North Korea's nuclear arsenal is real – how Trump will handle it is unknown - Guardian

North Korea's nuclear arsenal is real – how Trump will handle it is unknown

Julian Borger in Washington

Saturday 15 April 2017 03.14 AEST Last modified on Saturday 15 April 2017 19.40 AEST

The ascent of Donald Trump, the volatility of his foreign policy and his tendency to fire off tweeted threats to nuclear-armed adversaries has brought one more wild card to the Korean peninsula, which already had more than its fair share.

China urges North Korea and US to step back from brink of war

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Tensions would be high anyway in the run up to Saturday’s “Day of the Sun”, when the North Korean state celebrates the anniversary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il-sung. His grandson, Kim Jong-un, has shown himself anxious to outdo his forefathers, accelerating the pace of the regime’s missile and nuclear tests.

Very visible work has been under way at the mountainous nuclear test site where a new tunnel has been opened, giving rise to expectations that the country could carry out its sixth underground detonation of a nuclear device. This time, it could be a thermonuclear weapon that is tested, with a far higher yield than a simple fission warhead, or more than one bomb could be set off at the same time.

Alternatively, the preparations could be feint, intended to confuse and frighten the rest of the world, and Kim could use the grand military parade on the Day of the Sun to show off an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the regime is seeking to develop and would be capable of reaching the west coast of the US.

There has been little doubt in recent years that the end-point of the North Korean programme is an arsenal of working ICBMs and nuclear warheads small enough to put on top of them. The dilemma of how to stop it reaching that goal is the hardest problem facing any US administration, a point that Barack Obama repeatedly made to Trump during the presidential transition.

How Trump will handle that challenge is the greatest unknown hanging over the region. His instinctual response has been to bluster, mostly on Twitter, insisting that the North Korean development of an ICBM just “won’t happen” and warning that if the Chinese did not do more to stop the forward march of Pyongyang’s programme, “we will solve the problem without them”.

He has described US naval deployments of aircraft carriers and submarines in the region as an “armada”, while his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has declared that the Obama era of “strategic patience” is over.

Rattling sabres is a particularly dangerous thing to do on the Korean peninsula. While the repercussions from a missile strike in Syria or the dropping of a giant bomb in Afghanistan can be contained, a preventative strike on North Korea could set off a chain reaction. In wargaming such a confrontation, US military planners under Obama came to the conclusion that Pyongyang’s most likely counter-move would be demolish Seoul with its artillery lined up behind the demilitarised zone separating North and South Korea.

The US and North Korea have thus been stuck in a position of mutual deterrence, which has stopped the outbreak of major new hostilities but not prevented Pyongyang’s steady advance towards the capacity to directly threaten the continental US, and Europe for that matter, with nuclear weapons.

Let's stop calling North Korea 'crazy' and understand their motives

Isaac Stone Fish

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Trump seems to be hoping that by introducing some unpredictability into this static scenario, he can frighten the Chinese government into putting real pressure on Pyongyang. There are some signs that might be working, with hints in China’s semi-official media that Beijing could tighten oil deliveries, North Korea’s lifeline.

If that fails however, and Kim’s instincts up to now have always been to defy pressure, Trump is left with the same dilemma as Obama, but perhaps with even further to walk to any future negotiating table.

A Giant U.S. Bomb Carries an Even Bigger Message - New York Times

A Giant U.S. Bomb Carries an Even Bigger Message

By ERIC SCHMITT, HELENE COOPER and C. J. CHIVERS

APRIL 14, 2017

WASHINGTON — The bomb that the United States dropped on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan on Thursday was big — at 22,000 pounds, the most powerful conventional weapon in the American arsenal. Arguably, even bigger were the messages it sent, whether by design or not.

To potential adversaries like Syria and North Korea, the bombing could signal deterrence. For the American public, it underscored the Pentagon’s more aggressive stance under President Trump than under his predecessor, whose administration never even debated using the weapon.

Dozens of militants were killed, Afghan officials said. American commanders said that the bomb was chosen because it fit the target, a series of tunnels with dug-in positions nearby used by militants in a remote part of eastern Afghanistan, and that it posed little or no risk to civilians. The bombing spared troops from fierce fighting in caves.

It also illustrated how Mr. Trump is releasing commanders from Obama-era restrictions on the use of force and how the top United States commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., was seeking to showcase Afghanistan’s myriad threats. General Nicholson, who has requested reinforcements to the 8,500 American troops stationed there, drew his bosses’ attention by dropping what the Pentagon has nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.”

“Another promise kept,” Donald J. Trump Jr., the president’s son, said on Twitter, noting his father’s campaign promise to vigorously strike the Islamic State and using an emoji of a bomb with a lit fuse.

Using the weapon, called the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, presents special challenges. It can obliterate everything within a 1,000-yard radius. The ordnance contains almost 19,000 pounds of Composition H6, an explosive compound that is roughly one-third stronger than an equivalent weight of TNT.

In Afghanistan, with its rural and agrarian economy, civilians who are engaged in food-gathering, woodcutting, farming or tending herds are often near or beside concentrations of militants. The blast radius of an explosion of this size could pose risks to people far from the center of the target.

For that reason, President Barack Obama’s administration did not consider using the bomb, American officials said. Early in the Iraq war in April 2003, during the administration of President George W. Bush, American commanders weighed using the weapon to try to kill President Saddam Hussein, who was on the run from United States troops who had toppled his government.

But commanders discarded the option when analysts estimated that the bomb’s blast would also kill thousands of civilians. “The collateral damage would have been massive,” said Marc Garlasco, who led a team in the military’s Joint Staff that was seeking to target Mr. Hussein.

The Afghan government said Friday that 36 militants were killed in Thursday’s blast. That number has not been independently verified, and official Afghan government casualties estimates have been unreliable in the past. Another official put the number of dead militants at more than 80.

Early reports from the area near the blast did not suggest that any civilians had been killed and said that most civilians had left the target area in recent weeks because of continuing fighting between the militants and Afghan forces and American troops.

The attack seemed to have a limited purpose and to be less significant than implied by the news coverage that focused principally on the unusually large size of the bomb.

By comparison, under Mr. Obama, the Air Force killed more than 100 Qaeda militants in Syria in the waning hours of his presidency by dropping bombs with no memorable name from B-52 planes.

General Nicholson said Thursday’s attack was tactically necessary to defeat obstacles, hidden bombs and the dug-in positions used by the militants. “Therefore, this was the appropriate weapon to use at this time,” he said.

But the Islamic State’s regional affiliate in Afghanistan, largely made up of former members of the Pakistani Taliban, numbers only some 700 fighters, compared with a peak of 2,000 to 3,000 in the spring of 2016.

The Trump administration has not publicly articulated a thorough long-term plan or endgame for the Afghan war and faces harsh circumstances in a conflict beset by starts and stops, troop commitments and withdrawals, and a series of disappointments and failures over more than a decade and a half of varied missions, priorities and even doctrines.

Many of the areas where American troops and their allies have fought hard and died in large numbers have fallen or reverted to militant control in recent years. The Afghan security forces, created with American training, money and weapons, have not lived up to the Pentagon’s promises.

The pace of airstrikes has increased, and Thursday’s bombing served as an example of a new weapon being applied to the war. But past airstrikes, while they have killed an uncountable quantity of militants, have not prevented their organizations from regrouping and refilling their ranks. And in this case, the use of the powerful bomb — whether it was seen internationally as a signal of a renewed American intention of using force — could also be read as an option that commanders viewed as necessary because they have limited resources on the ground.

While some analysts said the bombing sent a stern symbolic message to Syria and North Korea, it has little real utility against those countries, or Iran or Russia, because it is pushed out of a lumbering cargo plane that can operate safely only over nations that have no effective air defenses or air forces.

Some critics said the bombing could send an unintended message to North Korea that may unnecessarily rattle nerves in Pyongyang at a time of high tension for no clear strategic reason, while failing to advance a long-term strategy in Afghanistan.

“Let’s not confuse this tactic for a strategy,” said Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and former Marine Corps captain who served four tours in Iraq.

At the Pentagon, military officials said that they did not need to request authorization for the strike from Mr. Trump, although three officials also acknowledged that if Mr. Obama had still been in charge, the Defense Department would probably have sent the proposal to the White House before proceeding.

But instead of the deliberative processes in place during the Obama administration that made for lengthy National Security Council staff meetings, Mr. Trump has approved allowing his commanders more authority, giving the Pentagon a rare freedom to assert its control over national security policy from a commander in chief who eschews quibbling over the details.

Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper reported from Washington. Mujib Mashal and Fahim Abed contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Michael R. Gordon from Baghdad.

New York Times

These Airlines Have the Worst Customer Service - TIME Business

These Airlines Have the Worst Customer Service Posted: 10 Apr 2017 11:55 AM PDT Plenty of things can make a flight unpleasant: rough skies, weather-related cancelations and delays, even tarantulas roaming the cabin mid-flight. But how an airline’s staff and crew handle these mishaps—and treats passengers—can turn an annoying (or creepy-crawly) situation into a complete nightmare. Customer service is one of the few things airlines have total control over, but poorly trained or apathetic employees can tarnish a carrier’s reputation. Every year, Travel + Leisure’s World’s Best Awards survey asks readers to weigh in on travel experiences from across the globe—to cast their votes for the top hotels, islands, cities, spas, and more. Readers ranked airlines on a number of categories, including cabin comfort, food, value, and customer service. And when it came to the latter, some carriers failed to perform in 2016. “I am not a complainer,” said T+L reader Beth McKieman. “But this was by far the worst flight experience I have ever [taken].” During her flight with Royal Air Maroc, Morocco’s national carrier, McKieman reported that a request for a tissue was met with “a glare and a shrug” from “a surly crew.” And travelers flying with the domestic budget airline, Frontier, described a remarkable drop in customer service. “This airline is on a downward slide,” said one reader, while another added: “even their once great flight attendants have become robotic and mostly uncaring.”  It’s not just cranky gate agents and brusque flight attendants that account for bad customer service. Of Volaris, a Mexico-based low-cost airline, one reader postulated the mobile version of the website was specifically designed “to make you book by phone at [an] extra charge.” And don’t even get them started on the cabin comfort. Of course, there are plenty of airlines out there that are treating travelers right—and the world’s worst airlines for customer service could learn a thing or two about hospitality. No. 9 United Airlines, Domestic No. 8 Air India, International No. 7 Egyptair, International No. 6 Volaris, International No. 5 Royal Air Maroc, International No. 4 easyJet, International No. 3 Frontier Airlines, Domestic No. 2 Allegiant, Domestic No. 1 Spirit Airlines, Domestic “We’ll never fly spirit again no matter what the rate,” said reader Amy Barwick of the low-cost carrier, “because you’ll end up paying the difference in further frustrations later.” Spirit continues to bottom out with T+L readers, who were routinely dismayed by the airline’s lack of customer service. “I know [flight attendants] are there for safety,” said another survey respondent, “but I’m not sure they would put passengers first [in] an emergency.” Many readers interacted with rude employees, and just as many said it’s impossible to speak with a customer service representative. Even on Twitter, “Spirit Autopilot” tries to deflect complaints with bot-generated responses. This article originally appeared on TravelandLeisure.com