Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 80
August 16, 2017
Sorry IT Failure
Sorry everyone! Have been off line for 48 hours due to a cable fault about a mile away. Engineers worked hard over two days. Up and running again and this Blog will be back to normal tomorrow.
August 10, 2017
Trump and North Korea
Most of Trump’s difficulties since he became President can be traced back to his own hand, for good or bad. But he inherited North Korea. All of his predecessors kicked the can down the road until the end game arrives to a schedule which coincides with his arrival at the White House. For this Trump cannot be blamed. Neither is it rational to complain if he speaks to the North Koreans in florid terms which hit home and mirror their own scary rhetoric and blood curdling threats. We know the cautious, diplomatic, non-provocative approach has spectacularly failed to deliver. So talking their language is at least worth a try.
How this is going to end is now impossible to predict. It is finely balanced between a negotiated peace across the entire Korean Peninsular and the destruction of much of it with millions of casualties and unknown consequences to follow. It is useful to state the position of each side, so that at least we know from where we begin.
America no longer cares whether North Korea is a communist totalitarian State or not. Neither does South Korea, which has done very well as an engine of global capitalism. What both care about is a nuclear threat from the North. If that threat is extended by advances in missile technology to include a real and viable threat to the cities of America itself, this is something which will not be allowed to happen.
America knows that it lives under a potential threat from both Russia and China but it knows both are rational and understand that they too face destruction if they start to press red buttons. But there is no certainty that such a determination to avoid self destruction drives strategic thinking in Pyongyang. But that could be wrong. In fact there is evidence that if you think it through the reverse is true. It is known that Kim Jon Un took note that although both Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi had nuclear weapons programmes they gave them up and it did them no good. He knows about Syria and Afghanistan.
He figures that the only way to stop an American led coalition at some point embarking on regime change to bring his rule to an end, is to offer an unacceptable cost for the enterprise. He already is capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties on South Korea even if the war only lasts an hour. But the real guarantee comes if the cost includes San Francisco or LA. In other words he is well aware that if he were to launch a nuclear attack his country would be wiped out before the end of the day. But the knowledge that he has the capability to do so will, he thinks, bring America to the negotiating table, not just to state take or leave it terms, but to cut a deal which leaves his regime intact and secure. In return he will make peace with the South and renounce first use of nuclear weapons. He will need a lot of guarantees to give them up.
What happens next depends on whether he is right in his calculations and whether America’s risk reward analysis allows it to cut him some slack. I would not bet on it.
August 8, 2017
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Now The Judiciary Is Worried
In the beginning, after the referendum, the Brexiteers were cock a hoop and making the running. What a difference now. Not only was there a general election disaster, but since then muddle and confusion within the government has mired the Brexit negotiations in a quicksand of real issues demanding much more than quips and slogans to resolve.
Meanwhile criticism is piling in on all sides about uncertainty of purpose and lack of clarity in defining objectives. Brexiteers fear a sell out so that the whole project is either watered down or abandoned. Remainers fear chaos in negotiations leading to a cliff edge exit. Now the President of the Supreme Court has weighed in demanding Parliament get a grip over the ECJ and its future role in our law. No wonder. Because the plain fact is that although we may leave the EU, the EU will remain. And if we step outside our own borders for business, vacation, education or whatever, it will be into the jurisdictions of all the EU’s political, financial, trade and judicial institutions. The only difference will be that we no longer have power or influence over what they do or how they treat us.
In other words you can leave the party if you want to but the party goes on.
August 7, 2017
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More Brexit Doubts
Sir Simon Fraser, the former head of the Foreign Office is not a party politician, but he is nevertheless at the centre of what is really going on in the Brexit negotiations. His comments that things are not going well, because of the splits in the government and the lack of clarity about where GB is headed, should worry everybody. This is very much the line taken by this Blog for a long time, but such reinforcement at this level of authority gives a new urgency to our county’s predicament.
Meanwhile Sir Vince Cable at the weekend made some characteristically pointed comments about the older generation, who mostly voted for Brexit and the younger generation who mostly voted to Remain. I was shocked how many people I met of my own generation who spoke in selfish, blinkered terms at the time of the vote, without caring at all how young people, who own the future, felt. So this Blog heartily endorses Sir Vince’s view that the old shafted the young.
Disquiet about the whole project is now growing at every level. Either the Brexiteers get their act together and come forward with workable, comprehensive and acceptable proposals as to how we exit the EU without trashing the economy, or face the fact that their project has failed and will never happen. Because if it gets to jumping off a cliff to achieve the exit, the House of Commons will vote it down. Any following general election or referendum will sink Brexit for good.
August 6, 2017
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NK Sanctions: Trump Triumph
At last the Trump administration has a breakthrough which will not only restore international faith in America to lead, but will secure the Trump presidency. Few in the world will see this but mark my words, this is a game changer. For the first time for a very long time, America, China and Russia have voted together for the same outcome on the Security Council; no vetoes or abstentions. There have been intensive negotiations behind the scenes and some very grown up comments from the State Department. America is not interested in regime change in North Korea, it does not want a unified Korean Peninsular, it does not want to threaten Kim Jon Un or his government. But it will not and cannot accept threats of nuclear attack upon the United States or its allies.
This is clever politics of a kind Trump promised, deals of mutual interest. Kim Jon Un can claim the country is no longer under threat from the U.S. and enter into talks of some kind to gradually unravel the nuclear programme. With the U.S., Russia and China all singing from the same sheet, his only other option is oblivion.
But it is in the U.S. itself that the game changer has happened. Congress has just imposed sanctions on Russia, to the fury of the White House and the EU; all part of a Democrat led obsession, into which many Republicans have been sucked, that Russia is an enemy and a threat. Collusion, hacking, meetings, whatever and so on have engulfed Capitol Hill and paralysed its ability to contribute to constructive government. The world has looked on perplexed as the doleful Washington procession of Special Prosecutor, endless hearings, a Grand Jury, leaks and rumours have eclipsed the concept of useful government and ignored all the real issues which need solution.
Trump is not perfect, but he has now proved that he can deliver outcomes which most cannot and that the world can gain something from his presidency, in exchange for suffering climate change denial and a more questioning attitude to Europe and free trade. It also shows that the White House, now under the command of General Kelly, is coming together as a unified team after the confusion of the early months. The message is that Congress can play its games, but the government of the United States will go on regardless and the binge on demonising Russia is self defeating and contrary to the interests of the United States. Unless the investigators can come up with something real. But it would have to be very real and very big. Like Trump receives a monthly pay check from the Kremlin. Short of that the Democrats will just have to get back to work on behalf of the people.That is why they are there in the first place.
