THE 36TH INFANTRY DIVISION’S 100TH ANNIVERSARY: I meant to link to this a few days ago. The 100th anniversary was July 18. In the 1930s my grandfather commanded the division’s 131st Field Artillery Regiment.

LIVING WITH A NUCLEAR-ARMED NORTH KOREA?: Admiral Scott Swift, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, discussed options with The Sydney Morning Herald.

Asked to clarify whether that meant the world might have to live with a nuclear North Korea that could strike other continents, Admiral Swift said: “It’s not for me to say. It’s part of the dialogue is what I’m acknowledging. When people say, ‘everything is on the table,’ in my mind I think it includes a dialogue with respect to North Korea as a nuclear power. I don’t know if that’s acceptable. I’m not part of those discussions. But I know that’s part of the dialogue because people are reporting on it.”

Asked for his response to the fact that the stated US position is that it cannot tolerate a nuclear North Korea, Admiral Swift said: “I’m not a policy-maker. That may very well be the policy that the United States arrives at. But that now becomes the starting point for the dialogue.”

He said that military intervention was also part of the dialogue.

MORE:

He said that no simple solution was going to emerge and this was going to be a complicated and long-term process.

Here are some other course of action options for dealing with North Korea’s nuclear quest. They aren’t good, they aren’t simple.

CHANGES IN CIA MANAGEMENT POLICY?: According to the Washington Free Beacon, new CIA Director Mike Pompeo is giving more power to field agents and less to the bureaucrats.

Sounds like a good decision — but stay tuned.

COOL NEWS: Discovering a sixth century parchment in the binding of a sixteenth century book.

USS THUNDERBOLT ON PATROL: The photo dates from 2015. On July 25 the Thunderbolt (PC-12) fired on Iranian speedboats manned by members of the Revolutionary Guard. The incident occurred at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, east of Kuwait. The Thunderbolt is a Cyclone-class patrol craft.

RELATED: The latest incident appears to be about 50 kilometers south of Iraq’s offshore oil ports. However, Iranian vessels have played similar “probe and disrupt” games in that area as well as in the Strait of Hormuz. This column dates from 2005. The column doesn’t mention it, but a USN Cyclone-class patrol craft was part of the surface force screening the Iraqi oil ports.

F-16 ON A SORTIE OVER JAPAN: This Fighting Falcon was participating in an exercise involving air to air combat and “suppression of enemy air defenses” (SEAD).

CHECKING CHINA IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA:

Under former US President Barack Obama, the US suspended freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea from 2012 to 2015. In 2016, the US made just three such challenges. So far, under Trump, the US has made three challenges already.

“You have a definite return to normal,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White told Breitbart News.

“This administration has definitely given the authority back to the people who are in the best position to execute those authorities, so it’s a return to normal,” she said.

Freedom of navigation operations have an acronym: FONOPs.

SWISS CHAINSAW RAMPAGE: A madman’s rampage that occurred in Switzerland.

The troubled suspect, described as a drifter, is accused of then assaulting at least three others before making off in a white VW Caddy.

One of the injured victims is being treated for serious but non-life threatening injuries.

Police confirmed that Wrousis is a schizophrenic who was a client of the health insurance firm he attacked.

He is of no fixed abode and, in between living in hotels and community lodgings, routinely camped out in woodlands living in his VW Caddy.

This is a real tragedy with real victims, not a cult movie about a fictional massacre in Texas. But the tragic reality doesn’t fit the stereotypical media narrative, does it?

THE REAL SOUTH CHINA SEA BULLY: The BBC reports China threatened to attack Vietnamese bases in the Spratly Islands if Hanoi continued to explore the area for oil.

The threat came a few days after a Spanish company working for Vietnam confirmed the discovery of a major natural gas field.

RELATED: The 2014 drilling clash between the Communist neighbors. As the column says, when it’s one on one, Vietnam has the weaker hand.

PHOTO: China’s Maritime Security Agency (coast guard) has muscle. This is an off-shore patrol vessel.

CHINESE JET INTERCEPTS U.S. RECON PLANE: Sure, happens all the time. But the USN says the interception was unsafe and in international airspace. The East China Sea, like the South China Sea, is a contested area.

The East China Sea, where Beijing is embroiled in a dispute with Tokyo over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, known in China as the Diaoyus, has seen an uptick in similar incidents — including dangerous encounters between Chinese military aircraft and Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets.

The U.S. Navy plane was an EP-3.

RELATED: Old history but worth remembering. The April 2001 collision between a Chinese fighter and a USN EP-3 ARIES recon plane. In 2014 Jim Dunnigan noticed that China’s “aggressive attitude” toward U.S. electronic recon aircraft had returned. The EP-3 is the elint version of the P-3 Orion (photo).

THAAD INTERCEPTION TEST: A photo of the July 11 test launch from the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska. The THAAD anti-missile missile intercepted an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) target.

GRID THREATS REQUIRE IMAGINING THE UNIMAGINABLE:

The U.S. electric power network is poorly equipped to restore electricity service to large areas blacked out by natural disasters or hostile attacks, a National Academy of Sciences panel warned yesterday in a report that looks into dark future scenarios that it says the nation and the public have not fully faced up to.

“The electricity system, and associated supporting infrastructure, is susceptible to widespread uncontrolled cascading failure, based on the interconnected and interdependent nature of the networks,” the panel concluded in a 297-page report ordered by Congress and funded by the Department of Energy. “Despite all best efforts, it is impossible to avoid occasional, potentially large outages caused by natural disasters or pernicious physical or cyber attacks.”

Seven or eight years ago I gave a talk to a local business group on this subject. During Q&A an audience member said he thought the threat of a cyber attack on the electrical grid was exaggerated. A moment later another audience member identified himself as having worked on control and security issues for a utility company. He said nope, the threat to the grid is real and, in an extensive network, spotting all the vulnerabilities is difficult.

RELOCATING ELEPHANTS IN MALAWI: Check out the video — the technical requirements are immense.

B-52 PARTICIPATING IN OPERATION INHERENT RESOLVE: A B-52 can stay on station for a long time and deliver precision weapons. We’ve used a lot of precision weapons in operations against ISIS. This bomber’s definitely carrying weapons — check out the ordnance on the hardpoints below the wings.

RELATED: B-1Bs at Andersen AFB, Guam.

INTERPOL’S LIST: Interpol is circulating a list with the names of 173 suspected ISIS terrorists it believes intend to launch attacks in Europe.

CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: Military option for North Korea is not unimaginable.

Agreed. It’s a real option.

F-35B NIGHT OPS ON THE WASP: This is a fine photo, but I’m beginning to think Navy and Marine photographers are competing among themselves for a “best color effects in night operations” award. (See this dramatic photo of an F-18 carrier take-off snapped in January. Also the mortar illumination photo I linked to yesterday. This USAF night op photo doesn’t have the color splash but could certainly compete in a category like “spooky monochrome.”)

ECOLOGICAL ACTIVISTS KILL THOUSANDS OF MINKS: Once again eco-crazies promote mass slaughter — but with such goody-goody intentions!

MOSUL’S DAMAGED CHURCHES: Iraq’s Chaldean Catholic patriarch and Radio Free Europe take a tour of the city, looking at damaged Christian churches.

MARRYING BEARS AND FROGS: Great title for an article discussing integrating the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) into the Department of State.

The USAID-State integration debate has churned for at least thirty years, but it has never been consummated because the two organizations have wildly discordant cultures, missions, and modus operandi. The work of both agencies is focused overseas, and both are deeply invested in globalization. Beyond that, they are as different as bears and frogs.

The article suggests the Trump Administration “repudiate USAID’s 2015 manifesto on non-cooperation” with the Dept of Defense. Thank the Obama Administration for that decision. Here’s an important recommendation: “…focus development assistance in countries where we have truly compelling U.S. national security or economic interests. The bulk of USAID tax money goes to largesse, and the biggest savings by far will be in this area.” Ouch — but a great point.

ILLUMINATING MARINES: Marines deployed in Afghanistan fire an illumination round from a mortar. Great kaleidoscopic mix of colors.

NORTH KOREA SNUBS SOUTH KOREA BID FOR MILITARY TALKS:

South Korea’s proposed military talks aimed at easing tension between the two Koreas planned for Friday failed to happen after the North snubbed the call, a setback for new President Moon Jae-in’s hopes for dialogue.

The North has remained silent on the South Korean proposal, made on Monday, for talks on ways to avoid hostilities along their heavily fortified border.

Moon took office in May pledging to engage the North in dialogue, as well as to bring pressure on it to impede its nuclear and missile programs.

The fat kid running North Korea continues to believe he can win the Korean War.

President Moon needs to consider some other policy options.

RUSSIA’S EVOLVING EURASIA STRATEGY: The Carnegie Institute reports that Russia’s “new geopolitical framework is being referred to as Greater Eurasia.”

The strategic concept:

Instead of integrating into a Western-led system or reintegrating recalcitrant ex-provinces, Russia could develop a “global Russia,” geared to its own values, interests, and goals. This aversion to formal integration should not spell autarky or isolationism. Russia vitally needs to integrate, but into the global system as a whole, not into tight regional or transregional alignments. Also, rather than simply criticizing U.S. global dominance, Russia would do better to engage with like-minded partners to create an international system that no single power would dominate.

Good read.

UNEXPECTEDLY!: The Obama-Ayatollah Nuclear Collusion Fraud isn’t working.

OK, The National Interest article is titled “The Iran Nuclear Deal Isn’t Working,” but I think my title is more accurate.

RELATED: Not so unexpectedly. (I’m so old I remember 2015.)

EXPERTS WARY THAT U.S. COULD TRADE CHINESE SOUTH CHINA SEA CONTROL FOR NORTH KOREA DENUCLEARIZATION: I say this cynical trade and sell-out won’t happen but somebody sure needs to write about that. (HINT: It’s Option 3.) (Bumped from earlier this morning, but now with additional hint.)

HINT 2: Read the North Korea options essay (second link). This trade won’t happen. However, there are people in southeast Asia who are scared it might. It is a course of action option– a very bad one. However, I think it’s a deal Beijing’s imperialists believe is possible, which says something about Beijing’s imperialists.