Trump Admin Imposes More Sanctions on Iran

Posted on May 30, 2018May 30, 2018 by Denise Simon

I can think of a few that are missing, but this is a good start.

Primer: For context on Iranian activities/ Azadeh deplaned, exited customs and collected her bags. Suddenly, according to Azadeh, she was encircled by five agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), who informed her of her arrest on national security grounds. Her belongings were confiscated. She was handcuffed, blindfolded and pushed into the back seat of a car, where a female IRGC agent forced her to rest her head in the agent’s lap to avoid detection. “Where are we going?” Azadeh asked, as they sped through Tehran. “Evin Prison,” her captor replied. And here began Azadeh’s months-long nightmare in the fetid dungeons of the Islamic Republic. Read more here. (It is a must read)

Barbaric attack on Iran’s political prisoners draws ... photo

Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated two Iranian entities for committing serious human rights abuses on behalf of the Government of Iran, as well as three leaders of one of these entities, the Ansar-e Hizballah organization. Additionally, OFAC designated an entity that has operated information or communications technology that facilitates monitoring or tracking that could assist or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of the Government of Iran. Finally, OFAC designated two individuals for engaging in censorship activities that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or assembly by citizens of Iran, and one individual for acting for or on behalf of an entity engaged in such censorship activities. These designations come in the wake of recent protests by the Iranian people and the regime’s subsequent brutal crackdown.

“Iran not only exports terrorism and instability across the world, it routinely violates the rights of its own people. The Iranian regime diverts national resources that should belong to the people to fund a massive and expensive censorship apparatus and suppress free speech,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “Those who speak out against the regime’s mismanagement and corruption are subject to abuse and mistreatment in Iran’s prisons. America stands with the people of Iran, and Treasury is taking action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for ongoing human rights abuses, censorship, and other despicable acts it commits against its own citizens.”

Today’s actions target the Iranian regime’s repression of its own people and the suppression of their freedoms of speech, expression, and peaceful assembly. As President Trump emphasized in his May 8, 2018 announcement of his decision to cease the United States’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the United States will not allow Iran’s malign behavior to go unchecked. These actions show a desire to hold malicious actors accountable for their actions even as they try to hide from international scrutiny.

Ansar-e Hizballah and Associated Individuals

OFAC is designating Ansar-e Hizballah for its role in serious human rights abuses in Iran. Additionally, OFAC designated three individuals for acting for or on behalf of the organization. Ansar-e Hizballah was designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13553 for being an official of the Government of Iran or a person acting on behalf of the Government of Iran (including members of paramilitary organizations) who is responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Iran or Iranian citizens or residents, or the family members of the foregoing.

Ansar-e Hizballah has been involved in the violent suppression of Iranian citizens and has collaborated with the Basij to violently attack Iranian students with knives, tear gas, and electric batons. The Basij Resistance Force was designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 on June 9, 2011 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran.

An organization supported by the Iranian regime that harasses and attacks the Iranian people, Ansar-e Hizballah has been linked to acid attacks against women in the city of Isfahan. Multiple women who were not dressed in accordance with the regime’s standards had acid thrown at them, severely injuring them and creating a climate of fear.

Abdolhamid Mohtasham is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah. As a founding member and key leader of the group, Abdolhamid Mohtasham plays a significant role in overseeing the group’s actions. He has threatened to use Ansar-e Hizballah to patrol Iranian streets and attack women whom he deems to be unvirtuous.

Hossein Allahkaram is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah. In 2011 the European Union sanctioned Hossein Allahkaram for co-founding and leading Ansar-e Hezbollah, noting that under his leadership the group used extreme violence during multiple crackdowns on student protestors.

Lastly, Hamid Ostad is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 for acting for or on behalf of Ansar-e Hizballah. Hamid Ostad, who founded the Mashhad branch of Ansar-e Hizballah, was implicated in a mob attack against the Saudi Arabia Consulate in Mashhad.

Evin Prison

OFAC is designating Evin Prison pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13553 for being a person acting on behalf of the Government of Iran (including members of paramilitary organizations) who is responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, the commission of serious human rights abuses against persons in Iran or Iranian citizens or residents, or the family members of the foregoing.

Prisoners held at Evin Prison are subject to brutal tactics inflicted by prison authorities, including sexual assaults, physical assaults, and electric shock. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) maintain permanent wards in Evin Prison where they hold political prisoners. And while senior regime officials regularly downplay the torture and abuse that occurs in Evin Prison, the abuse of prisoners, including political prisoners, continues once sham inspections into the prison conditions end.

Iran’s MOIS was designated pursuant to E.O. 13553 on February 16, 2012 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran. The IRGC was designated pursuant to Executive Order 13553 on June 9, 2011 for committing serious human rights abuses in Iran.

Hanista Programming Group

OFAC is designating Iran-based Hanista Programing Group pursuant to E.O. 13606 for having operated, or having directed the operation of, information and communications technology that facilitates computer or network disruption, monitoring, or tracking that could assist in or enable serious human rights abuses by or on behalf of the Government of Iran.

Hanista Programing Group is responsible for creating and distributing alternative versions of the popular messaging and social media application Telegram that facilitate the Iranian regime’s monitoring and tracking of Iranian and international users.

Hanista Programing Group developed two social media applications called Mobogram and MoboPlus and embedded malicious content in them that facilitates the monitoring and tracking of Iranian citizens. This monitoring and tracking functionality could assist or enable serious human rights abuses by the Government of Iran, including the IRGC and MOIS.

Designation of Two Iranian Regime Officials for Censorship Activities

OFAC is designating Abolhassan Firouzabadi and Abdolsamad Khoramabadi pursuant to E.O. 13628 for having engaged in censorship or other activities with respect to Iran that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or peaceful assembly by citizens of Iran, or that limit access to print or broadcast media.

Abolhassan Firouzabadi is responsible for the Iranian government’s efforts to block social media applications like Telegram and to force Iranians to use state-run applications that are monitored by the regime. As the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, Abolhassan Firouzabadi heads the country’s top Internet policymaking body and oversees the regime’s attempts to censor speech and media.

The Supreme Council of Cyberspace was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on January 12, 2018.

As the Secretary of the Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi has overseen the filtering and blocking of political content during elections. In 2017, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi tasked the Basij to lead the regime’s crackdown on cyber activity, and claimed that the country had thousands of monitors to report violations of websites and social media networks.

The Committee to Determine Instances of Criminal Content was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on May 30, 2013.

Designation of the Director of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB)

Lastly, OFAC is designating Abdulali Ali-Asgari pursuant to E.O. 13628 for acting for or on behalf of IRIB.

Abdulali Ali-Asgari is the current Director General of IRIB and has acted on behalf of the organization, including representing the organization in international for a.

The IRIB was designated pursuant to E.O. 13628 on February 6, 2013 for restricting or denying the free flow of information to or from the Iranian people. IRIB was implicated in censoring multiple media outlets and airing forced confessions from political detainees.

As a result of these actions, all property and interests in property of the persons designated today that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with such persons. In addition, foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for, or persons that provide material or certain other support to, the individuals and entities designated today risk exposure to sanctions that could sever their access to the U.S. financial system or block their property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

Identifying information on the individuals and entities designated today.

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Trumps’ 3 Executive Orders Take on Government Employees

Posted on May 29, 2018May 29, 2018 by Denise Simon

Primer: Why are there unions in the Federal government anyway? Anyone?

Highlights from the 2017 data:

–The union membership rate of public-sector workers (34.4 percent)
continued to be more than five times higher than that of private-
sector workers (6.5 percent). (See table 3.)

–Workers in protective service occupations and in education, training,
and library occupations had the highest unionization rates (34.7
percent and 33.5 percent, respectively). (See table 3.)

–Men continued to have a higher union membership rate (11.4 percent)
than women (10.0 percent). (See table 1.)

–Black workers remained more likely to be union members than White,
Asian, or Hispanic workers. (See table 1.)

–Nonunion workers had median weekly earnings that were 80 percent of
earnings for workers who were union members ($829 versus $1,041). (The
comparisons of earnings in this release are on a broad level and do not
control for many factors that can be important in explaining earnings
differences.) (See table 2.)

–Among states, New York continued to have the highest union membership
rate (23.8 percent), while South Carolina continued to have the lowest
(2.6 percent). (See table 5.)

Trump signs executive orders making it easier to fire feds, overhaul official time

President Donald Trump signed three executive orders Friday that aim to reduce the time it takes to fire poor-performing federal employees and overhaul federal employees union rights, including cuts to official time.

In a conference call with reporters on Friday, senior White House officials said the executive orders call back to a promise Trump made at his State of the Union address, in which he sought to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to award good federal employees and to remove poor performers more quickly.

“Today, the president is fulfilling his promise to promote more efficient government by reforming our civil service rules,” said Andrew Bremberg, the assistant to the president and the director of the Domestic Policy Council. “These executive orders will make it easier to remove poor-performing employees and ensure that taxpayer dollars are more efficiently used.”

One of the executives orders aims to make it easier for agencies to fire poor-performing employees and makes it harder for those employees to hide adverse employment information when seeking re-employment at another agency.

The Government Accountability Office has found it takes between six months and a year, on average, to remove federal employees flagged for misconduct, plus an average of eight more months to resolve appeals.

“Every year, the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey has consistently shown that less than one-third of federal employees believe the poor performers are adequately addressed by their agency,” Bremberg said.

Under this EO, agencies will be required to report disciplinary actions records and management of poor performers to the Office of Personnel Management.

Data from the Office of Personnel Management shows that federal employees are 44 times less likely to be fired than a private-sector worker.

The Trump administration first sought to make it easier to fire federal employees under the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act.

Under that authority, the Veterans Affairs Department, under the first full year of the Trump administration, fired 2,537 people — about 500 more federal employees than the agency let go in 2016.

Cuts to official time

A second executive order would significantly reduce the amount of time that federal employees can be paid for union work while on-the-clock.

Under the executive order, federal employees would not be able to spend any more than 25 percent of their work hours on through official time.

The executive order calls on agencies to renegotiate contracts with labor unions and reduce official time by about two-thirds.

The White House claims more than 470 Veterans Affairs Department employees, including 47 full-time nurses, spend 100 percent of their work-hours on union-related business.

Renegotiated labor contracts

A third executive order would curtail the labor contract bargaining window between government and unions.

The terms of regotiated contracts would be overseen by a new Labor Relations Working Group, which the EO orders OPM to establish.

In addition, the executive order would require federal union contracts be posted to an online database, with the goal of promoting transparency.

Senior White House officials said a drawn-out bargaining benefits union negotiations. Federal agencies, they said, paid $16 million in salaries for union negotiators in 2016.

Elevating federal workforce? Or an ‘assault’ on feds?

OPM Director Jeff Pon said the executive orders will protect federal employees who are doing their jobs, while making it more efficient to remove those who are not.

“By holding poor performers accountable, reforming the use of taxpayer-funded union time, and focusing negotiations on issues that matter, we are advancing our efforts to elevate the federal workforce. The vast majority of our employees are dedicated public servants who are dedicated to their missions and service to the American people. It is essential that we honor their commitment, and these measures reflect just that,” Pon said in a statement.

J. David Cox, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the president’s trio of executive orders would chip away at federal employees rights.

“This is President Trump taking retribution on an apolitical civil service workforce,” Cox said.

National Treasury Employees Union President Tony Reardon called the executives orders “an assault on federal employees.”

“Rather than promote efficiency in the federal sector, the administration is demanding federal workers lose their ability to challenge unfair, arbitrary and discriminatory firings and other actions. This would begin the process of dismantling the merit system that governs our civil service,” Reardon said in a statement.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), signaled his support for the executive orders.

“These reforms will improve accountability and productivity in the federal workforce, and I applaud the Trump administration for taking action to restore the public interest as the top priority of government operations,” Johnson said.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), the chairman of the Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Subcommittee, said the EOs would reign in employee unions’ influence over government operations.

“These executive orders strive to make the federal government more efficient, not only for the taxpayer, but for our great federal workers. We have thousands of federal employees who work very hard for the nation; it’s important that their work is not frustrated by the poor performance of a small few,” Lankford said.

US Warships Challenge Chinese Islands: FONOP

Posted on May 29, 2018May 29, 2018 by Denise Simon

USS Higgins

The US Navy sent two warships to a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea on May 28 in its latest symbolic protest against China’s claims there.

Reuters first reported that the USS Higgins and the USS Antietam ventured within 12 miles of the Paracel Islands in a demonstration the Pentagon calls a “freedom of navigation operation” or FONOP. The move signals US rejection of China’s claims of political control in the South China Sea.

The objective of their sail-by was a speck of land called “Woody Island,” where China has developed airstrips and port facilities in recent years as part of a broader strategy of establishing bases in these islands to demonstrate and exercise its political claims. This spring, China landed strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons on the island, a symbolic display of its deterrent power, and satellite imagery showed the arrival of surface-to-air missiles this month.

**

The Vietnamese government protested China’s move as a violation of its sovereign claim to the islands—exactly the language used by China to protest US actions today after sending its own warships to warn away the Americans.

** See more here.

photo

The island is one of many that lay behind the “nine dash line,” a diplomatic term of art for China’s political vision for the South China Sea, which is at the center of a web of claims by nearby nations:

In March, the US sent a destroyer on a FONOP to the Spratly Islands. In response, China increased its naval activity there, including a parade of warships that was also captured by Planet satellites. Tensions in the South China Sea have been simmering for years, but are now complicated by China’s role in North Korean nuclear talks and growing trade disputes with the Trump administration.

*** Meanwhile in April of 2018:

Surveillance photos suggest it has already broken its promise to not land military aircraft on its artificial islands. And there are claims the facilities have begun jamming US forces.

Philippines news service The Inquirer has obtained an aerial surveillance photo taken back in January which appears to show two Chinese Xian Y-7 twin engine aircraft on the recently constructed artificial island of Mischief Reef — also known as Panganiban Reef.

These are military combat transport aircraft, built to rapidly deploy special forces troops and munitions to a battlefield.

The news comes amid reports that electronic warfare equipment recently installed on the islands were last week directed at disrupting the passage of the United States Navy’s aircraft carrier, the USS Roosevelt.

FAIT ACCOMPLI?

Mischief Reef is within the internationally recognised 370km exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that applies to the Philippines. It is one of seven artificial islands arbitrarily constructed within the disputed Spratly Islands cluster. Three of these have large, 3km long military-grade runways.

China refuses to accept the UN economic zone standard, established after World War II to reduce international tensions, as well as an adverse ruling in 2016 by an international court of arbitration on the matter.

Instead, it insists it holds sovereign territorial rights over the whole 3.5 million-square-kilometre South China Sea, right up to 20km of the coasts of bordering nations including Taiwan, Vietnam, Borneo and Malaysia.

“If they could land transports now, in the future they might want to land more provocative and destabilising types of assets such as fighter jets and bombers,” research fellow Collin Koh at Singapore’s Rajaratnam School of International Studies’ Maritime Security Program, told The Inquirer.

ELECTRONIC MISCHIEF

The Wall Street Journal reports US intelligence officers have identified radar and communications jamming equipment being installed on Beijing’s artificial South China Sea island fortresses.

Such electronic warfare devices are designed to block an opponent’s radar from ‘seeing’ what is going on, and prevent ships and aircraft from communicating with each other and the outside world.

Now, a US Navy pilot appears to have confirmed that these facilities are active.

Serving aboard the USS Roosevelt aircraft carrier which passed through the South China Sea to visit the Philippines last week, he implied the immense warship and its aircraft had been targeted by these disruptive devices.

“The mere fact that some of your equipment is not working is already an indication that someone is trying to jam you.” the pilot told the Philippines’ GMA News Online.

“And so we have an answer to that,” the naval officer cryptically told the journalist invited aboard for a tour of the ship.

DELVE DEEPER: How does China’s military compare with the US?

The USS Roosevelt had passed through the disputed waterway at the same time as a major Chinese naval parade was being staged on behalf of its new President-for-life, Xi Jinping.

The pilot reportedly flew one of the US Navy’s EA-18G Growler aircraft — a modified Super Hornet intended to provide electronic warfare support for accompanying ships and aircraft.

“This is not something that the US will look kindly on or think they can overlook.” military analyst Omar Lamrani at geopolitical think-tank Stratfor told Business Insider .

Lamrani said that even though electronic jamming was nothing like shooting a weapon, such activity was provocative and “could lead to an escalatory pattern that could be negative for both sides.” More here.

China Annexed the DPRK, C’mon Admit it, China is an Adversary

Posted on May 25, 2018May 25, 2018 by Denise Simon

Primer: The Fiscal 2019 NDAA includes impose a ban on technology products from Chinese firms such as ZTE and Huawei. Yet, North Korea has it courtesy of China.

And:

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issued this advisory to further alert financial institutions to North Korean schemes being used to evade U.S. and United Nations (UN) sanctions, launder funds, and finance the North Korean regime’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic

missile programs.

Private companies in China are not private at all. The Chinese state holds at least some stock and often a larger voting block. Private Chinese companies invests all over the world including Venezuela, United States, Britain as well as regions such as Latin America and Africa.

You can bet most of those companies in North Korea are actually owned by the Chinese State.

China does bad things and yet no world leader publicly states that fact nor declares China is an adversary while China has declared the United States as an adversary. President Xi, the now eternal ruler quotes a dynasty cliche ‘Tǒngzhì yīqiè zài yángguāng xià’, translation is rule everything under the sun.

So now we have ZTE: ZTE, once the scourge of U.S. authorities for its violations of Iran sanctions, has become a key source of evidence about North Korea’s use of the American financial system to launder money, said the people, who gave details about the confidential investigations on the condition of anonymity. Federal investigators have been poring through data supplied by ZTE to find links to companies that North Korea has used to tap into the U.S. banking system, the people said.

Using evidence from ZTE, prosecutors on June 14 filed a case seeking $1.9 million held in six U.S. bank accounts in the name of China’s Mingzheng International Trading Limited. Prosecutors allege that Mingzheng is a front company for a covert Chinese branch of North Korea’s state-run Foreign Trade Bank. Between October and November 2015, Mingzheng was a counterparty to 20 illicit wire transfers in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to prosecutors.

On Aug. 22, prosecutors in Washington filed a lawsuit seeking more than $4 million in funds tied to China’s Dandong Chengtai Trading Limited and a network of companies owned by Chi Yupeng, a Chinese national with close ties to North Korea’s military. That same day, the Treasury Department added Dandong Chengtai Trading and several of its business affiliates, as well as Mingzheng, to the sanctions list. More here.

During the negotiations for the talks between Kim Jung Un and President Trump, ZTE was thrown in the mix. Why? China made some demands during recent trade talks. It was just announced that Trump imposed a $1.5 billion fine on ZTE and relayed that to President Xi. More negotiations and the final fine was $1.3 billion and alter the Board members of ZTE, which means that China state cannot have any management or vote. China will skirt that too. How so?

AEI explained it for us and quite well.

One of the substantial challenges in curtailing North Korea’s nuclear program is preventing Chinese companies from doing business with their pals in Pyongyang. Usually, Chinese companies in North Korea operate through networks of shell companies to avoid falling afoul of US and international sanctions. And most of these companies are small in scope and can easily rebrand themselves if caught. Enter Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment (ZTE), not a small, expendable subsidiary, but instead a large PRC state-owned enterprise (SOE) with over 74,000 employees.

ZTE has transferred US technology to North Korea, supplying the Kim regime with US telecommunications tech that strengthens its defense capabilities by allowing it indirect access to US semiconductors (dual use technology for communications). For that and other transgressions — including violating US Iran sanctions — ZTE paid a monster fine and entered into an agreement with the US to cease and desist. It was caught violating that agreement and banned from business with the United States as a result.

But President Trump offered China’s state-owned ZTE a lifeline via a May 13 tweet. Apparently, all that it took was for Chinese President Xi to dangle access for US agriculture exports to China in exchange for allowing ZTE to continue to do business with American firms. For what it’s worth, the president denied intending to lift the sales ban, but then followed up to describe a punishment that includes lifting the sales ban.

What’s Donald Trump’s message to Beijing (and Pyongyang and Tehran)? Companies that matter to China’s top leadership can violate US sanctions with impunity. All it takes is the will to blackmail the US and large Chinese SOEs will have carte blanche to supply the rogue regimes of the world.

Remember, Chinese SOEs that do business with North Korea are not motivated merely by profit. Instead, they are motivated by policy directives that originate in the Chinese Communist Party. Historically, China’s position on North Korea has been fairly opaque, yet its continued trade with the regime indicates Beijing has an interest in its wellbeing, in direct opposition to US interests and overall security in Asia.

At the end of the day, President Trump says he wants to cripple North Korea’s nuclear program. If North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un won’t denuclearize voluntarily, the US will have to rely on “maximum pressure,” including aggressive sanctions. Forgiving ZTE for violating US law is yet another example of the US shooting itself in the foot in dealing with North Korea. And probably not the last.

Meanwhile, as North Korea blew up the tunnels leading to the already destroyed nuclear test site, no one has asked where are those nuclear weapons now? No one has mentioned other possible military dimension sites or missile locations. Just as a reminder:

President Trump Withdraws from North Korea Nuclear Summit

Posted on May 24, 2018May 24, 2018 by Denise Simon

A letter from President Donald Trump to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un canceling their planned meeting. There are several things in play. China, Iran and Russia and North Korea are watching all U.S. positions and it began with the Pompeo demands announced of Iran since exiting the JCPOA, nuclear deal. Iran has not only responded with several nasty grams but Iran is putting threats towards Europe on many of their demands to stay in the deal.

National Security Counsel chair John Bolton is also being blamed by North Korea for the breakdowns due to the reference of the Libya model. That is an excuse as the Libya model for removing the nuclear program was far in advance of the removal of Maummar Gaddafi and his eventual death.

Further, there is the matter of China injecting itself into the preparations and talks between North Korea and the United States. North Korea follows all advise and leads from President Xi. Now, where are those pesky nuclear weapons in North Korea since the nuclear test site collapsed and was further blown up in a gesture move for selected outside media?

There is also the issue of the other locations of interest in North Korea that the United States is well aware of that proves China has aided and assisted in the military sites and nuclear program as had Iran and Russia. China does not want to be confronted with that proof.

Further, there is the matter of the ‘nuclear umbrella’. Japan, South Korea, and the United States Nuclear Umbrella

In this book, Terence Roehrig provides a detailed and comprehensive look at the nuclear umbrella in northeast Asia in the broader context of deterrence theory and U.S. strategy. He examines the role of the nuclear umbrella in Japanese and South Korean defense planning and security calculations, including the likelihood that either will develop its own nuclear weapons. Roehrig argues that the nuclear umbrella is most important as a political signal demonstrating commitment to the defense of allies and as a tool to prevent further nuclear proliferation in the region. While the role of the nuclear umbrella is often discussed in military terms, this book provides an important glimpse into the political dimensions of the nuclear security guarantee. As the security environment in East Asia changes with the growth of North Korea’s capabilities and China’s military modernization, as well as Donald Trump’s early pronouncements that cast doubt on traditional commitments to allies, the credibility and resolve of U.S. alliances will take on renewed importance for the region and the world.

The U.S. nuclear umbrella in the region is not focused on North Korea but also incorporates planning against potential Chinese aggression. Nullifying or weakening the umbrella over the Peninsula, some would argue, might leave South Korea open to potential Chinese coercion and send the wrong signal at a time when China is seem by some as trying to pressure Taiwan and reassert its influence in the region.