BACKGROUND TO THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S STUNNING KOREA DIPLOMATIC BREAKTHROUGH: Yes Glenn, we can call it a breakthrough and credit goes to the Trump Administration’s coercive diplomacy. The process is far from over because denuclearizing North Korea will require implementing and executing the most thorough and intrusive inspection regimen in history. As for the coercive diplomatic effort, the linked essay was published March 13 but it’s packed with the facts it appears folks like James Fallows and the usual Beltway Clerks failed to notice.

BUFF OVER MOROCCO: A more provocative title than “a B-52 above the Maghreb.”

MESSING WITH THE MULLAHS: America now has a leader willing to practice coercive diplomacy.

From Radio Free Europe:

Every day, hundreds head to Tehran’s bustling Ferdowsi street to buy foreign currency, only to find that many exchange offices have shut up shop, have turned off their currency-rate displays, or have signs up reading, “We don’t have U.S. dollars to sell.”

A nationwide dollar-buying panic is in full swing, spurred by the plunging value of the Iranian rial, a sluggish economy, and fears that the United States will reimpose crippling sanctions on the Islamic republic.

With the rial hitting all-time lows, the government has imposed an official exchange rate of 42,000 rials against the dollar, set a cap on the amount of foreign currency that citizens can hold outside banks, and sent police to patrol exchange shops to ensure that no under-the-table currency trading is going on.

But economists say the new currency measures will be difficult to maintain. Exchangers are hoarding U.S. dollars, and Iranians who require foreign hard currency for business or travel are already defying the government and turning to the black market, where the rate has skyrocketed.

Read the whole thing.

WOBBLIN’ GOBLIN GOODBYE: StrategyPage’s webmaster finds an interesting oldie from 2008. The photo captures two F-117 Nighthawks enroute to Wright-Patterson AFB for a retirement ceremony. The very non-stealthy belly paint job is spectacular.

MORE GOOD NEWS THAT’LL IRRITATE DEAD WRONG PAUL EHRLICH AND HIS DOOM-MONGERS: The Green Revolution continues.

The Economist’s Daily Chart says the developing world can produce even more food:

Poor countries tend to fall short of their agricultural potential because they use geographic resources less efficiently. That is the conclusion of a new working paper by Tasso Adamopoulos of York University and Diego Restuccia of the University of Toronto. Messrs Adamopoulos and Restuccia analysed 30 years of geographic data from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, covering some 9m individual plots of land in 162 countries. The authors found that rich countries (the top 10% by GDP per person) are about three times as productive as poor ones (the bottom 10%). However, they estimated that if all the world’s farmers extracted the maximum potential output from their fields, the gap in yields between rich and poor countries would vanish almost entirely.

MORE:

So what would it take for the developing world to catch up? Improving the mix of crops grown by farmers in poor countries, the authors reckon, would shrink the productivity gap by 20%. Improving efficiency—by adopting modern technologies and eliminating wasteful government policies, for example—would cover the remaining 80%. Such dramatic improvements have already been achieved in many places: according to the World Bank, today’s cereal-crop yields in lower-middle-income countries are three times higher than their historical level. The catch is that it has taken those economies 55 years to register those gains.

I’ve quoted at length because non-subscribers may not be able to crack The Economist paywall. Try this route if the other link doesn’t reach the article.

I know of a case in Uganda where an improved “mix of crops” and some advice on how to improve tilling had positive results in less than three years. The farmers involved had access to a European agronomist who was working for an NGO. I got to visit two farms with the agronomist and spend about an hour with one of the farmers. He assured me the results were remarkable — yields had improved and he and his wife had more money. He also said he wished he had received the advice 20 years ago. Then he gave me a very healthy pineapple to take to my wife in America. (I gave it to the cook at the guest house where I was staying.) The Ugandan government was not involved in the project but clearly it didn’t impede the NGO’s work. So why does it take 55 years to close the gap? New technology (mechanization being one example) can be expensive and developing nations lack the money. But I’ll bet wasteful government policies are major factors.”Wasteful” has to include government corruption, bureaucratic resistance and bureaucratic mismanagement.

IT’S BEEN A VERY LONG DAY AND I THOUGHT FOR A SECOND I’D BEEN DRINKING TOO MUCH: But no, Science Magazine is doing its job. North American human-giant ground sloth interactions in the terminal Pleistocene. Remarkable footprints found in White Sand National Monument.

BEHAVIOR:

…we present the first well-documented co-association of unshod human tracks with those of extinct Pleistocene ground sloth in the Americas, and we infer behavioral implications from these contemporaneous tracks.

MORE:

We argue that the tracks evidence temporal and spatial associations of sloths and humans and infer that humans actively stalked and/or harassed sloths, if not hunted them. The absence of a carcass is not surprising for several reasons. The vast majority of hunts by modern hunter-gatherers are unsuccessful (for example, 94% for Hadza) (22). Sloths are so densely muscled that an outright kill is unlikely. Even if the hunt had been successful and the animal had died in the study area, the wetting and drying cycles and high pH rapidly degrade bones; thus, preservation of bones in the terminal Pleistocene therefore remains improbable. In terms of alternative explanations, it is possible that the human trackmaker was simply stepping in the sloth footsteps to follow a preexisting path in soft terrain. We dismiss this interpretation because the step length results in a long and uncomfortable human stride. The estimated stature of the human trackmaker (1.4 m; Tracks TE-A-44, -45, and -46; table S2) yields a stride of 0.6 m, contrasted with the sloth stride of 0.8 to 1.1 m. It is possible that the behavior was playful, but human interactions with sloths are probably better interpreted in the context of stalking and/or hunting. Sloths would have been formidable prey. Their strong arms and sharp claws gave them a lethal reach and clear advantage in close-quarter encounters.

American hunters stalking very slow but dangerous game. Cool.

TIME TO FIX THE FLAWS IN OBAMA’S DECEITFUL IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL: Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is anything but comprehensive. Here are some more accurate descriptions of his monstrosity: sketchy, incomplete, imprecise and spineless. Frankly, the JCPOA’s spinelessness is multidimensional.

NEON LANDING: An MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor makes a night landing on the USS New York. The rotor blades are a light show.

TIME TO FIX THE FLAWS IN OBAMA’S DECEITFUL IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL

FROM THE WELL DECK INTO THE DRINK: “Somewhere in the 5th Fleet area of operations” a USMC AAV-P7/A1 amphibious assault vehicle assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit exits the well deck of the USS Oak Hill (LSD 51). It’s a wet experience.

FREE FALL EXERCISE OVER DJIBOUTI: USAF para-rescue training in the Horn of Africa.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: This week’s Creators Syndicate column. Wars for the Minerals Your Cell Phone and Prius Need. OK, you don’t have a Prius. Neither do I. So send the link to one of the pious with a Prius.

GUNNERY PRACTICE, SIXTH FLEET: The USS Ross fires its 5-inch gun (April 10, 2018).

WARS FOR THE MINERALS YOUR CELL PHONE AND PRIUS NEED.

SNAKE AND SNIPER CAMOUFLAGE: A southern black race snake slithers over a sniper’s rifle barrel — photo taken at Eglin Air Force Base earlier this month.

AFGHANISTAN IN THE SNOW: Exfiltration after an exercise, USAF pararescue and Army helicopters.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: My latest Creators Syndicate column.The Indo-Pacific Quad Confronts China.

In 2007, The Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), at the behest of Japan, held its first informal meeting. The Quad’s membership roll sends a diplomatic message: Japan, Australia, America and India. Japan pointed out all four nations regarded China as disruptive actor in the Indo-Pacific; they had common interests. Delhi downplayed the meeting, attempting to avoid the appearance of actively “countering China.”

No more. The Quad nations now conduct naval exercises and sometimes include a quint, Singapore.

I doubt this column is on The Confucius Institute reading list. (Spelling error corrected — shouldn’t post before coffee.)

NAVY F-35C FLIGHT TEST: An F-35C Lightning II (the aircraft carrier version) makes a test flight with external weapons. Photo snapped April 4.

THE INDO-PACIFIC QUAD CONFRONTS CHINA

A VIEW OF AFGHANISTAN: Fine photo of a rear gunner on CH-47 Chinook in flight over Afghanistan.

RAPTOR AND CLASSIC LIGHTNING: A P-38 and an F-22 bank in formation. Great photo of the P-38.

LIGHTNING OVER TEXAS: An F-35A climbs during an aerial demonstration at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas.

NORTH KOREAN DENUCLEARIZATION TALK PREP CONTINUES: North and South Korean diplomats are using a direct “hotline” to make arrangements for the summit between Little Rocket Man and President Moon. That’s supposed to begin on April 27. Meanwhile, China has banned the shipment of “dual use” technology to North Korea — or it claims it has.

Details on China’s new export ban:

The ministry gave details of 32 materials, technologies and forms of equipment with potential use related to weapons of mass destruction, including particle accelerators and centrifuges.

In addition, it outlined bans on items with potential dual use in conventional weapons.

The announcement of the export bans comes amid a tightening of exports from China to North Korea. China’s exports of fuel to North Korea slowed to a trickle in February.

Let’s hope that report is accurate.

For background, this article documents the coercive diplomacy that brought the North Korean dictatorship to the table.

PREPARING TO OWN THE NIGHT: Two U.S. Army M1A2 Abrams tanks prepare for a night exercise at Fort Carson, Colorado.

WEAPONIZED NARRATIVES GO TO WAR: My latest Creators Syndicate column.