meeting with Trump on Monday, which – as was the case with Obama – will take place on the sidelines of the president’s maiden address to the world body.

The overall atmosphere and tone of the relationship between Jerusalem and Washington has changed fundamentally.

It is not as if there are no disagreements – there are. But they are less about settlement policy and more about what needs to be done to keep Iran from setting up a permanent military presence in Syria when the civil war there ends.

But even those disagreements are for the most part kept behind closed doors, not aired publicly, as was the case with the Obama administration.

In the run-up to Monday’s meeting, no one is writing about deep frustration in Washington with Netanyahu over the Palestinian or Iranian issues; nobody is discussing administration anger over Israel’s settlement policy; and no leaks have emerged of senior administration officials castigating Netanyahu or his government for its “recalcitrance.”

That is not an insignificant shift.

When Obama met Netanyahu in New York in September 2009, it was already clear to all the world leaders attending the UN General Assembly, that the Israeli premier was definitely not Obama’s favorite interlocutor – and that perception, which only deepened as the years passed, had negative diplomatic ramifications for Israel.

One of the most important assets Israel has in its dealing with other countries is the perception of very close ties with Washington – of being America’s “favorite son.” If that perception is damaged – as it was in the Obama years – Israel loses out on an important asset.

Granted, during the Obama years Israel still had massive support on Capitol Hill, but Netanyahu could not pull strings at the White House to gain favor for friends. Not only could Netanyahu not open doors in the White House for other countries during the Obama years, he could hardly open the doors there for himself.

That has changed under Trump.

Following the warm welcome Netanyahu received at the White House in February and Trump’s very friendly visit to Israel in May, Monday’s meeting is expected to follow the same pattern. And the world is both watching and taking note.

The eyes of the world’s leaders will all be on Trump at the UN, and for many of them – according to a report in The New York Times that quoted Jon B. Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington – “This is going to be their first chance to see him, to judge him and try to get on his good side.”

And, yes, despite the unconventional nature of this president, the world’s leaders will want to get on Trump’s good side, because – after all – he still is president of the most powerful nation in the world.

While some in the American Jewish community have expressed concern that Netanyahu has “tied himself to the hip” of a divisive US president, Netanyahu’s obviously close relationship with Trump – a relationship that will again be on full display at their meeting on Monday – gives Israel added value in dealing with countries that don’t enjoy such a strong relationship with the president, would like to and may look to Netanyahu to help them make it happen.

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2)

South Korea: The Wild Card in the Korean Crisis

Last May, I spoke at Mauldin Economics’ Strategic Investment Conference and made two points on the situation on the Korean Peninsula. I said that the United States and North Korea had entered into a major crisis and that the crisis would likely lead to war. The crisis ensued, but war has not broken out. As North Korea test-fired another missile that flew over Japan late last week, it’s time to review what happened and why the war hasn’t materialized.

North Korea had been working on developing nuclear weapons for years; this was nothing new. But the development that turned this into a crisis was that the North had passed a threshold. There was evidence that North Korea had developed warheads small enough to be fitted to a missile. There was also evidence that Pyongyang seemed to be moving toward a new missile that would be capable of striking the United States.

One of the United States’ top imperatives is to keep the homeland secure from foreign attacks of all sorts. The possibility of a nuclear attack towered over all other threats. Logically, North Korea would not want to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile and endure the inevitable retaliation that might annihilate the country. The problem for the United States was that it could not be certain that North Korea would follow this logic; the fact that it probably would was not good enough in this situation. Therefore, the US would try to destroy North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities just before they became operational. The problem, of course, was figuring out how close North Korea was to developing an operational weapon. The United States was therefore in an area of uncertainty.

“Likely” Isn’t Good Enough

The US had little to gain from a war with North Korea; it wanted only to destroy the North’s nuclear program. The war plan was complex, and though it was likely to succeed, “likely” is not a term you want to use in war. North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities were scattered in numerous locations, and many were underground or in hardened sites. And the North Koreans had massed artillery along their southwestern border, within easy range of Seoul. In the event of an American attack on North Korean facilities, it was assumed those guns would open up, killing many South Koreans. Destroying those batteries would require a significant air campaign, and in the meantime, North Korean artillery would be firing at the South.

The US turned to China to negotiate a solution. The Chinese failed. In my view, the Chinese would not be terribly upset to see the US dragged into a war that would weaken Washington if it lost, and would cause massive casualties on all sides if it won. Leaving that question aside, the North Koreans felt they had to have nuclear weapons to deter American steps to destabilize Pyongyang. But the risk of an American attack, however difficult, had to have made them very nervous, even if they were going to go for broke in developing a nuclear capability.

But they didn’t seem very nervous. They seemed to be acting as if they had no fear of a war breaking out. It wasn’t just the many photos of Kim Jong Un smiling that gave this impression. It was that the North Koreans moved forward with their program regardless of American and possible Chinese pressure.

Another Player Enters the Game

A couple of weeks ago, the reason for their confidence became evident. First, US President Donald Trump tweeted a message to the South Koreans accusing them of appeasement. In response, the South Koreans released a statement saying South Korea’s top interest was to ensure that it would never again experience the devastation it endured during the Korean War. From South Korea’s perspective, artillery fire exchanges that might hit Seoul had to be avoided. Given the choice between a major war to end the North’s nuclear program and accepting a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons, South Korea would choose the latter.

With that policy made public, and Trump’s criticism of it on the table, the entire game changed its form. The situation had been viewed as a two-player game, with North Korea rushing to build a deterrent, and the US looking for the right moment to attack. But it was actually a three-player game, in which the major dispute was between South Korea and the United States.

The US could have attacked the North without South Korea’s agreement, but it would have been substantially more difficult. The US has a large number of fighter jets and about 40,000 troops based in the South. South Korean airspace would be needed as well. If Seoul refused to cooperate, the US would be facing two hostile powers, and would possibly push the North and the South together. Washington would be blamed for the inevitable casualties in Seoul. The risk of failure would pyramid.

With the South making it clear that it couldn’t accept another devastating war on the peninsula, the war option was dissolving for the United States. When we consider North Korea’s confidence now, it is completely explicable. Assuming the South hadn’t told the North its position, Pyongyang’s intelligence service certainly picked it up, given the various meetings being held. I thought these meetings were about war plans, but in retrospect they were about pressuring and cajoling South Korea to accept the plans. Another indicator I missed was a general absence of South Korean preparations for war and an odd calm among the public. The US was leaning forward, and yet there were few practice evacuations, as if the South did not expect war.

The key element I missed was that South Korea’s overriding imperative was the avoidance of war. It wasn’t happy with North Korea’s programs, but it was not prepared to sustain the kind of casualties an attack on North Korea would precipitate in the South, and especially not the possibility that, like other American wars, a quick intervention would turn into a long and limitless war.

Other Options

For the United States, a nuclear North Korea is still anathema, but war is less of an option. One solution would be to increase the isolation of the North, but there is little that can be done to isolate Pyongyang more than it already is. Another solution would be to convince China to bring overwhelming pressure on North Korea. But in exchange for their cooperation, the Chinese will demand massive concessions. Some will be about trade, others about the South China Sea and US forces in South Korea. Trump will be traveling to China, likely in November, to continue negotiations. In the meantime, South Korea remains opposed to war on the peninsula, and that explains why the US is going after South Korea on steel.

We got the crisis I predicted, but the war that seemed so likely has become an enormously more complex issue… though still a possibility. If North Korea appears too immediately threatening, if China is unwilling or incapable of persuading the North, or if the United States simply decides that it cannot tolerate the risk posed by North Korea, then war is possible. But the geometry of that war will be very different than it first appeared to me.