a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
kleinbl00  ·  595 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Material on foreign nation’s nuclear capabilities seized at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

There are few descriptors for Trump that enemies and allies agree upon. "Incurious" is one of them.

I would be surprised to learn we had much better classified intel on North Korea than is in the public record. We definitely have vastly better satellite photos. We definitely have vastly better signals intelligence. But I doubt North Korea says much over the airwaves besides propaganda, and North Korea does much of their nuclear shit underground.

I also don't know who would buy it. Russia probably has a better sense of North Korean capabilities than we do, seeing as they have a vendor-client relationship.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

...just as an aside - Russia. The former central republic of the USSR. Mighty, monolithic counterpart for 40 years of Cold War. Buying shit from Iran and North Korea. I mean... fuck your Chinese tires. North Korean artillery. Iranian drones.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

South Korea? We've got like 70 years of strategic partnership with South Korea, if we thought they needed to know something, they'd know it. Japan? Japan is so thick with the US that when Toshiba accidentally sold parts that made their way into Soviet subs they apologized. There are diplomatic channels for pretty much anyone we're on vaguely convivial terms with that are totally not worth risking.

    And if you're right? This would be one of the biggest geopolitical scandals in modern American history, no?

I think Trump is beyond precedent on numerous fronts. The '90s wouldn't buy the Trump era in a Jerry Bruckheimer film. When Bob Gale modeled Biff Tannen in Back to the Future III, he modeled him off of casino owner Trump because logically, that's all the man had the skill for.

And then we had 30 years of grievance politics.