| | | | The North Korea Invasion Scenario We Should Talk About | | Talk of a U.S. military strike might dominate the conversation over North Korea. But there is another military option that is actually more logical – a Chinese invasion of its eastern neighbor, writes Bill Emmott for Project Syndicate.
"[I]f China were to combine threats of invasion with a promise of security and nuclear protection, in exchange for cooperation and possible regime change, its chances of winning over large parts of the Korean People's Army would be high," Emmott argues. "Whereas a nuclear exchange with the U.S. would mean devastation, submission to China would promise survival, and presumably a degree of continued autonomy. For all except those closest to Kim, the choice would not be a difficult one." - Why the Kim regime is vulnerable. The Trump administration is right to reject the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power. But there is plenty more it could do short of a military strike to bring down the Kim regime, the Wall Street Journal editorializes. Indeed, the looming threat of food shortages could mean the regime is more susceptible than ever to outside pressure.
"While the regime survived a severe famine in the 1990s, today the political consequences of a failed harvest would be severe. More North Korean awareness of the outside world has fostered cynicism about the government, and about half the population is engaged in some form of private enterprise. Traders openly flout the laws because they bribe corrupt officials. The army was once the most desirable career path; now soldiers are underpaid and underfed. North Koreans will not simply accept starvation as they did two decades ago."
| | Trump Hits Dreamers – and U.S. Economy: Krugman | | The Trump administration's decision to kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for so-called Dreamers is a double blow to the U.S. economy, argues Paul Krugman in the New York Times.
For a start, "[t]heir educational and behavioral profile, as Cato notes, doesn't resemble the average immigrant, let alone the average undocumented immigrant; they look like H-1B visa holders, that is, skilled immigrants we have specifically allowed in because they help the economy."
"Beyond that, DREAMers are young -- which means that they help the economy in not one but two big ways, because they mitigate the economic problems caused by an aging population." - Trump ducks responsibility. Jeffrey Toobin argues for CNN Opinion that President Trump, like his predecessor, has the authority to act over the Dreamers. The decision to punt the issue to Congress is therefore about politics, not the law.
"Through the attorney general, Trump has thrown the Dreamers' fate in the lap of Congress, pretending that he lacks the authority to protect them," Toobin writes. "But this uncharacteristic assertion of weakness by Trump is just a political dodge. He has the authority but doesn't want to take the heat for making a decision one way or the other."
| | Why a U.S.-China Clash Might Be Inevitable | | | A confrontation between the United States and China in the South China Sea could be inevitable, argues Mark Valencia in the South China Morning Post. But this is about more than a regional maritime dispute – it's about a clash of civilizations.
"The U.S.-China hard and soft power confrontation in the South China Sea is driven by a fundamental disconnect, in that they both see themselves as 'exceptional' nations that have the 'heaven-sent' mission to lead humanity. Each considers it their right and destiny to dominate and shape the international order to fit their needs," Valencia writes.
"As such, they boldly interpret international norms and rules, like the law of the sea, in a way that furthers their national interest." | | Russia: Future Food Superpower | | Russia is poised to become a superpower in global food supply. And it has climate change to thank, argues Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg View.
"[C]limate studies show that, compared to the late 1980s, the time of the Soviet Union's demise, which depressed Eurasian agriculture for more than a decade, the temperature in Eurasia's grain-producing areas will increase by up to 1.8 degrees by the 2020s and by up to 3.9 degrees by the 2050s, with the greatest increase in winter. This means a longer growing season and better crop yields," Bershidsky writes.
"Climate change means Russian farms can expand northward, to lands that were never used to grow grain. But more importantly, it will help Russia, and to a lesser extent Ukraine and Kazakhstan, reclaim cropland that has fallen into disuse in 1991 through 2000 -- some 140 million acres. Those lands were abandoned in the early years of post-Soviet capitalism because they required too much investment and yielded little if any profit; that's changing, both for climate-related reasons and with technological advances."
| | America's Dangerous Turn Against Expertise | | Americans have increasingly turned against expertise. That doesn't bode well for America's standing in the world – or the future of the republic, argues Tom Nichols in Politico Magazine.
"No country, and especially not a republic based on delegated powers, can maintain the values and practices that sustain democracy when voters remain ignorant about their own system of government. When most Americans think a quarter of the U.S. federal budget is devoted to foreign aid, when more than 70 percent of them cannot name all three branches of government -- and nearly a third can't name even one -- the basic structures of American democracy cannot survive," Nichols writes.
"'I]n the words of James Madison: 'A people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.' If Americans do not rediscover this foundational truth about their own system of government, they not only court disasters from pandemics to wars; they risk ceding their government either to the corruption of a mindless mob -- or, in the wake of a disaster, to a new class of technocrats who will never again risk asking for their vote."
| | How the Myanmar Mess Could Get Even Uglier | | A vicious crackdown on Myanmar's Muslim minority Rohingya has recently had an almost genocidal feel to it. And if the conflict starts to be framed in broader religious terms, the unrest risks spreading well beyond the country's borders, The Guardian editorializes.
"There is no repression savage enough to empty the whole of Rakhine state of its inhabitants and finally crush the resistance. Neither can the armed resistance movement hope for any final victory. But it can hope to enlarge the scope of the conflict, and present it as a religious one in which Muslims are being persecuted for their faith," The Guardian says.
"That is at least half true, but it is a destructive as well as a powerful narrative. It adds Myanmar to the long list of countries where Islam appears to be the religion of the persecuted and the outcast, and to frame the justification for their own violent and intolerant revenge. There are already insurgencies of that sort – all of them building on existing ethnic divides and antagonisms – in many parts of south-east Asia, from Thailand to the Philippines." | | | | | | |
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