Bombshell: The Goat Rodeos
Radha, Loren, and Erin invite Alex Bell to preview the Singapore Trump-Kim summit, explaining that while there’s more than staring into one another’s eyes for arms control, chemistry is a good start. When we recorded, the G7 had wrapped but not yet crashed and burned into a playground taunt with Canada, so Radha gives a good lesson on tariffs instead of assessing border skirmishes along the Great Lakes. If you’ve been distracted you may have not noticed the absurd amount of Chinese espionage activity as the OPM hacks bear fruit. The show recommends everyone keep an eye on the Pompeo-Bolton tea leaves and how Pompeo’s embrace of State bureaucracy may be hamstrung. Erin kicks off a new segment, the Soapbox, on Google’s rejection of military AI work and what that means for future advances in military technologies. Conflicting Civilian casualty reporting, protests in Jordan, and SOF in Somalia are somehow the lesser included events in the crazy three ring goat rodeo of a week. Credit for this week’s title and general approach to life go to Jeffrey Lewis.
- Alexandra Bell and James McKeon, Three strikes means Bolton should be out, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
- The Once and Future Framework, The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
- R Scott Kemp, North Korean disarmament: build technology and trust, Nature
- John Lyons, “From ‘Punk Kid’ to 21st Century Tyrant: Kim Jong Un Seizes His Moment,” Wall Street Journal
- Zainab Fattah, “Saudis to Host Jordan-Support Meeting After Tax Bill Protests,” Bloomberg
- Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne, “US service member killed in Somalia,” CNN
- U.S. Africa Command, “U.S. Statement on Situation in Somalia,” AFRICOM
- Shawn Snow, “One US special operations member killed, several wounded in attack in Somalia,” Military Times
- Aruna Viswanatha, “Ex-CIA Officer’s Case Highlights Fears About Reach of Chinese Spying,” Wall Street Journal
- Adam Goldman, “Ex-C.I.A. Officer Is Convicted of Spying for China,” New York Times
- Mike Ives, “U.S. Army Veteran Tried to Spy for China, Officials Say,” New York Times
- Ellen Nakashima and Paul Sonne, “China hacked a Navy contractor and secured a trove of highly sensitive data on submarine warfare,” Washington Post
- Ian Brown, “Imagining a Cyber Surprise: How Might China Use Stolen OPM Records to Target Trust?” War on the Rocks
- Thomas Wright, “Trump Is Choosing Eastern Europe,” Atlantic
- Susan B. Glasser, “Under Trump, “America First” Really Is Turning Out to Be America Alone,” New Yorker
- Neil Irwin, “What Is the Trade Deficit?” New York Times
- Kai Ryssdal, “How U.S. trade policy has changed over 30 years,” Marketplace
- Heather Long, “There are ‘nuggets of truth’ to what Trump says about trade,” Washington Post
- Robbie Gramer, Pompeo’s Pledge to Lift Hiring Freeze at State Department Hits Big Snag, Foreign Policy
- Casualty Records, Department of Defense
- “Syria: Raqqa in ruins and civilians devastated after US-led ‘war of annihilation,’” Amnesty International
- Helene Cooper, “U.S. Strikes Killed Nearly 500 Civilians in 2017, Pentagon Says,” New York Times
- Sundar Pichai, “AI at Google: our principles,” Google
- Kate Conger, “Google Backtracks, Says Its AI Will Not Be Used for Weapons or Surveillance,” Gizmodo
