NORTH KOREA DENOUNCES CHINA: Yes, that’s the UPI headline.

North Korea condemned China in strong language, in the latest sign of a growing rift between Beijing and the Kim Jong Un regime over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

The statement from North Korea is unprecedented because it addressed China directly, and exposed the increasingly problematic relationship between the two neighbors.

Pyongyang’s state-controlled news agency KCNA issued the statement on Thursday and claimed the message was from a North Korean official.”It is not China that is the target of [its own] deceptive and treacherous actions, but North Korea’s strategic interests that have been infringed upon,” the statement read, adding China was sacrificing the “dignity and survival” of the Pyongyang regime.

North Korea referred to editorials that ran in Chinese state newspapers, and charged Beijing with playing along with the United States.

The North Korean diatribe also claimed that North Korea had been protecting China.

Stay tuned.

AMERICA’S AIRLIFT AND SEA LIFT DEFICIT: It exists, unfortunately. This article does a good job of sketching the problem.

Here it is, succinctly:

TRANSCOM doesn’t have enough ships, airborne tankers or cargo aircraft to get a large number of troops to a battlefield and sustain them.

Last week I was at a conference where I linked up with an old friend who is a retired Australian Army reserve officer. He remains active in Australia’s military and foreign policy community. After the conference ended we went to one of my favorite Texas cafes. We discussed North Korea and Asian security then got to talking about C-17s — what fabulous planes they are and how we don’t have enough of them. Australia bought two of the last big batch Boeing manufactured. It has eight in service. My friend said he knows Australia and the U.S. both need more C-17s. For that matter, so do Canada, Great Britain and NATO. (If our list sounds parochial, remember the conversation was between an Australian and an American. FWIW, NATO’s Heavy Airlift Wing has three C-17s.)

There is simply no other transport plane that can do what it does. Unfortunately, Boeing built its last C-17 Globemaster III in late 2015.

Here’s an extract from the Defense Industry Daily article on the Aussie’s C-17 buy:

Australia is a big country. Coast to coast distances are roughly the same as New York to Los Angeles. Or, to put it another way, you could drop Europe on top from Lisbon, Portugal to the Russia-Ukraine border. Tactical transport aircraft like the C-130J Hercules and the C-27J Spartan are necessary within the country, and Australia’s role as a regional stabilizer and a Western country extends its circles of influence and concern to locations far beyond its shores.

An intratheater transport was necessary, and Australia’s government sums up their choice as follows: “One C-17A can carry up to four C-130 Hercules loads in a single lift, and cover twice the distance in three-quarters of the time of a C-130.”

The plane’s tactical advantage and combat loads:

C-17s can even operate from unpaved, unimproved runways, though this is rarely done. The potential for minor but expensive damage from flying rocks or other hazards makes air forces reluctant to do it, unless there’s some compelling need.

The C-17 is designed to airdrop up to 102 paratroopers and equipment. In Australian terms, it can also carry one 60-ton M1 Abrams tank as well as loads ranging from 5 Bushmaster external link infantry vehicles to 3 Tiger reconnaissance/attack helicopters external link.

“Compelling need” means soldiers on the ground need the equipment right now.

MEXICO VERSUS MEXICO AND THE BATTLE OVER IMPUNITY: My latest Creators Syndicate column. Corruption is rampant but a lot of former state governors are in jail or face criminal charges.

FORTRESSES AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE: B-17s on a mission fill the sky.

WORLD WAR TWO AIRCRAFT SHAKE AND BAKE: This is a classic photo — American phosphorus bombs striking Japanese aircraft lined up at Rabaul’s Lakunai Field. (From StrategyPage’s WW2 aircraft photo series.)

TOURING MOAB: No, not Utah. The target site in Afghanistan visited by a U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb.

With lush sprawling green meadows and grazing cattle surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the scene could be any idyllic spring countryside. But look a little closer and the scorched trees signal something far from idyllic, the results of detonating the largest non-nuclear bomb the U.S has ever used in combat.

Photos obtained by Fox News in Afghanistan taken less than two weeks after the strategically targeted explosion of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb to destroy ISIS fighters and their underground tunnels in Eastern Afghanistan’s Achin district of Nanganhar province show just how devastating the munition is.

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“There were tunnels that were entirely destroyed, decimated guns of ISIS, about 20 dead bodies and trees ripped from the earth,” Amini recalled, after having gone into areas of Achin without escort. “Scores of houses were also destroyed, and even parts of the mountain were, too.”

Someone send the link to Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang, North Korea.

WORLD WAR ONE POWDER KEG UPDATE: A short but indicative survey of troubles in the Balkans.

SAMPLE:

Many European and North American observers fret that the Balkans are spinning out of the EU’s liberal orbit of influence and sliding into the authoritarian orbits of Russia and Turkey. What impact, then, might the recent Turkish referendum have in this region?
Not a lot, argues Dimitar Bechev in his very clear comment piece for Balkan Insight.

Turkey’s influence in the region has in any case been waning. More importantly, the real model for Balkan leaders is Hungary’s Viktor Orban – like him, they want to be inside the EU, reaping the rewards of membership, without conforming to European norms of good governance and democracy.

BOMBS AWAY: A Boeing B-17G-50-VE (S/N 44-8167) of the 15th Air Force, 2nd Bomb Group, 96th Bomb Squadron, drops its bomb load. The photo also provides a decent view of several of the Fortress’ .50 caliber machine gun ball turrets, the top turret, the chin turret, and the belly turret. (From StrategyPage’s WW2 aircraft photo series.)

VERY MUCH RELATED: Randall Jarrell’s The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.

CONFRONTING IRAN: Peter Huessy says Iran’s mullahs are dedicated to “a revolutionary, conquering Islam” and their regime must be stopped.

Iran’s hostile behavior is of a long standing nature, having been initiated in 1979 and continued through this past decade. It is not new and is not a reaction to bad American actions. It is rooted in the very nature of the Iranian regime. Unless we face that reality, our efforts to eliminate Iran’s pursuit of both nuclear weapons and a hegemonic role in the Middle East will be for naught.

LURKING BENEATH THE U.S.: According to Forbes, scientists have discovered a “massive lake” of molten carbon the size of Mexico beneath the western U.S. But it’s 217 miles below the surface, or thereabouts.

The carbon sits 217 miles beneath the surface of the Earth in the upper mantle and has no immediate pathway to the surface. In total the lake covers approximately 700,000 square miles, approximately the size of Mexico. This has redefined how much carbon scientists believe sits locked away in the Earth’s mantle and its interaction with surface and atmospheric carbon.

B-25 GUNSHIP: Great photo of the nose of a WW2 B-25H — in StrategyPage’s WW2 aircraft photo series.

THAAD ANTI-MISSILE BATTERY IN SOUTH KOREA KERFUFFLE:

National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster said Sunday that the U.S. will indeed pay for the roughly $1 billion THAAD missile defense system in South Korea, amid neighboring North Korea’s repeated ballistic test launches.

“What I told our South Korean counterpart is until any renegotiation, that the deals in place, we’ll adhere to our word,” McMaster told “Fox News Sunday.”

He spoke days after President Trump said South Korea should pay for the anti-missile system and hours after Seoul said that McMaster had assured its chief national security officer, Kim Kwan-jin, about the deal.

“The last thing I would ever do is contradict the president of the United States,” McMaster also told Fox News. “And that’s not what it was. What the president has asked us to do, is to look across all of our alliances and to have appropriate burden sharing-responsibility sharing. We’re looking at that with our great ally South Korea, we’re looking at that with NATO.”

Trump said Thursday that he wanted Seoul to pay for the THAAD deployment, which immediately raised questions about the relationship between the two nations.

South Korea said it was Washington’s cost to bear under the bilateral agreement.

McMaster has said that recent statements by Trump were made in a general context, in line with the U.S. public expectations on defense cost burden-sharing with allies,” Seoul said in a statement.

The anti-missile system is set to be operational soon. Major elements of the system were being moved last week into Seonjgu, in the southern part of South Korea.

THE ISLAMIC STATE: Gets a little help from its enemies — unfortunately.

While on paper ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) seems doomed in Syria this is not the case. No, what is keeping ISIL alive are growing disagreements among the many nations and factions mobilized to crush ISIL in Syria. This is a sad situation but also so typical of the region.

BLAST FROM THE DISTANT PAST: Mitchell’s Folly, the “Barling Bomber.” It was an experimental strategic bomber built in the 1920s. The StrategyPage photo caption quotes Hap Arnold, who said it influenced later bomber designs.

DISTANTLY RELATED: If you believe General Arnold.

NORTH KOREAN NUKES AND THE OSIRAK PRECEDENT: My latest Creators Syndicate column.

BOMBER COMPARISON: StrategyPage’s WW2 aircraft series stretches out a bit with a photo showing the WW2 B-29 next to an XB-36. The B-36 was developed during WW2.

SEC DEF MATTIS SAYS: Syria still has chemical weapons. Well, Obama lied, people died.

MORE ON SYRIA’S CHEMICAL STRIKE: The L.A. Times is reporting that the Syrian government used weapons of mass destruction in a zone created by “reconciliation deals.” Rebels in other contested regions were given safe passage to the zone if they would leave. After the rebels moved they were attacked. The attacks included attacks with chemical weapons. Well, Bashir al-Assad is a liar.

SECSTATE TILLERSON: If left unchecked, Iran could follow North Korea’s path. That’s obvious to everyone except Obama. Here’s the background on North Korea’s nuclear quest.

U.S. DIPLOMATIC STRATEGY FOR DENUCLEARIZING NORTH KOREA: My latest Creators Syndicate column. (Yes, it has a credible military spine, to include Trump’s cruise missile strike in Syria.)

NORTH KOREA ENCOUNTERS THE TRUMP ERA: Mike Pence explains:

“My presence here … is really to deliver that message that we’ve really moved beyond the era of strategic patience, we’ve moved beyond the failed dialogues of the past. And now we’ve moved into an era when President Trump is absolutely committed to marshaling the energy of the world community, in countries in the Asian pacific, to use economic and diplomatic power to isolate North Korea and achieve a goal of a denuclearized Korean peninsula.”

RELATED: Here’s the background history of Korea’s frozen war and the failed dialogues Pence mentions.

(Link has been fixed!)

THE OBAMAS PARTY ON BILLIONAIRE’S SUPER YACHT: Gee, Barry snapped Michelle’s picture. How nice. They’re hanging in French Polynesia. Meanwhile, back in Syria, people continue to die.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: My latest Observer essay. Congress must investigate the spurious Syrian chemical weapons deal Obama made with Vladimir Putin.

RELATED: Russia’s Syrian air defense system didn’t work as advertised. Apparently it’s reminding many Russians of the Kremlin’s hollow Cold War-era boasts.

FROM THE BBC: North Korea promises to test missiles on a weekly basis.

Why?

Its aim is to be able to put a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach targets around the world, including the US.

By George the Beeb has got it!

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related: The Unexpected Return of Duck and Cover.

THE BBC ASSESSES THE NORTH KOREAN CRISIS: “Unpredictability” is at play. Play? Hey Beeb, unpredictability has been a ploy.

North Korea has long been seen to use provocation and brinkmanship to raise tension for its own strategic advantage.

It is then able to win diplomatic and economic concessions through negotiations to defuse the crisis, only later to go on to renege on its disarmament commitments.

As the cycle begins again, at each stage, it moves a step closer to its goal of becoming a fully-fledged nuclear power.

But while the current state of technological advancement of North Korea’s weapons programme matters deeply to the outside world, in particular its near neighbours, the hostile rhetoric is rarely something to take at face value…

“If the US goes on with their reckless option of using military means then that would mean from that very day, an all out war,” Mr Han told me.

(His) interview does though give a hint of the new worrying unpredictability at play.

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The Kim regime’s

…message is clear.

Militarised and isolated, North Korea has the right to follow its own path and, Mr Han apparently believes, no one will be able to stop it.

So far, he has been proven right.

So far. But it appears South Korea, Japan and the US are tired of North Korea’s threat theater
and now see Pyongyang’s improving missile and nuclear weapons capabilities as a genuine threat.