Indeed, even the threat from the North of this escalation will generate a momentum in the United States to revert back to a policy of “maximum pressure” and “fire and fury.” Pyongyang just announced that a Plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party will meet later in December, before Mr. Kim’s 2020 New Year’s address. It’s fair to assume Mr. Kim will have a major pronouncement at this meeting, with expected unanimous support. It would be unfortunate, however, if Mr. Kim uses this meeting and his New Year’s address to claim that North Korea is the victim and the United States is the perpetrator, thus necessitating that the North work harder to build its so-called nuclear deterrent. Given how far North Korea has come working with Mr. Trump, to revert to such a hostile and provocative stance will, no doubt, destroy any remaining good will and force the United States and its allies to revert to a policy of maximum pressure and fire and fury. Movement in this direction will be extremely dangerous for the Korean Peninsula, the region and the world. This is a time that China, an ally of the North, has to use its significant influence on the North to convince Mr, Kim that movement in this direction would be a tragic mistake. President Xi Jinping now has a personal relationship with Mr. Kim and hopefully can convince Mr. Kim to refrain from this type of escalation and encourage him to pursue the commitments that were made at the June 2018 Singapore Summit, in addition to reminding Mr. Kim that the United States will provide the security assurances and economic development assistance North Korea needs and expects, in return for complete and verifiable denuclearization.

The second summit in Hanoi unfortunately was not successful, with both sides making unacceptable proposals. The DMZ meeting that followed in June 2019 was positive, with a commitment to have positive (working level) meetings going forward. The first and last senior working level meeting was in Stockholm in October 2019. That one-day meeting, between Special Representative Steve Biegen and chief nuclear negotiator Kim Myong Gil, went for more than eight hours, with positive comments from Mr. Biegen and criticism from Mr. Kim. Efforts to have a second working level meeting have been unsuccessful. Over the last few months, North Korea has publicly issued a series of ultimatums to the United States to change its calculus by December of this year for dealing with the North. Recent media commentaries from Gen. Kim Yong-chol, the former lead negotiator for North Korea and head of the United Front Department and Kim Kye-gwan, the former First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and lead negotiator for the Six Party Talks, have been very critical of the United States, parroting this ultimatum. The recent public comments from the new First Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae-Song have been, even by the North’s standards, critical and offensive. To threaten the United States with an “unwelcomed Christmas gift” if we don’t change our approach and discard our so-called hostile policy toward the North is unsettling and unfortunate. For North Korea to allude to a return to 2017, with nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches, is reckless and provocative. Certainly, Mr. Kim must know that President Trump will respond forcefully to this type of escalation.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, is getting bad advice from his senior advisers. Rather than pursuing closer relations with the United States, North Korea is in the process of unraveling a close personal relationship Mr. Kim has with President Donald Trump while, also, undermining 18 months of delicate negotiations. The spate of recent threats and insults from North Korea is not unfamiliar to some of us who have negotiated with North Korea. In fact, it’s part of their playbook. When they’re not happy, they criticize and threaten to escalate, hoping we cave and accommodate their demands. We’ve seen this for the past 25 years. But it’s different now and Kim Jong-un should understand and appreciate this. He personally has been meeting with the president of the United States, something previously unimaginable. Two leadership summits and a DMZ meeting, with routine correspondence between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim, has given Mr. Kim significant international exposure and credibility. Moreover, the June 12, 2018 Singapore Summit Joint Statement is viewed by many as a defining commitment by North Korea and the United States to: establish a new bilateral relationship, build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea committing to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and both countries committed to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified. Also during this historic meeting of a siting U.S. president with a leader from North Korea, Mr. Trump committed to provide North Korea with security guarantees, a core demand from the North.

Both Cuban and Iranian intelligence officials are at Mr. Maduro’s side, along with what are believed to be Russian military advisers. At the moment, this axis of anti-American oppressors appears to be prevailing. Predecessors of Trump knew it would imperil America’s security should Pyongyang or Tehran acquire nuclear weapons deliverable to American targets. They understood that Russian revanchism ought not go unchecked. They were aware that generations of American leaders had opposed America’s adversaries dragging Latin American countries into their orbits. They could have perceived that China was not moderating or abiding by “international norms.” Too often, however, our elected leaders take easy ways out, pursue short-term fixes or claim that doing nothing is “strategic patience.” Our enemies and adversaries know that America remains stronger, economically and military, than any of them. What they may be testing is whether the United States is stronger than any combination of them. Though Iran, China, Russia, North Korea and Cuba are very different nations, all are ruled by dictators who want America diminished ? incapable of frustrating their various and nefarious geopolitical ambitions. Should we allow them to achieve that objective? If the answer is no, we’ll need to do what it takes to grow our economy, increase our military capabilities and think longer-term than in the past. The paradox of deterrence is that the stronger we are, the less likely that our adversaries will provoke a conflict with us. By contrast, if we appear weak or wobbly, those who despise us will be emboldened to take their best shots.

The current administration deserves credit for addressing multiple threats to America’s national security that previous administrations chose to ignore or deal with fecklessly. But the sheer number of crises now coming to a head has to be cause for concern. Start with the Middle East to which the Pentagon has deployed an amphibious assault ship, a Patriot anti-missile system, an aircraft carrier and a strike group. The reason for this show of force: Intelligence reports indicating that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been plotting attacks on U.S. troops in the region. Over the past 40 years, Iranian theocrats have been responsible for killing hundreds of Americans, and with virtual impunity. Perhaps President Trump has caused them to have second thoughts about trying their luck again. Move to Asia, where North Korea tested short-range missiles that military experts believe are modeled on Russia’s Iskander missiles ? capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Might additional economic sanctions, a real “maximum pressure” campaign, make clear to Kim Jong-un that climbing the escalation ladder is not in his interest? I’d argue it’s worth a try. Meanwhile, trade talks are at an impasse with China, whose rulers for decades have been stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. intellectual property, high-technology weapons systems and private information on American citizens. Disabusing President Xi Jinping of the notion that such thievery is China’s entitlement would represent a major achievement. Shift to Latin America, specifically Venezuela where Juan Guaido is recognized by more than 50 nations as the legitimate interim president. But Russia, Cuba, Iran and China are colluding to prop up Nicolas Maduro who, following in the footsteps of Hugo Chavez, has turned what was once a rich and promising land into a hellhole.

Many months into the anti-Beijing demonstrations that have riled the capitalist entrepot, Beijing has manifestly failed to pacify Hong Kong. Indeed, if nothing else, the protests against Communist rule appear only to be gaining in intensity, if not size. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. In 1997, when the British handed Hong Kong back to Communist China, Beijing pledged to maintain, for 50 years, a system dubbed “one country two systems.” It wasn’t exactly a fair deal for the more than a billion Chinese people not living in Hong Kong, but it was still an important carve-out: A small bit of Chinese territory where liberties and human rights were respected. In fits and starts, Beijing has slowly eroded Hong Kong’s freedoms, stacking the city-state’s governing bodies with Communist loyalists, for instance. And then things came to a head earlier this year when a law was announced that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to Mainland China. This was a big no-no: China’s “justice” system is anything but ? it’s kangaroo courts writ large. Hong Kong, by contrast, still maintains something of an open and fair judicial process. The extradition move kicked off the largest challenge to Beijing’s rule since 1989. The protests have continued, and in the subsequent months have morphed into something more profound: An existential challenge to Beijing’s rule in Hong Kong. Today’s protesters don’t just want a law or two to be reversed or repealed. They want self determination. They want freedom, and realize in Beijing’s direction lies tyranny. These are the most profound anti-Beijing protests since 1989. And the last thing we want is for them to end the way the 1989 protests did, too.

Turkey works against the pro-American Sisi regime in Egypt. Turkish violations of Greek airspace in the Aegean are a common occurrence. Turkey has frightened and alienated most NATO allies. The European Union has limited arms sales to Turkey. Germany has pulled its small forces out of the country. Russia sold Turkey a $2 billion, state-of-the-art S-400 anti-aircraft missile system designed to shoot down the latest NATO aircraft. Yet, the U.S. is contracted to sell Turkey F-35 fighter aircraft. Given that some of the plane’s assemblage was outsourced to Turkish companies, it’s conceivable that on-site Russian technicians could build into the S-400 system ways to down F-35s. Why, then, is the United States still an ally of this anti-American rogue nation? There are a number of scary reasons. The U.S. military has not quite figured out how either to stay in or leave Incirlik in a now-hostile Turkey. Washington knows that fighters at the valuable Incirlik base can reach any strategic conflict in the Middle East. America believes a bad ally is better than a bitter enemy. It fears that a hostile Turkey could start and win wars against our vulnerable regional friends and create a formidable nuclear alliance with Russia, China or Iran. The United States fears that fighting against or failing to aid a NATO partner might unravel the entire alliance. Not since the United States came to the aid of Joseph Stalin’s USSR in World War II has America so disliked and so feared a valuable but utterly untenable ally.

There are about 5,000 members of the U.S. military, mostly airmen, stationed at the huge, strategically located air base in Incirlik, Turkey, northwest of the Syrian border. The American forces at Incirlik are also the custodians of about 50 B61 nuclear bombs. Data on these weapons is classified, but at their maximum yield each is 10 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to Stars and Stripes. Turkey in the past has threatened to go nuclear itself should the United States ever dare to transfer the lethal arsenal. In the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, which led to a U.S. arms embargo, Turkey shut down all U.S. operations at Incirlik. American forces were expelled for three years ? until Washington caved and resumed arms supplies. In 2016, Turkey cut off power to the base and forbid U.S. flights, fearing that the dissident Turkish generals of a failed coup attempt might use the American facility as a sanctuary. Under Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become NATO’s only non-democratic nation. It’s also NATO’s only Muslim-majority member. Mr. Erdogan has been trying to re-create Turkey as a new Ottoman imperial power. He feels no allegiance to Western-style democracy. During the Obama administration, Mr. Erdogan snubbed the obsequious American attempts to promote Turkey as the cornerstone of America’s Middle East policy. President Trump should remember that and perhaps reconsider his own sometimes appeasing outreach to Mr. Erdogan. Turkey opposes, if not detests, almost every American ally in the region and befriends almost every U.S. enemy. It despises Israel, aids its enemies and hopes for its dissolution.

Washington has been naive, not for the first time, in its negotiations with the Communist state, and now it must put aside its innocence. The latest revelation suggests the United States has been naive in the assumption that North Korea and its Chinese and Russian sponsors were ready to make a comprehensive deal leading to reunification of the peninsula. The negotiations for a reunited Korean state have been under the auspices and pushed by Sweden. The Swedes often push agreements without the military guarantees that make them acceptable. Washington’s leverage with Pyongyang, backed by severe sanctions, has been eroded by the aggressive appeasement policies of the left-wing government of President Moon Jae-In in Seoul. President Moon has treated seriously the North’s overtures for reunification. China and North Korea, meanwhile, have worked continuously to split the critical Seoul-Tokyo-Washington strategic alliance. South Korean conservatives, pointing to the U.S. military pullout from Syria, worry that the Trump administration will withdraw U.S. forces from the South as part of a deal with North Korea and China. North Korea is exploiting the tug-of-war between the United States and South Korea over sharing costs for American forces in Korea. Pyongyang wants to strengthen its argument that the South should unite with the North to fight against “foreign powers.” An editorial in the official North Korean newspaper argues that the U.S. demand for an increase in South Korea’s share of defense costs runs counter to easing tensions. Under such conditions, the editorial argues, “it is anachronistic to demand the increase of defense costs contribution by imposing the costs of the deployment of U.S. strategic assets to the Korean peninsula.” And so it goes. Good things do not come easy in Asia.

Acquiescing to efforts to end government funding of the International Space Station (ISS) by 2025 would be a historic and costly mistake to the tune of billions, destroying an engineering, science and geopolitical marvel and elevating America’s enemies to supremacy in space. Construction of the ISS was completed from 1998 through 2011, and it remains the largest structure that humans have placed into space. Since Nov. 2, 2000, the station has been continuously occupied by astronauts dedicated to scientific advancement. Released in February, the Trump administration’s 2019 budget proposal for NASA seeks to cease government funding of the ISS, instead doling out millions for station privatization and the exploration of the moon. However, while privatization of the ISS coincides with the ethos of free markets, it is exceedingly unlikely that private companies could generate a viable business model for the space station absent government funding. Perhaps even more important than budgetary considerations when considering the fate of the ISS is the structure’s contribution to international relations. Collaborating with other nations only serves to deepen the ties of peace across the world, and strengthening the bonds between the U.S. and traditional rivals, like Russia, and dismantling the ISS would only serve to give geopolitical rivals an advantage in the coming age of space. Scheduling an end to federal government funding of the ISS in anticipation of private companies taking over this program would ignore the national security and research implications of such a decision. The plan seems shortsighted, because there is no plan in place for a private entity to take over the management for the U.S. of the ISS.