NUCLEAR NEGOTIATION NUDGES: South Korea and U.S. to resume small scale joint military exercises.

The United States and South Korea will begin small-scale military drills on Monday just days ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meeting with a North Korea official to discuss denuclearization and plans for a second summit between the two countries.

Stay tuned.

BACKGROUND: This column from mid-October mentions the fact that the pause in South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises “is a decision Washington and Seoul could quickly reverse.” You didn’t hear it portrayed that way by the President’s more malign critics.

THE NEW U.S. SPACE FORCE: According to the Northwest Florida Daily News the sixth military branch will have “a combined military and civilian force” of about 20,000 people. Read the whole thing.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: China prepares for hot war and long struggle.

The military and diplomatic dimensions of 21st-century Chinese Communist imperial bullying rely on an expanding economy, continued productivity and relatively unfettered access to markets — especially the American market.

Perhaps the U.S. trade war with China is the beginning of a strategic counter-attack on the cash cow that the Beijing dictatorship knows is its long-term route to global power.

Perhaps it is intended to be, perhaps that isn’t the trade war’s objective. But it could have that effect.

NORWEGIAN LANDING: USMC’s 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit conducts an amphibious landing in Alvund, Norway. Note the rugged hinterland.

CHINA PREPARES FOR HOT WAR AND LONG STRUGGLE:

As China’s economy modernized, the U.S. bet political liberalization would follow. International integration would moderate China’s Communists and a democracy focused on internal development and peaceful economic competition would emerge.

So much for optimism. The Communist dictatorship opted for imperial territorial expansion, most overtly in the South China Sea. However, its territorial aspirations in the Himalayas and the East China Sea are also aggressive.

It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column.

CHINA PREPARES FOR HOT WAR AND LONG STRUGGLE.

USAF HUEY REPLACEMENT: Pilots test the Boeing MH-139 utility helicopter, the replacement for the USAF’s UH-1N “Huey” helicopters.

MILITARY BOOK REVIEW: Dr. A. A. Nofi reviews Jeremy Black’s Combined Operations: A Global History of Amphibious and Airborne Warfare.

Excerpt:

Black does not limit himself to the Western experience. He looks at trends and events not only across the ages, but also almost literally in every corner of the world. So, for example, Black notes that the decline of northern Canada’s Paleo-Eskimo Dorset culture resulted from the use of superior watercraft by the invading Thule people from Alaska around 1,000 BC, while in more recent times non-state actors such as the Tamil Tigers, Al-Qaeda, and Laskar-e-Taiba have conducted successful operations from the sea, even as their opponents used the sea to support operations against them. In between he gives us looks at riverine warfare on the Niger, the protracted Christian-Moslem struggle for control of the Mediterranean, Mongol efforts to invade Japan, the unification of Hawaii, and much more. He examines the role of sea-borne forces in the Anglo-French contest for North America and the American Revolution, through operations from the sea during the Napoleonic Wars, amphibious operations in the civil wars in the U.S. and Spain, and, of course, covers the world wars in considerable detail.

The very big picture.

WARTHOGS IN KOREA: Two USAF A-10 Thunderbolt IIs prepare to take off from Osan Air Base, South Korea.

CHINESE PEOPLES LIBERATION ARMY (PLA) RESEARCH SCIENTISTS IN UNIVERSITIES OUTSIDE CHINA: A disturbing report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. “Picking flowers in foreign lands to make honey in China.”

Since 2007, the PLA has sponsored more than 2,500 military scientists and engineers to study abroad and has developed relationships with researchers and institutions across the globe.1

This collaboration is highest in the Five Eyes countries, Germany and Singapore, and is often unintentionally supported by taxpayer funds.2 Australia has been engaged in the highest level of PLA collaboration among Five Eyes countries per capita, at six times the level in the US. Nearly all PLA scientists sent abroad are Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members who return to China on time.

Dozens of PLA scientists have obscured their military affiliations to travel to Five Eyes countries and the European Union, including at least 17 to Australia, where they work in areas such as hypersonic missiles and navigation technology. Those countries don’t count China as a security ally but rather treat it as one of their main intelligence adversaries.3

The activities discussed in this paper, described by the PLA as a process of ‘picking flowers in foreign lands to make honey in China’…

Long report but worth reading.

DONALD TRUMP ON LAURA INGRAHAM’S INGRAHAM ANGLE: According to the President, Andrew Gillum (Democrat candidate for governor of Florida) is a stone cold thief and if elected governor of Florida, Florida will become Venezuela –Chavista socialist Venezuela. No link to the interview yet but the link’ll eventually emerge.

OLDEST WEAPONS EVER FOUND IN NORTH AMERICA WERE DISCOVERED IN TEXAS: I suppose that isn’t too surprising. There’s a debate over the age of the weapons. They may be 15,500 years old, which would make them “pre-Clovis.”

SOMEWHERE BELOW THE RAINBOW OFF NORWAY: An F/A-18E Super Hornet participating in NATO’s Trident Juncture exercise launches from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman — as a rainbow arches off the port side.

POINT TO REMEMBER: So far terror attacks tied to Obama Chicago pal Bill Ayers have killed more people than the evil bombs mailed by Cesar Seyoc. And the unrepentant Ayers had the rampant stupidity to say he should have detonated more bombs. (The New York Times, September 11, 2001: No Regrets For A Love of Explosives. This is 100 megaton irony.)

Alan Dershowitz has noticed this absolutely essential point:

The entire episode [[Seyoc’s bombs]] brings back painful memories of the Weathermen and other radical left wing organizations that planted bombs in the 1970s. The Weathermen and other radical leftist groups targeted universities, army bases, police officers, banks, and other establishment places and people. The death toll was considerable, and the fear was palpable. At about the same time, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and other radical leftist groups terrorized the United States.

So far no one has tried to glorify the arrested person responsible for the recent pipe bombs. Although President Trump has condemned the alleged perpetrator, it would not be surprising if some right wing extremists took perverse pleasure and pride in the attacks on the left wing icons. This is different from how some liberals glorified the Weathermen, Black Panthers, and other hard left terrorists. Left wing lawyers, who would never defend an accused right wing terrorist, rushed to represent these radical groups, while prominent liberals contributed to defense funds and attended fundraising parties. Films, books, plays, and articles sought to understand the motives of these young murderers.

Years later, Barack Obama befriended Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who had been active members of the Weathermen and supporters of violent terrorism. Both Ayers and Dohrn were invited to teach at well known American universities, as was Kathy Boudin, who had served a long prison term for participating in a terrorist inspired robbery that resulted in the deaths of two police officers and one armored guard and seriously injured another guard.

MORE:

The Ku Klux Klan was a violent radical group with significant support from political figures and ordinary citizens. During the first decades of the 20th century, left wing anarchists planted bombs and engaged in other forms of violence that killed many innocent people.

The Ku Klux Klan was a Democrat terrorist organization created after the Civil War — to RESIST!. In the 20th century the KKK was the militant wing of the Democratic Party, mostly in the South but not solely. It existed to intimidate — like Antifa. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), a Democrat lion of the Senate beloved by Bill Clinton, was a KKK grand kludge benighted fleagal frothing whatever. (If you recall his actual title, mention it in the comments.)

As for the Dershowitz essay — read the whole thing.

AMERICA’S 18 MOST DANGEROUS VOLCANOES: Hawaii’s Mount Kilauea is number one. Seattle and Portland are uncomfortably close to two others on the list, Mount Rainier and Mount Hood, respectively.

SWEDISH ROYAL NAVY CORVETTE KARLSTAD: Docks in Trondheim, Norway. Swedish forces are participating in NATO’S Exercise Trident Juncture.

RELATED: Sweden prepares for Russian aggression.

LIGHTNING ABOVE THE CLOUDS: An F-35B refuels somewhere over the East China Sea.

ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES: Confronting an “Axis of Cyber”? The subtitle is “China, Iran, North Korea, Russia in Cyberspace.”

JAMESTOWN REPORT: Russian private military contractors running “patriotic youth camps” in the Balkans.

THE U.S.ARMY: Ordered to grow again.

THE DEFENSE INNOVATION ADVISORY BOARD STRIKES BACK AT LAZY BUREAUCRATS: Detecting Agile BS is the document cleared for publication. Warning: the Defense Innovation Advisory Board’s uses the acronym DIB. Why? Good question. Here’s Breaking Defense’s take on the pamphlet and description of the advisory panel.

B-52 OVER THE INDIAN OCEAN: The photo was taken in June by an airman in a USAF KC-135 Stratotanker that’s refueling the bomber.

REFUGEE WAVES VERSUS MIGRANT MARCHES: My latest Creators Syndicate column. (bumped)

REFUGEE WAVES VERSUS MIGRANT MARCHES.

FIRST REVIEW: Of Cocktails from Hell.