Construction of the Berlin Wall began at the height of the Cold War in 1961. The wall was a physical and ideological divide between East and West. The Berlin Wall, a Soviet effort to prevent its own citizens from witnessing the basic freedoms they were denied, was what Churchill presciently warned about in his Iron Curtain speech more than 15 years earlier. The ideas of liberty, freedom, and democracy exposed the hypocrisy of the corrupt Soviet regime and its satellites, which trampled on human rights at home and abroad. Soft power, not hard steel, tore down the wall. Almost 30 years later, people from Beijing to Moscow, from Tehran to Pyongyang, are still denied basic human rights. The Berlin Wall has been gone. But is it really gone? KGB operative-in-the-Kremlin Vladimir Putin once called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. Mr. Putin once served in East Germany and understands that democracy is an existential threat to dictatorships. Mr. Putin knows he cannot build a new Berlin Wall, but one of his first steps upon becoming president was to take control of Russian television media so that he could control the news and its interpretation. China is trying to create a Soviet Big Brother-style “Great Firewall” to deny its own citizens freedom of expression and access to the truth. Democracy protests in Hong Kong will continue. President Kennedy famously stood with Berliners in June 1963 when he proclaimed himself and all other free men, wherever they may live, citizens of Berlin. Today, we are all Hong Kongers.

The Trump tariffs are being blamed for part of the global slowdown, and, to a limited extent, that is true. His argument that the tariffs are needed in the short run to obtain more “fairness” between countries has yet to be proved. The United States exports far less to China than it imports, so Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods are likely to be far less painful than U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods (which is a tax on U.S. consumers to the extent the Chinese refuse to absorb the tax). There are several reasons why the United States should be able to avoid being dragged down into a global recession. A weakness in a foreign country most often results in the fall in the value of their currency relative to the dollar, benefiting U.S. consumers with lower-priced goods, and U.S. manufacturers with lower prices on imported components and materials. These lower prices offset the decline in demand among foreign buyers who are located in a country in or near a recession. The big surprise in the future is likely to be China. The Hong Kong situation is very serious for which there is no obvious easy way out. The Chinese have tried to keep a free-market economy in production of goods, while at the same time have a very controlled economy in financial services and investment. In my judgment, that model is not sustainable. If they move toward a broader socialist economy, which they seem to be doing at the moment, they will end up with socialist stagnation. The only way out is a freer economy, which will increase the pressure for broader liberties. If Mr. Trump is going to lose to a socialist, U.S. investors will look for safe havens around the world, which could drive the economy into a serious recession.

Is the world going into a recession? And if so, can the United States avoid being dragged in? The United States is still growing at more than 2 percent, which is not bad, but a reduction from its earlier growth rate after the Trump economic policies were first implemented. Despite Chinese claims that the world’s second-largest economy is still growing at approximately 6 percent, many outside experts believe it is hardly growing at all. Japan is nearly stagnant at 1 percent growth, and Britain and the Euro-zone economies are not growing much more. Only parts of South Asia are showing much vigor. The reasons for the slowdown in most countries is not difficult to understand. Too much government spending, coupled with destructive levels of taxation and regulation. The spending, in part, is being driven by very unfavorable demographics ? in Japan, China and much of Europe, where the populations are already shrinking or soon will be. The people are living longer and longer, all of which results in fewer and fewer workers being taxed to support an ever-increasing elderly population. The more the workers are taxed to support the growing dependent population, the less likely they are to continue working (at least in the taxable economy). Greece is the poster child for the future of Europe (as well as Japan and China), where the ability to borrow or tax has reached its limit, resulting in falling real incomes. Greece seems to have stabilized at the moment, but it will have to be very lucky to meet its new fiscal targets ? and if it doesn’t, real incomes will continue to drop. Artificial intelligence and robots may eventually come to the rescue, but probably not soon enough for most countries.

The best kind of doctrine is that developed out of long experience and study of what works. Current U.S. Army doctrine is based on maneuver warfare which tries to reach a balance between best practices and actual events. It encourages individual initiative and eschews dogmatic adherence to cookie cutter solutions. Poor doctrine is devised by theorists with no practical experience, but whose adherents have enough guns to impose their untested theories on others. This is how the Bolsheviks and Maoists came to power. The masses were asked to trust them; then obedience was demanded. Totalitarian regimes are particularly prone to disaster when they declare their leaders and the doctrine that they develop infallible. In the end, mid-level management not only fears to deviate from the rules, but becomes afraid to accurately report when the doctrine appears to be failing. During World War II, Soviet officers at all command level’s lost battles and campaigns because they failed to act on opportunities or react to existential threats without explicit orders from Stalin or his henchmen. When doctrinal rules become unquestionable and deviation is ruthlessly punished, things can still come out as planned; but usually at unnecessary cost as was the case with Soviet victory in World War II. Truth becomes the first casualty of bad doctrine. This is how things like Chernobyl and the coronavirus get out of hand. Dr. Li Wenliang - the Chinese physician who violated Beijing’s doctrine by sounding an early warning about the coronavirus danger - was not so lucky. He got severely reprimanded, threatened and then died from a virus that didn’t officially exist.

There is nothing wrong with doctrine. Every organization needs rules to prevent chaos. Good doctrine that is well executed gives armies, police, fire departments and other emergency response organizations a common language with which to communicate and time-honored procedures to handle recurring problems. But not all situations have cookie-cutter solutions, and the best organizations have caveats built into training and operational philosophy to allow for individual initiative. In tactical training, U.S. Marine Corps officers are taught doctrine, but warned that a decision in any particular case should consider the terrain and situation. The insistence on blind obedience to doctrine regardless of the circumstances is a recipe for disaster. Blind adherence to orders and doctrine has led to countless debacles. Perhaps one of the most extreme examples came during the British Empire’s war with the Zulus when an overly officious supply sergeant refused to issue ammunition to troops while they were being overrun because they lacked a proper written requisition. The ultimate problem arises when bad doctrine becomes sacred and inviolable. A wise old boss once told me; “always remember that doctrine is written by clowns like you and signed by fools like me.” Perhaps the most egregious example of this was French military doctrine between the world wars. In the 1930s a French General Staff decree declared that doctrine was not to be questioned, and French battle plans were never tested in realistic war games. The real test came with live fire in 1940 when the Germans decisively discredited the doctrine and trounced the French army.

Far be it for the Chinese Communist Party to understand the sanctified split between news and opinion that characterizes most American newspapers, including this one. At most newspapers, reporters strive to report objectively; opinion writers like ourselves are granted a bit more leeway to editorialize. (Some readers may not notice this spirit of objective news is not always rigorously upheld by the likes of The New York Times.) Ideally, news and opinion are wholly independent departments, staffed by discrete groups of writers and editors. Nevertheless, even though they lack the understanding of this exquisite balance, Beijing’s move to expel three Wall Street Journal reporters from China in February as retaliation for an opinion piece the newspaper published strikes as capricious, misguided and chilling. The CCP took umbrage at a recent opinion piece in the Journal that labeled China the “sick man of Asia,” an obvious allusion to the 19th century when the flailing Ottoman Empire was called the “sick man of Europe.” Their retaliation? Telling three reporters from the Beijing bureau, including the deputy bureau chief, to pack up and vacate the country within five days, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with the supposedly offensive opinion column. Of course, given that Beijing is currently effectively on lockdown given the spread of the mysterious coronavirus, leaving the country at the moment may not seem like much of a punishment. But the ouster is still a chilling sign of China’s war on freedom and the safe conveyance of information. China is growing less free and more repressive. That’s not only a tragedy for U.S. readers who will know less about what is occurring in China, but for the Chinese people, who grow more oppressed.

Iran does not deny that prior to 2003 it was pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. The 2015 JCPOA clearly halted this effort, but recent pronouncements from Tehran that they are no longer obliged to comply with the JCPOA is an ominous indicator that Iran might once again pursue a nuclear weapons capability. Indeed, if that were to happen, countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey may decide that they, too, will need nuclear weapons for their own defense. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made this point clearly when he stated that it was “unacceptable for nuclear armed states to forbid Ankara from obtaining its own nuclear weapons.” Mr. Erdogan shared a sentiment no doubt shared by other leaders in the region. Working to ensure that we are successful in our negotiations with North Korea is a responsibility for all countries, not only the United States. China, an ally of North Korea, has significant influence with North Korea, given that over 90 percent of the North’s total trade is with China and 90 percent of the crude oil and petroleum products imported by the North are from China. So, it is logical to ask that China do more to convince North Korea to return to working-level negotiations with the United States. It’s also important that the European Union, Russia and China get Iran to understand that threatening the region and Europe with ballistic missiles, while continuing to support to proxy organizations that use terrorist tactics to accomplish destabilizing goals, was not the transformation expected in 2015 when the JCPOA was signed. Working harder to ensure that there is no nuclear arms race in East Asia and the Middle East is a goal all nations must pursue. Failure would bring us closer to nuclear conflict and annihilation.

Japan is another country in the region that is concerned about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. In 1998, a North Korea long-range Taepodong 1 ballistic missile flew over Japan, with the missile’s second stage splashing into the Pacific Ocean, 60 kilometers past Japan. There is concern in Tokyo that recent U.S. negotiations with North Korea have focused more on the North’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and not the short- and middle-range Nodong missiles that are an immediate threat to Japan. That and upcoming financial burden sharing negotiations with the United States about the cost for stationing troops in Japan probably also convinced some in Tokyo that eventually Japan should consider having its own nuclear deterrent, despite the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Other countries in the region may consider going nuclear, if North Korea is permitted to retain nuclear weapons. The overarching issue is that a nuclear North Korea will not contribute to security in the region. Conversely, a North Korea that is willing to denuclearize in a complete and verifiable manner, without conditioning its denuclearization on the United States removing its troops and defense commitments to South Korea and Japan, will contribute significantly to peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani publicly announced that despite the nuclear agreement — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — Iran would increase the number of spinning centrifuges in its Fordow nuclear facility and enrich uranium from the 3.67 percent level to 5 percent, a step from 20 percent enrichment and significant movement toward the 90 percent enrichment needed for nuclear weapons.

The 70th anniversary of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will be celebrated this March 5 with the prospect that during this decade, there will be appreciably more nuclear weapons states than the five nuclear weapons states (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States) that forged the treaty on March 5, 1970. The threat of a nuclear weapons arms race in East Asia and the Middle East is real. Currently, there are three countries that will incite this race: North Korea, Iran and Turkey. It is likely North Korea will continue to defy the international community and continue to build nuclear weapons and, despite sanctions, refuse to denuclearize, assuming their demands are not accepted. Or, equally tragic, if the North is accepted by the international community as a nuclear weapons state, even assuming that they would be willing to cap the number of nuclear weapons they can retain. North Korea with nuclear weapons will encourage other countries in the region to seek their own nuclear deterrence capabilities, regardless of U.S. extended nuclear deterrent commitments. A few former senior South Korean officials have publicly stated that South Korea should seek its own nuclear weapons if North Korea retains any number of nuclear weapons. I’m confident that view is shared by others in the South. Yes, there is a nod to the United States for its offer of a nuclear umbrella, but realistically, many seem to believe that the South’s best defense is having its own nuclear deterrent. Ongoing negotiations with the United States in regard to Seoul’s contribution to funding the 28,500 troops is one of a number of issues that contribute to the view that the South has to be more self-reliant, especially on issues dealing with its national security.

During the 74-year nuclear era, the world has struggled ceaselessly to find a way to keep nuclear weapons under control. Nukes are not the ultimate evil, as some would have us believe. They’re tools, like others man has created, from dynamite to poisonous medications, which can be used for good or bad. Consider the history of nuclear weapons. First the good side: In WWII nukes saved a million U.S. servicemen’s lives, and 10 million Japanese lives, by preventing the invasion of Japan. The landmark Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970 has been immensely effective in controlling proliferation of nukes. It created two tiers of states: Five nuclear weapons states and 185 non-nuclear weapons states. The treaty, however, had one potentially fatal defect: It provided no mechanism to enforce nonproliferation. U.S. nukes prevented WWIII for 46 years during the Cold War. America’s masterful combination of science, strategy, strength, and deterrence secured a sweeping victory against all odds. Not a single nuke was detonated, the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and communism became recognized worldwide as a failure. Nuclear weapons had prevented a catastrophe. The paramount achievement of nuclear weapons, however, has rarely been recognized. Now what does history tell us about the bad side? It shows ? dramatically ? that nonproliferation requires enforcement. There must be a cop on the beat. The drafters of the Nonproliferation Treaty recognized this, but they just couldn’t bite the bullet; so they went halfway and approved five nuclear-weapons states in a leadership role.