Charles Krauthammer is a rapier-witted columnist who reminds me of Joseph Alsop, who skewered liberals, détentists, and anti-Vietnam War activists in Washington Post op-eds during the Cold War. Alsop used his Georgetown salon to extend his influence; Krauthammer’s salon is Fox News. Krauthammer’s most memorable essay may have appeared in the Winter 1990/1991 issue of …
Kim Jong Il and the Grim Reaper
by | 2010-09-15 | 13 Comments
When Jimmy Carter was last in Pyongyang, according to KCNA, he was reminded that “it is the behest of President Kim Il Sung to denuclearize the peninsula.” How wholeheartedly NDC Chairman Kim Jong Il shares that wish is another question. In the judgment of Richard Bush of the Brookings Institution, not so much: “The best …
Why ICBMs are Hard to Build
by | 2010-09-14 | 41 Comments
UCS’s David Wright has written a nice post at All Things Nuclear that replots a graph originally produced by IISS to explain that ICBMs are hard to build because the principal trick to increasing range is adding fuel:
The Flood
by | 2010-09-14 | 32 Comments
The clearest thinking and writing I’ve ever done was under the influence of chemo drips. The prospect of death can be life affirming… or not. The Soviet Union was on a chemo drip for the decade before it died, but few took serious notice. Sovietologists in the United States were too threat-oriented to recognize grave …
