Two of the world’s biggest polluters are China and Russia. You would think that U.S. environmental groups would be major critics of these countries; yet, the reality is some take money from entities controlled by these governments and disseminate their propaganda. Over the last several years, many articles have been written documenting how Russian groups funneled money into U.S. environmental organizations, which, in turn, was used to oppose fracking in the U.S. and the construction of new pipelines. The Russians understandably fear the growth of the U.S. energy industry because it undermines their own (which accounts for 40 percent of their GDP). The environmental groups used the Russian monies to lobby against U.S. consumers and support their Democratic allies. Much of this took place while Robert Mueller was head of the FBI; and since government law enforcement agencies monitor foreign funds coming into the U.S., one wonders why the FBI was silent. The Russian money was clearly used for political purposes; so, is Mr. Mueller going to give us a report on Russian funds that were used to influence the political process when he was in charge of preventing it? In March of this year, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology produced a report on “Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media.” The committee acquired many documents from American social media companies that “confirmed that Russian agents were exploiting American social media platforms in an effort to disrupt domestic energy markets, suppress research and development of fossil-fuels, and stymie efforts to expand the use of natural gas.”

Despite the setback in the February 2019 Hanoi summit, Kim Jong-un may feel he has the upper hand in negotiations. Pyongyang publicly referenced the 2020 presidential election and may hold threats of resuming nuclear and ICBM tests as a Damocles sword over President Trump’s head to induce additional concessions. The regime may perceive the dismissal of National Security Adviser John Bolton as portending a softening of U.S. policy. Though there is little reason for optimism, the United States should continue diplomatic attempts to reduce the North Korean nuclear threat. But the Trump administration should not become overeager to accept a weak, flawed agreement. Instead it should insist on a detailed, comprehensive road map to North Korea abandoning its nuclear and missile production capabilities and existing arsenals. The accord should include a robust verification protocol, including data declarations of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. The United States should reciprocate North Korea’s end of year deadline with one of its own. Washington should announce it will resume canceled military exercises with South Korea and no longer pull its punches on enforcing U.S. laws if Pyongyang continues to drag its feet on complying with U.N. denuclearization requirements. America's self-imposing concessions did not lead to diplomatic progress and not reduce the North Korean military threat. North Korea is likely to remain a threat that requires a bipartisan policy of deterrence, containment and compellence. The best policy for the United States is a comprehensive strategy of diplomacy, upholding U.N. resolutions and U.S. laws, and deterrence until the nuclear, missile and conventional force threat is reduced.

North Korea and the United States gave strikingly different interpretations of the collapse of working-level denuclearization talks in Stockholm. Pyongyang characteristically took a maximalist approach, both in its rhetoric and its demands. Having commanded the United States to adopt a totally “new method of calculation,” the regime disparaged Washington’s new proposals. Pyongyang dismissed U.S. eagerness to resume talks quickly, declaring it had “no intention to hold such ‘sickening negotiations’” before the United States takes substantial steps to end its “hostile policy.” The diplomatic talks augering into the ground so dramatically does not augur well for future progress. Some dismiss North Korea’s acerbic comments as diplomatic maneuvering and indeed, the regime often engages in brinkmanship to wrest additional concessions from opponents. But underlying the tactical maneuvering are enduring North Korean strategic objectives to maintain its nuclear arsenal. President Trump declared that “the best thing that’s happened to this country” during his administration was his “very good relationship with Kim Jong-un.” But this relationship has not produced any progress on denuclearization. Some argue, incorrectly, that there has been no cost to President Trump’s approach. However, that neglects the large U.S. sanctions relief, cancellation of numerous military exercises and embrace of a purveyor of crimes against humanity, which undercut all components of the maximum pressure policy. The United States also accepted 21 North Korean violations of U.N. resolutions this year without any response or repercussions to the regime. Mr. Trump has now adopted a weaker version of the Obama administration’s strategic patience policy and timid incrementalism of sanctions enforcement.

During the post-World War II decades, global leaders and intellectuals were tortured with the prospect of a planet with too many people to feed, but now the industrialized world is challenged by too few babies and graying populations. In the West, market forces have driven down birth rates. Fertility in Europe, the United States and Canada is well below 2.1, and economists worry that an elderly population that outnumbers children will slow growth to the point of bankrupting Social Security and pitting generations against each other for scarce resources. China raised its one-child policy to two a few years back, but women are not responding. Japan stopped preaching small families to couples a long time ago, but its birth rate remains perilously low. The United States and now Germany rely on immigration to boost population growth, but that is not enough. For example, the United States will soon have more elderly than children. So many immigrants from troubled and impoverished nations pose vexing assimilation and fiscal challenges. Working-class communities feel their cultures challenged while many U.S. immigrants lack a high school education. Technology ― robots and the like ― can’t be relied on to save the day. A population with a growing share of elderly is simply not going to be very adept at innovation. What really has to change is that women again find satisfaction in having more than two children without expecting them all to go to Harvard. The proposition that three children is the ideal is social dynamite no politician wants to touch, but in the end civilization needs more babies to survive.

China has actually built an anti-navy, and is now attempting to give it power projection aspirations; this is a very hard thing to do as Germany in both World Wars and the Soviet Union in the Cold War found to their dismay. It is very difficult to imagine China defeating the American fleet on the open ocean beyond the South China Sea or projecting a great army by naval means to a conflict in Africa or the Middle East in President Xi’s lifetime. Perhaps the greatest impediment to Mr. Xi’s superpower aspiration is in the area of allies. Rome, Great Britain and America built great international security systems upon a series of alliances and client relationships. As military historian Edward Luttwak points out, Rome’s military and economic power began to decline once its emperors decided to go it alone from a security standpoint. Mr. Xi has adopted the traditional Chinese view that the Middle Kingdom has two types of relationships, adversaries and tributaries. It bullies its neighbors in the South China Sea claiming that body of water to be a virtual Chinese lake. Overseas, the Chinese Great Belt Road initiative is the anti-Marshall Plan. Its loans to potential partners are predatory, and its management of infrastructure building in Asia and Africa is virtually assured of making enemies of local populations. Athens, Carthage, Germany, Imperial Japan and the former Soviet Union failed to achieve true superpower status by treating allies and clients like subjects. China’s Xi seems to be reading from their play books. Although he has consolidated power in China to an extent not seen since Mao, Mr. Xi’s approach to the rest of the world is predatory. Making China great again may be delayed.

China’s President Xi Jinping has made no secret of his desire to make China a true world-spanning superpower, but he is attempting implementation of that objective with a very strange strategy. True world superpowers are relatively rare; the Roman Empire, Great Britain from Trafalgar to World War I, and the United States since the end of World War II all qualify. Each had three dominant characteristics. The first was that each possessed the world’s greatest economy in its time, the second was unchallenged control of the seas. Finally, each had a series of alliances and clients to help with the burden of maintaining international stability during their respective periods of international dominance. With the possible exception of seeking economic supremacy, Mr. Xi’s approach to world spanning dominance is curious indeed. Under Mr. Xi, China appears to be making several of the key mistakes that tripped up past imperial wannabes. From an economic standpoint, conventional wisdom has it that China will economically overtake the United States in the 2030-2050 time frame depending on who is counting. But even here, China has several fissures that should cause Mr. Xi concern. In addition, China’s run of nearly three decades of unprecedented growth has slowed dramatically of late. In many ways, China shows some of the signs that presaged Japan’s economic collapse of the 1990s. Chinese economic dominance is no sure thing. From a naval perspective, China has been a traditional land power throughout its history, but this did not stop either Rome or the United States from becoming true superpowers by building great fleets to defeat naval threats from competitors.

The European Union’s common currency and lax immigration enforcement have done much to smother prosperity and suppress wages for ordinary workers. As in America, the intelligentsia and governing elite drink the Kool-Aid that the robust growth the West enjoyed from 1870s to 1970s was a historical accident and opposition to illegal immigration is anti-growth and racist. That’s nonsense. New technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics offer vast new pathways to raise living standards with modestly growing populations if businesses have the wherewithal to invest prudently. Unfortunately, the euro established in 1999 locks Europe into a single currency that is undervalued for the more efficient German and other Northern European economies and undervalued for other less-modern European states. And like America before President Trump, the EU - largely at the behest of France and Germany - is locked into the false notion that trade problems with China can be resolved in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Initially, the single currency allowed all European governments, businesses and private citizens to borrow more and this created a false prosperity. It enabled excessive welfare spending and a run-up of property values. The illusion of a sustainable prosperity prevailed, but ultimately government finances and banks collapsed in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland and Cyprus. Then EU financial rescues imposed Germany imperial prescriptions - perpetual trade and budget surpluses for Germany and burdensome taxes, crushing debt service and economic servitude for Mediterranean and other peripheral states. In varying measures, these policies have restored stability but only temporarily and at a terrible price of lost hope.

Europe, as well as other parts of the world, is literally killing itself by not having babies. Most European countries now have fertility rates well below that needed to keep the population stable ― forget about growing. A shrinking population adds to the relative burden of taking care of the elderly ― fewer workers to support an increasing number of retirees. An unsustainable downward spiral is underway. The Europeans also undertook many foolish “big green” projects that failed to reduce CO₂ emissions and made the cost of energy non-competitive with the rest of the world. At the same time, the United States embraced fracking, allowing it to move to cleaner energy (natural gas) and reduce both CO₂ emissions and electricity costs. Modern Europe is the result of the denial of physics, biology and micro-economics by too many politicians and two generations of ignorant voters. The United States is now growing at more than twice the rate of Europe and is enjoying full employment. In fact, there is no big developed country that is even close to the United States in terms of economic performance. China continues to do well, but despite very rapid economic growth, its per capita income is still less than a fourth of the United States. China has a long way to go ― particularly in the modernization of its financial system ― which is still largely state-owned. As an American, it is disappointing to see how many U.S. politicians (mainly Democrats) have studied the causes of European stagnation, but are advocating many of the same policies that are destroying Europe. What Europe, and the U.K. in particular, needs is a new Margaret Thatcher. A person clear-eyed enough to see what needs to be done, and then the toughness and strategic sense to deliver.

Europe’s most significant contribution to the world economy at the moment is serving as a bad example. Much of Western culture and law can trace its origin back to this city of 2,500 years ago. The ancient Athenians learned that democracy is fragile and can lead to bad outcomes ― not that other governing systems have proved to be more successful over the long run. One of the fatal flaws of democracy is the recurring irrationality of the people to vote themselves benefits that they are unwilling to pay for. The idea of getting something for nothing is so powerful that politicians have used the same con everywhere on the planet for thousands of years. The end is always the same. The music stops when the cupboard is empty. Greece is exhibit A at the moment of what happens when a country spends more than it produces without restraint. At some point, the lenders say, “no more ― you must live within your means.” For Greece, this has resulted in an approximately 30 percent drop in real per capita income during the last decade and an unemployment rate of 18 percent. Greece was the first EU country to go into a managed debt default and a reduction in living standards to reflect “pay as you go.” Unfortunately, Greece will not be the last. At some point in the not-too-distant future, both Italy and France are going to face a day of reckoning when they, too, will no longer be able to live on borrowed money. There is no mystery to the European disease: Excessive government spending not justified on a cost-benefit basis, including many “green” projects that have failed; tax rates far above the revenue and welfare maximizing rates that have only undermined the desire to work, save or invest; and regulations that make no economic sense and are so numerous and complex they only serve to undermine the rule of law.

Democratic presidential hopefuls and automakers are betting big on new technologies to rid cars of fossil fuels and field self-driving vehicles. Electric cars predate gas-powered vehicles by 50 years, and were sold commercially through the 1930s. As now, the slow progress of battery technology permitted the internal-combustion engine to outperform in terms of power, capacity, recharge time and cost. Contemporary batteries are a combination of expensive cobalt, lithium, manganese and nickel. To increase capacity, engineers are tinkering with boosting nickel content but among stability challenges, it can get extremely hot and cause fires. Engineers have been grappling with battery problems for more than a century, and this may be the old story of the man walking half way to the wall, over and over but never reaching his goal. Most daily commutes and errands are less than 100 miles, and plug-in hybrids with modest batteries would eliminate gasoline for workdays and most weekends. Automakers already offer a wide range of plug-ins, but the economics work better in sedans than heavy SUVs. If the president in 2021 wants to move carbon out of our energy system, then tougher fuel economy standards would likely make a reasonably spacious, hybrid sedan ubiquitous. However, at a fraction of the cost advanced driver assistance programs will be in nearly all new cars soon. New cars will become much safer very fast ? but drivers are not going away ? and gasoline still will be pumped.