There’s been some solid work out recently that draws a line between authoritarianism and the tendencies of the new American President, including David Frum’s cover story for The Atlantic (to which we linked a few weeks back). As well as a few astonishing revelations about alleged contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow (and partial confirmation of the Steele dossier), this week has also thrown up some pointed analysis from chess supremo Garry Kasparov. In this must-read interview with Vox, Kasparov reflects on Putinism, resistance and chess in the time of Trump. He also had a piece in The Washington Post (co-authored with his colleague, Thor Halvorssen), which addresses the global rise in authoritarianism. And in case you missed it, Michael McFaul’s recent piece on Putin’s rise as a Trumpian playbook is worth digesting.

If you’ve ever wanted to read an exhaustive analysis of the headlines published by the [North] Korean Central News Agency, then you’re in luck. Or maybe you’re not, because the opening paragraphs of this computer-aided inquiry are bookended by the following two lines:

‘Warning: long and exhaustive discussion of propaganda that nobody reads or cares about, by a non-specialist in North Korean politics. Contains complicated interactive graphs best viewed on a laptop or desktop computer.’

‘WARNING: EXCRUCIATINGLY DETAILED DISCUSSION OF SOME OF THE MOST BORING TEXTS EVER PRODUCED IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD FOLLOWS. DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU!’

If you’re not put off, jump on in. The word-clouds, mentions and sentiment analyses are all really quite fascinating.

In this week’s first-rate research picks, we kick off with the phenomenal report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (PDF), which translates a 55-page IS propaganda strategy and analysises the terrorist group’s media tactics. A sobering new publication from the Atlantic Council puts the devastation of Aleppo under a microscope, expertly sorting fact from fiction in an effort to ensure that Syria is not ‘so easily forgotten’. Looking eastwards, this mammoth effort from Chatham House saw Sinologists gazing into their crystal balls to map out China’s strategic goals in 2021. A shorter read from RSiS identifies the key challenges that keeps Southeast Asia’s naval shipbuilding industry at the bottom of the pack. And in our own backyard, the USSC has identified the most damaging aspects of the Trump administration’s trade policies to Australia’s economy.

And finally, we’ve all heard fantastic stories about how the humble dolphin has been militarised and deployed to hunt submarines, detect underwater mines and partake in other A+ animal activities. But news this week has thrown doubt on whether those tasks are sustainable if the next generation—it’s always the next generation…—can’t pass their drug tests. Stay off the blowies, kids. #420

Podcasts

Regular readers will have previously seen this feature suggest About the News, the one-year podcast collaboration between CSIS in DC and the Bob Schieffer College of Communication in Texas. It’s a fantastic series, with truly interesting chats about the state of journalism today. Journos are their bread-and-butter guests, so when satirist Stephen Colbert showed up last week, we knew it’d be tasty listening (36 mins). Catch up with that episode and others here.

The Wall Street Journal’s excellent podcast series ‘Foreign Edition’ rose to the occasion this week, with its reportage and analysis (25 mins) of the expulsion of Mike Flynn from the White House and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. If you’re after a little more from the Journal on the Flynn fallout, be sure to tee-up the newest ‘Potomac Watch’ episode (20 mins), too.

Video

Chatham House was recently got the chance to interview Tina Tchen, the former Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls and Chief of Staff to FLOTUS. In the short video (4 mins 20 secs), Tchen weighs in on gender equality’s role in driving economic growth across the world and the importance of empowering women.

In an ideal offering for all the capability wonks out there, IHS Jane’s regular Dr Lee Willett joins a panel for of one of Jane’s esteemed intelligence briefings. Here’s an excerpt (9 mins)  focusing on key developments in frigate programs around the globe.

Events

Canberra: The ANU’s National Security College this week announced their inaugural Women and National Security conference, set to take place this coming April. Check out the exceptional line-up and registration details here.

Perth: ’What Trump means for X’ is everyone’s favorite line of inquiry at the moment. The Perth USAsia Centre isn’t one to miss out on the action, so will be considering Trump and the Indo–Pacific on 23 February. Register your interest now.

It’s a strange old thing, this Presidential race. Seriously. Clinton and Trump are two deeply flawed candidates, yes, but they’re eons apart on key questions experience, discipline and suitability. That seems to have had a limited impact with the heft of voters who appear to have had their come-to-Donald moment in the race’s dying light. Some key columns in which to seek solace and find substance this weekend: In The Atlantic, David Frum makes the conservative case for voting Clinton, and Conor Friedersdorf tallies both candidates’ negatives. Jeffrey Toobin and Ryan Lizza take on the Comey letter, and FiveThirtyEight continue their data-driven journalism. Two corkers from the NYT’s Ross Douthat: one on the dangers of HRC, the other on the dangers of DJT—an explanation of ‘why the risks of Trump are so distinctive as to throw the perils of a Clinton presidency into relative eclipse.’ Yikes.

For the first time ever, Suggests is offering a video game pick: try The New York Times’ ‘The Voter Suppression Trail’, designed to test players’ dedication to casting their vote on 8 November. Warning: it does include more options involving dysentery than we initially anticipated.

Another week, another cracking CSIS microsite to explore. Behold: The Nuclear Narrative, a report on the the role and value of US nuclear weapons from the end of the Cold War through today. Check out the great resources and database, sure to be compelling for the nuke nerds and the rest of you, too.

A great longer read from The Guardian holds a magnifying glass to the rise of Europe’s far right, who have effectively ‘seized control’ of Europe’s political discourse. This comes at the same time as the (attempted) trial of right-wing Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who is at the center of a hate-speech and racial discrimination controversy—The New York Times dives into The Netherlands’ history of tolerance and Wilders’ disturbing claims here.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force wasted no time this week in showing off two of its brand new J-20 stealth fighters at the Zhuhai air show. Check out a handful of shots of the new fighters in action at Xinhua’s Twitter feed. Branded ‘the answer to the US F-22,’ the J-20 will be used to maintain China’s ‘national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.’ But not everyone’s impressed. This piece over at The National Interest raises an interesting concern: if the J-20 is as capable as China claims, why has it just ordered 24 Russian Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker-E fighters?

And finally, CSIS’ Beyond Parallel recently released a great piece of analysis based on a survey of ordinary North Korean citizens on their attitudes towards the government and their supreme leader. This week’s finding shows that 35 of the 36 who were surveyed regularly make jokes at the hermit kingdom’s expense in the privacy of their own homes. However, there’s little doubt that 100% of respondents would have laughed at the Australian duo who conned their way into a DPRK golf competition by posing as world-class golfers, before being told that they had ‘brought great shame’ to their families as their lie unravelled mid-tournament.

Podcasts

Reuters’ War College podcast (46 mins) has asked a poignant question this week: while both presidential candidates spend more time fighting off the critics than reading up on the issues one of them will face after inauguration in January, what security issues are falling by the wayside? Russia, cyber, the war in Afghanistan and the Mosul assault all score a mention.

As 8 November approaches, now’s as good a time as any to reflect on the fact that there is a whole other world beyond the race for the Oval Office. Foreign Policy is keen to remind listeners of The E.R. podcast series (48 mins) about stories that have been neglected in lieu of US pols, ranging from Russia in Syria to the South China Sea to North Korean nuclear tests.

Videos

The Council on Foreign Relations this week hosted a discussion with Ai Weiwei, the esteemed Chinese artist/architect/author/poet/inventor/publisher/activist/Instagrammer/raconteur/cat-lover/intellectual/thorn in the CCP’s side/general all-round dude. Across an hour-long event, Ai roamed through art, human rights, the US–China relationship, Taiwan, politics, refugees and much, much more. Good viewing. (If you’re hankering for more, this book is the one you need.)

The Australian War Memorial will be 75 years young next week. To celebrate this milestone, the AWM will push out a series of videos to tell the Memorial’s life story. Four parts have been released so far, covering off on the AWM’s conception, birth, collection and building.

Events

Sydney: While the biggest event next week is over in the US, don’t let the 15,000-odd kilometres get you down. Sydneysiders can head along to the USSC from half-10 for rolling CNN coverage and rolling expert analysis. Register here.

Perth: Can you tell we have the election on the brain? Hop across to the other side of the country and join our friends at the Perth USAsia Centre on 17 November for a squiz at what the election results mean for Australia–Indonesia relations.

While watching the new Batman v Superman movie, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between the plot and current dynamics between the US, China and North Korea. No really, hear me out. The gist of the movie (without spoilers) is that while Batman and Superman wrestle for power between themselves, a third actor creates ‘Doomsday’ which will destroy the world unless the two superheroes put their differences aside and work together to defeat it. What happens in the end? Well, you’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

True, the parallel’s not perfect. North Korea’s too weak to threaten an actual Doomsday, even if it lashes out with everything it has. But if you put the US and China into Batman and Superman’s spandex costumes—and consider North Korea the self-motivated third party threatening peace and stability—it helps explain the urgent need for cooperative action between Washington and Beijing.

Washington and Beijing aren’t actual adversaries, but the two countries are engaged in strategic competition and rivalry. In the meantime, Pyongyang has made clear its intention to become a nuclear-armed state with multiple tests of its own ‘Doomsday’-type device every few years (2006, 2009, 2013, 2016). But the most recent test suggests a nuclear program that’s becoming much more blatant and that will challenge the US and China’s ability to find common ground to address a common issue.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on 6 January—the claimed detonation of a hydrogen bomb—and then launched a satellite on 8 February using ballistic missile technology. In response, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose particularly harsh sanctions on North Korea in early March. They introduce inspections of cargo originating from or destined to North Korea and prohibitions on aviation fuel and rare minerals.

While we’re reflexively inclined to think of China as North Korea’s patron and the US as South Korea’s ally, the two have proven themselves able to cooperate on the North Korean issue. Officials in the US recognised China’s willingness to cooperate on the implementation of the new sanctions and to consult on a range of related issues and the two countries have coordinated policy in the past: both were central to the September 2005 agreement of the Six Party Talks in which North Korea committed to abandon its nuclear weapons, return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and IAEA safeguards in exchange for economic exchanges and fuel.

But China often drags its feet on implementing sanctions because it has a fundamentally different view of how to deal with the North Korean issue. While both countries want to see the denuclearisation of the peninsula, when push comes to shove, Beijing doesn’t want to pressure the North Korean regime to the point of instability. It’d prefer to have North Korea as a vassal state on its border—even an increasingly disobedient one—than risk a unified Korea aligned to the US.

So what makes this latest round of provocations by the hermit kingdom any different to previous ones? Why should these two great powers find a way to put their differences aside and take-on the ‘Doomsday’ headfirst? Because the North Korean nuclear program has shown signs of growing rapidly—and that quickening brings to a head the longer-term question of where a nuclear-armed North Korea fits in Asia.

The week after the announcement of UNSC sanctions, North Korean news agencies announced that the country’s nuclear warheads had been ‘standardised to be fit for ballistic missiles by miniaturising them’. Successful miniaturisation of a nuclear device for mating with intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) is an important milestone for the country, as it more credibly raises the prospect of North Korean nuclear warheads reaching continental US. The release of images showing the apparent miniaturised nuclear device and ICBMs was clearly intended to bolster North Korea’s deterrent by demonstrating the full range of capabilities needed to strike the US.

The issues that arise from a credible ability to launch a nuclear strike on the US are consequential and would have flow-on effects for the strategic calculations of other Northeast Asian nations. South Korea, for example, currently sits under the US nuclear umbrella and has been deterred in the past from pursuing its own indigenous nuclear force by pressure and assurances from Washington. But talks on acquiring a nuclear capability are becoming less taboo in the ROK, especially as the question of whether or not the US would hold out its nuclear umbrella to protect Seoul instead of, say, California becomes more relevant. An editorial published in the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo raised the need for frank consideration of a South Korean nuclear force and cited America’s failure to act in Ukraine and Syria as reasons to doubt the efficacy of US extended nuclear deterrence.

So although China usually drags its feet, the prospect of Seoul—or even Tokyo—reconsidering their reliance on US extended nuclear deterrence and the possible deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system in South Korea—which has recently been discussed here on The Strategist—would threaten to shift the strategic landscape of Northeast Asia to its disadvantage. The potential fallouts from an escalating North Korean nuclear program should, in theory, affect Beijing’s calculus about its neighbour and offer more reasons to act decisively.  

The recent developments on the northern side of the 38th parallel suggest we’re approaching a ‘now-or-never’ point. The two superheroes in this plot need to find a way to slow, cap and—eventually—reverse the North Korean nuclear program. If they don’t, this film isn’t going to have a happy ending.

Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test on 6 January. Technically, we know comparatively little about the device that it tested. In terms of seismic signature the blast seems to have been from a bomb about 7 kilotons in size. But seismic signature is an imprecise way of measuring yield, so we should probably allow a factor of two in either direction. That means the bomb’s yield was somewhere between 3.5 and 14 kilotons.

Was it—as North Korea claimed—a hydrogen bomb? We don’t know. It might have been a plain fission device or a ‘boosted’ fission device (with deuterium or tritium emplaced to ‘boost’ the yield). Frankly, unless it proves possible to detect radionuclides from air-sampling in the vicinity of the test site—and that would require leakage from the test shaft—it seems unlikely we’ll know what sort of device it was. Air-sampling aircraft didn’t detect any tell-tale radionuclides in the weeks after the third test. (The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation did report a finding of noble gases xenon-131m and xenon-133 about two months after the test, a finding it described as ‘consistent with a nuclear fission event occurring more than 50 days before the detection’.)

True, the yield suggests it wasn’t a full-sized hydrogen bomb. But North Korea has already said it wasn’t, so no prizes there. Even in a hydrogen bomb, the most interesting reactions take place during triggering: the detonation of the primary fission weapon and the initiation of fusion. Boy scouts learn to light fires, not to build the biggest fires they can. So too for a weapon designer—once the fire’s burning it’s comparatively easy to add more wood. So it might have been a test of a prototype hydrogen bomb with relatively little fusion fuel.

It might also have been a test of a boosted fission weapon. Pyongyang has long sought ways to miniaturise its nuclear weapons, the better to place them atop its ballistic missiles. Some media reports in recent months have suggested the North Koreans have been trying to build weapons that use less than 6kg of plutonium, and so they might have been testing a device doing so, perhaps using boosting to help the detonation along.

Of course, they might also have been testing a simple fission device. True, they know they already have a workable design for that—as the first three tests show—but perhaps they’ve made advances in shrinking the weapon. Superimposing the seismic signals for all four tests does highlight an apparent similarity to the four detonations.

What should we make of the fact that after four tests the North Koreans are still achieving yields in the single-digit kiloton range? Possibly not too much. Seven kilotons in downtown Seoul, Tokyo or Los Angeles can still make for a bad day. And perhaps the constraint is political, not technical. Maybe the North Koreans are deliberately keeping the explosions small. After all, the test site isn’t that far from China. And the outpouring of international vitriol would undoubtedly be more intense if the tests were larger.

Finally, where does this leave the North Korean nuclear arsenal? A test device isn’t automatically a deployable weapon that could survive the rigours of delivery. And the North’s long-range missiles are still a hit-and-miss affair in terms of their reliability. But how reliable do the warheads and missiles have to be in order to satisfy Kim Jong-un that he has an ace in the hole? Moreover, how reliable do they have to be to factor into US policy-making? Would a US president think a 20% chance of a North Korean warhead successfully hitting Los Angeles makes for more confident US Asian engagement in North Asia than a 50% chance or an 80% chance?

Critics of the North Korean program may deride its achievements. And yes, the program limps rather than runs. But Pyongyang is gradually putting itself into a position where it must be treated as a real nuclear weapon state. Denuclearisation is no longer an option—at least not while the Kims remain in power.

Over the past few months North Korea has undertaken a large diplomatic effort. It has reached out to traditional opponents like the United States, Japan and South Korea. Contemporaneously, it has pursued a warmer relationship with Russia. But one nation has been missing from that charm offensive: China.

The border between China and North Korea is the focus of a significant amount of investment activity. But when one looks more closely at that investment, a pattern begins to emerge: Chinese spending along the border isn’t replicated within North Korea.

Emblematic of that spending—and perhaps also of the wider relationship—is the new bridge over the Yalu River at Dandong. The bridge itself is no small feat of engineering as it spans nearly 1.5 kilometres. Complementing the bridge, is a new high-speed-rail link to Dandong, from Shenyang, intended to feed into the new Yalu River crossing point. On the North Korean side of the bridge, there’s nothing but dirt. Read more