A Needed Break

Posted by James on 06:17 in Blog Announcements, Featured | 1 comment

Remember when MBB looked like this?

I’ve been wrangling with a question that has crossed my mind a few times but has been weighing on me rather heavily recently – should I close the blog? It’s a question that has been hitting me harder as comments have slowed to a trickle and there has been a shift away from opinion blogs and it is honestly one of the tougher questions I’ve dealt with recently. This blog has taken on something that I never thought it would and as result it has found its way into a lot of my life. I am very proud of this blog as it shows how I’ve evolved as a writer and as a person over the nearly 3 years that this has been in action but as I have evolved into a better writer it has become harder to write oddly enough. This will be post number 469 and while I would have liked to make it to 500 before writing this I found I have run out of steam.

I’ve decided to take a hiatus from this blog.

I’ve found that posts were getting harder to write and that I was finding less to write about and that is for a variety of reasons. When I first started this blog the wars were still hot and heavy, we had a new president and since I was writing less detailed articles I could always find something to write about. I’ve also burned myself out since I’m always looking for the next blog post, always concerned about comments and making sure this site is reader friendly and so on. It has been a task that I’ve loved but it is quickly losing its luster which is upsetting.

Rather than shutting the blog down permanently I have chosen to take a break. I don’t know how long this break will be nor do I know what news will happen in the meantime and that is the point. I’m hoping that during this break I will regain my desire to write and to maintain this blog. I am also hoping that I find more to write about without having to search high and low for it. It’s not a decision I made lightly and it is one that still bothers me yet I feel it is one I have to make so that I don’t go down a road of crappy content or plagiarism.

While I’m taking a break from the keyboard this blog will remain here in its current form for you to read, comment or miss me (ha ha). I really do love that people read this blog and I hope that when I return those of you who have enjoyed my posts will come back to see what it is I have to offer your brains.

Thank you once again for your support,

James McCabe
Owner of My Bloggity Blog

Chinese National being Surveilled by FBI in Espionage Investigation

Posted by James on 05:59 in China | 0 comments

Why am I not surprised?

Souce: KHON 2 News

A Chinese national living in the United States on a visa is under surveillance by the FBI after her boyfriend, a 59 year old defense contractor and Army Reserve Lt. Col, was arrested this week for disclosing classified information including secrets regarding nuclear weapons. The 27 year old is not under arrest at this time nor will the FBI confirm that she is a spy for the Chinese government but officials did say that they were aware of her location and were continuing to investigate her role in the matter.

Benjamin Bishop is being accused of telling this woman secrets about U.S. nuclear weapons, missile defenses, war plans, early warning radar systems and other issues. He originally told her that he would not disclose classified information however she continued to ask questions relating to his work and he ultimately relented. His security clearance required him to report all contact with foreign nationals however officials were unaware of his relationship with this woman. As a defense contractor at Pacific Command, Bishop had access to a metric ton of information on American military strategy and defenses however some of the woman’s inquiries forced Bishop to request information he otherwise would not have had access to.

What concerns me is that this Chinese woman isn’t under arrest yet their was clearly proof that she was actively seeking classified information and information that the U.S. had on Chinese assets – enough evidence to get her boyfriend arrested. If she is spying for the Chinese then why hasn’t she been brought in for questioning and if they don’t have enough evidence on her then why hasn’t her visa been revoked?

Chinese assets have been quietly disappearing from the United States ever since the U.S. flipped a Chinese asset so it is interesting that in this particular case the FBI was very vocal about having not arrested her. It almost seems like they were giving her a huge smoke signal to leave the country.

Her boyfriend is due to appear in federal court on Friday to determine if he will have to continue to sit behind bars while the Justice Department continues to investigate the case. My Bloggity Blog will update this as more information about this Chinese spy and her sex seduced “boyfriend” continue to roll in.

Goodbye HTC – Hello Samsung!

Posted by James on 10:00 in Featured, Tech | 0 comments

Well I’ve kicked HTC to the curb after owning one of their smart phones for nearly 2 years. Before I got my HTC Thunderbolt I was desperate for it because it was not the iPhone and was being touted as the best Android at the time; it wasn’t. I still love my Thunderbolt but it’s a love that someone has only after mastering its failures and beating the device at its own game. I beat its terrible battery life, I beat Verizon’s lack of updates and I beat Android Froyo but it took a lot of effort and I frankly couldn’t be happier that Samsung is cutting me some slack.

As I stated in a previous article I was a bit concerned that by getting a new phone now I’d end up disappointed in a month when the Samsung Galaxy S4 came out but after looking over the stats of the phones I was considering and the specs of upcoming phones I bit the bullet on the Samsung Galaxy Note II. Verizon wished to bend me over for an extra $100 dollars on the phone but Amazon came to the rescue and I was able to get the titanium gray model for just over $200 which is exactly $100 more than I paid for the Thunderbolt and considering the specs it’s a pretty sweet deal.

Having played with the phone before getting it I knew it was going to be huge but I was still shocked at the size however the lightness of the device was pretty amazing. My Thunderbolt now feels like an actual brick even though it is a measly 4.7 inches. The Note II must be proportioned better as it is actually a heavier device (6.42oz) than the Thunderbolt (6.23oz). Kind of mind boggling really.

The S Pen allows you to screenshot portions of the content you’re viewing and share or save them.

The really fun part is the S Pen which at first seems like a throwback to PDA’s but it is actually an incredibly powerful tool that makes the “phablet” fun. I don’t use it all the time but when I do it always speeds up what I’m doing whether I’m taking a note or scrolling through photos. I had an “ah ha” moment when I was looking for a pen to take a note with and then remembered what my phone was called and promptly pulled out the S Pen.

I had to look up all of the features of the S Pen because there wasn’t a tutorial or anything in the manual so here’s the video I watched.

Moving from a 480 x 800 pixel display to a 720 x 1280 HD display is pretty drastic and while many reviews have pointed out that it isn’t up to the iPhone’s “retina” display I don’t really give a crap. I also haven’t noticed a huge difference and I’ve gotten my grubby little hands on all iterations of the iPhone. I had difficulty seeing and reading certain things on the Thunderbolt but that is no longer a problem on the Note II even when in split window mode. The text is very clear and the brightness levels are set so well that reading in sunlight is possible unlike before.

Now one complaint that I have is that the screen seems to like fingerprints a lot more than normal. Actually the whole phone seems to attract prints more due to the shiny plastic construction that makes it look so cool. It’s not a major issue as I plan to get screen protectors and a case but it may turn some people off. I’ve heard that the white version has less of a problem with smudges although people probably can’t see them as well on the white.

Now for the best part of the entire phone – the battery. The Thunderbolt had a 1400mah battery and I needed 2 of them to feel comfortable lasting the whole day. The Note II is rocking a 3100mah battery that can pump out 35 hours of talk time. Like many who have purchased this phone well after its release I tried to kill it right after charging it and each time I’ve gotten tired and gone to bed. I’ve had the phone last for over 24 hours on a single charge and at the time I plugged it in I still had over 25% battery left. In comparison the Thunderbolt fresh out of the box maxed at 6.5 hours talk time and only lasted a day on a single charge after rooting it and changing the ROM and radio configuration.

Taken indoors at an SXSW event where the lighting was horrible.

I was originally disappointed with the camera but I wasn’t looking at the pictures I was just looking at the display. It takes great photos and it does a better job as a shooter than my old phone. It’s not a breakthrough in mobile phone cameras but it does a good job and it has good effects. The thing that I really miss is that there isn’t a built in stand for photo taking or media viewing like on the Thunderbolt. On solo hikes I could set up my Tbolt on its kickstand and get some great shots of me on the trail but I’ll need a special case for that now.

On the smaller side I really enjoy the notification light. It’s bold and clear and can be seen from far away which is a step up from every mobile device I own. I enjoy that I can change the colors for different notifications as well.

Overall I’m incredibly happy that I chose Samsung and I’m also happy that  I didn’t wait for the Samsung Galaxy S4 or HTC One. Both phones seem to only be enhancing screens and minor software stuff while other phones still haven’t caught up to the Note II in terms of internal hardware which is a satisfying feeling considering the phones age. I haven’t had the phone for a whole month so the awe that I have now may wear off in time but I have my doubts. I haven’t had a phone impress me this much since I dropped the original Razr for an iPhone 3G.

The Future of Sniping can be Found in Texas

Posted by James on 13:00 in Featured, Tech | 0 comments

A teenager sits behind one of TrackingPoint’s rifle systems at SXSW.

While attending an event at SXSW I was able to see quite a few developments in the area of technology. What I expected to see were things like the xi3 modular computer that is roughly the size of a Coke can but what I wasn’t expecting to see was something that I had just read about in Gun World magazine. TrackingPoint had a very busy booth at this event and it was easy to see why – they had guns and what looked like a video game to play. That “video game” was actually a simulation of what their scope and rifle platform is capable of. Anyone in the military has probably spent time using a similar simulation to practice on their rifles without the cost of shooting live ammo and so with the help of a few televisions and some software many people got to experience the future of sniping.

According to the representative that I spent time with they’re marketing this to hunters but the extreme cost of the system (up to $22,500) means they aren’t going to be sold in Walmart anytime soon. My first question to the representative after peering through the scope on the attached rifle stock was “I don’t have to be military to buy this?” He stated that I could buy it right now and have it by October or sooner and at the same time made it sound like they were on the fast track to becoming a Department of Defense contractor – and they need to be.

It’s hard not to be attracted to a booth in Texas that has firearms and this was no exception. Men, boys and some women were passing through constantly to get a look at what TrackPoint had to offer and I was no exception. Having just read about their platform in Gun World I was eager to take a look. What I saw literally blew me away.

The scope does everything for you but enter wind and as a sign of how much it can do for you it can live stream your exact view to an iOS (Android coming soon) device so your spotter can see what you do thanks to a built in WiFi hotspot. Built into the custom rifle that they contract out to Surgeon Rifles is a red button that interacts with the scope to mark a target, once marked you squeeze the trigger all the way to the rear, bring the crosshairs back onto target if it has moved and once lined up the gun fires for you! Yes the gun actually fires for you eliminating the possibility of jerking the trigger or flinching for perceived recoil. The system is so advanced that you can accurately take game in a 45mph crosswind at the maximum distance the rifle allows and they have the proof to verify that they’ve done just that in Africa with a .338 Lapua Magnum rifle that they offer.

They offer three rifles using two different calibers with some different aesthetics.

1. XS1 .338 Lapua Magnum
2. XS2 .300 Win Mag
3. XS3 .300 Win Mag

It’s marketed as the world’s first precision guided firearm and the scope is talked about the way an F-22 pilot talks about his heads up display and that is really the only way to describe it. When I marked my targets and the scope and gun did all the work (on simulated robots of course) I was awestruck in a way that I haven’t been since I fired the M2 .50 caliber machine gun. I knew I was sitting behind the rifle system of the future and all I wanted was $22,000 to buy one on the spot. It may be marketed to big game hunters and I like that they have a civilian first approach but this will revolutionize military and police sniping not just because it is incredibly accurate but because you can stream intelligence right back to HQ. Never before has a sniper been given a more useful tool than the ability to immediately relay back exactly what he sees without leaving the gun.

Author Recommendation: Chris Kyle

Posted by James on 08:30 in Author Recommendations | 0 comments

As many of you know Chris Kyle was murdered on February 2nd along with another man as they were trying to help a veteran through various symptoms of PTSD. It’s incredibly difficult to be critical of a man who has done so much for America but it is especially tough after his death; thankfully Chris Kyle wrote an amazing book.

I think the book takes on an entirely different tone now that Chris Kyle is deceased and to me it completely changed how I was interpreting the book. His death makes his words about life and death hit a little harder than they would have if I had read it prior to his death. There were times I literally had to stop reading because passages written by his wife or about their children and how to raise them just hurt to read knowing that he’d no longer, that they would no longer, be able to do such things. The way the book was written was very much an accounting of his life as if he was telling it to your face and with that you got an inside look at the ups and downs of his marriage, being a parent and military career which made it that much harder to read shortly after his death. I guess it is hard to hear someone detail the almost collapse of their marriage due to not putting his family first most of the time and then departing the SEALs to change that only to be killed on American soil when he was doing just that.

You expect to hear of combat but not of marital problems.

In all of the media interviews a lot of the book was washed over for the kills that Chris Kyle made while behind various sniper rifles. I for one thought that the book would almost focus entirely on his combat career and nothing more but I was way off base. Not only do we get a deep look at what made this Texan the kind of man who was willing to go back into combat time and again but we get to see the stresses of military life both on the battlefield and at home. Hearing of how his wife was on the verge of leaving him due to his lack inability to put family over country is shocking but it is something that is very real in the military and hearing how it affected this incredible warriors personal life makes the book that much more gripping. You don’t just get the “glory” – you get it all.

Marital problems aside you do hear a lot about combat as Chris spent a lot of time in it. What sets this book apart is that the combat isn’t a copy and paste of an after action report nor is it embellished to the point of an Iron Man movie. It’s not what you’d expect but it’s like you’re discussing it with Chris over coffee at least to the extent that he would have discussed it with someone who doesn’t wear a trident. That may disappoint those who were looking for gory details of head shots but this isn’t a Hollywood movie and hearing it from him is how his story should be told – it’s why he wrote the book in the first place. He doesn’t hold back on how easy it was to kill someone and you do get a very interesting look into the mind of someone who didn’t take lives with artillery rounds but more often than not just one rifle round. One of the things that I found very interesting that after every single kill he would have to make a detailed report of the where, how and why he took the shot. This is what makes up his official tally but it was also to cover the governments ass and while he understood that rules of engagement were a good thing he also thought we should be fighting a war and not a PR campaign.

Chris Kyle while deployed in Iraq.

The anti bureaucracy stance is popular with many military members past and present and it is especially clear with Chris Kyle who often had to be put under the microscope for “suspect” kills that later proved to be 100% legal and moral. He doesn’t just bitch about the bureaucracy he goes into great detail so someone like you and I understand how many hoops one must jump through to shoot someone in today’s wars. I think in a way he feels he could have been more useful if he didn’t have to constantly worry about being locked in an Iraqi prison forever or facing prison in the United States after the fact. War is hell but it’s even worse when you have to worry about the men appointed over you prosecuting you the second they smell impropriety.

An interesting question made ever more interesting after his death

Chris Kyle and his wife Taya have both a son and a daughter who are not even teenagers yet but that hasn’t stopped this question from being asked. What if our children want to join the military? Without giving their answers away it is something that I’m sure will eventually cross their children’s mind especially with their son who was following quite closely in his fathers footsteps. A lot of military members with family pose this question to their spouse but with Chris and his wife Taya it’s incredibly interesting especially after you see how it affected both of them individually and as a unit. Not only that but the entire time you’re aware that Kyle was a badass among badasses and it is hard not to look up to that and want to emulate him in some manner. In my personal opinion Chris’ son could do his daddy proud by carrying on his fathers legacy of Craft International rather than trying for the SEALs but if he’s anything like his father he will have an incredible sense of duty that can only be satisfied by service to the nation.

As I said above it is hard to critique a hero and someone that I look to as a role model but American Sniper is an incredible biography that needs no critique – only more praise. That may sound cliche but the book was raw, real and as riveting at times as the best thriller novels. It was something whom only a Navy SEAL with back to back combat deployments and the title “deadliest sniper in American history” could write and it is certainly worth adding to your collection.

I highly recommend American Sniper.

United Kingdom’s Military Cuts put NATO at Risk

Posted by James on 14:32 in Army/DOD, Featured | 0 comments

The last two Secretaries of Defense have warned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is at risk of becoming ineffective and that more budget cuts will further put the alliance in jeopardy of failing. When NATO was formed in 1949 its success relied upon the United States’ military might to counter that of the USSR and without the Americans the alliance would fail yet now decades after the wall has fallen, the alliance has failed to adapt to the threats of today. The United States can no longer be the main provider of force and that has many nations realizing they’ll finally have to put skin in the game but others continue to drastically slash defense spending.

When former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was leaving office early in 2011 he took the opportunity to slam NATO saying that nations were “penny pinching” and relying on the United States to do all of the work for them. He pointed out that out of the 2 million strong military force excluding the United States that NATO has struggled greatly in maintaining a deployment of 25,000 to 45,000 troops. His comments came on the heels of the intervention in Libya in which the United States took a backseat role arguably for the first time and the alliance started to crumble under the pressure and eventually had to ask the United States for more direct help. “The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country, yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the US, once more, to make up the difference, said Gates.”

Gates took it a bit further though and suggested that the United States Congress might not be willing to waste the time or the money on an alliance that does nothing but rely on the United States.

The outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also didn’t mince words when it came to the struggling alliance. In October of 2011 while meeting with NATO counterparts in Brussels Mr. Panetta urged alliance members to avoid past mistakes of “hollowing out” military forces after a military campaign as they had done after both World Wars. “Many might assume that the United States defense budget is so large it can absorb and cover alliance shortcomings – but make no mistake about it, we are facing dramatic cuts with real implications for alliance capability,” he said in the speech to the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels. He’s just as concerned about the alliance today especially as American budget cuts are looming.

The strong words from the nation’s top defense officials apparently fell on deaf ears especially within the United Kingdom.

Against the wishes of the UK’s military chiefs the United Kingdom is pushing forward with yet another round of defense cuts. The Ministry of Defence has put forward plans for another round of cuts to the Army that will see 5,300 troops cut. It is part of the MoD’s plans to shrink the army from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2017. The cuts to the army don’t include thousands of other job losses within the MoD, the air force and the navy. Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said it was “a dreadful day” for many members of the Army and their families.

The U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder said in an interview with the Guardian that the UK and the rest of Europe has to reinvest the savings from the ending of the war in Afghanistan into re-equipping their militaries yet the UK is continuing with budget slashing even as former high ranking UK military officials say their equipment is “ancient” and unserviceable.

This is vitally important to the United States as it looks to let the alliance lead rather than being the sole warrior and the United States would look to the UK as a large contributor to the alliance after all they still have the fourth largest defense budget in the world. The continued slashing of defense budgets by NATO members could lead to the collapse of the alliance. If the alliance were to collapse there would be no requirement for a general standardization of weapons, munitions and communication as there is today which could mean complete mission failure in future cooperation with allies.

As the United States looks to shrink its defense budget by the largest amount in decades it will be unable to support the alliance in all measures therefore it is necessary for nations who have for too long relied upon the United States to start providing for their defense as well as contributing more than they have to the alliance. The saying “complacency kills” comes to mind when looking at how NATO has operated over the last 30 years and if drastic cuts hit the United States as well as continue in Europe we will see just how true that saying is.

Sources:

Guardian BBC Defense NewsReuters

Chinese Army Tied Directly to Most U.S. Hackings

Posted by James on 07:31 in China, Featured | 2 comments

In 2011 the United States made acts of hacking linked directly to a nation an act of war. It was part of a 30 page strategy to deal with cyber threats but the officials stressed that not all hacks would lead to war. For an attempt to constitute an act of war it would have to threaten lives, commerce, infrastructure or worse. Oddly though most of the attacks coming out of China have targeted American companies with an emphasis on the defense industry and it can be argued successfully that that affects commerce yet for the most part the White House has remained quiet on state sponsored hacking.

A highly detailed 60 page report released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American cyber-security group, was able to track China’s most sophisticated hacking group known around the world as “Comment Crew” to an area encircling a PLA unit’s headquarters. The army headquarters is for China’s ever expanding cyber force. The report makes it very clear that most of the attacks on American corporations and government organization’s originate from that headquarters even if Mandiant was unable to directly place the hacks inside the building. “Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”

A classified National Intelligence Estimate released to all American national security organizations recently also indicated that most of the hacking groups within China are state-sponsored and work directly for army officers or commands like P.L.A. Unit 61398 which was implicated in the Mandiant report. Even with a government report out linking the hacks to the Chinese Army the White House refuses to assign blame to China while insisting that it takes cyber-security seriously.

Last week President Obama signed a directive that opens the door for the government to share all its collected data on Chinese hacking signatures with internet providers and according to administration officials they plan to raise the issue of hacking with China’s new leader. The New York Times quoted a frustrated American intelligence official as saying “they’re huge diplomatic sensitivities here”. The largest of those sensitivities is likely to be the amount of money we borrow and need from China.

The United States is also afraid of looking like a hypocrite since it employs world class hackers as well and not just for defensive purposes. The Stuxnet virus unleashed on Iran did severe damage to their nuclear program and later spread to other computers outside of Iran. The U.S. government operates under much stricter rules than China however and intelligence officials point out that we hack governments whereas China hacks everything. For example the PLA unit named in the recent report is responsible for the theft of terabytes of Coca-Colas internal data.

One unnamed defense official said “In the cold war, we were focused every day on the nuclear command centers around Moscow.” “Today, it’s fair to say that we worry as much about the computer servers in Shanghai.”

The United States has a responsibility to protect its citizens and its corporations from all forms of hacking but especially state sponsored attacks that will lead to theft of intellectual property, national secrets and potentially lead to war. If the United States takes cyber-security as seriously as they say they do they will use this report as an excuse to take the gloves off when it comes to China and their military attacks on our nation.

In 2011 the phrase uttered by a military official after hacking was made an act of war was widely publicized likely in an effort to ward of China but now it’s time we follow through. “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.”

Sources:

Mandiant NYT NBC

The U.S. Nuclear Shield isn’t enough for Japan and South Korea

Posted by James on 10:30 in Army/DOD, Featured | 0 comments

An Army Special Forces soldier shows South Korean soldiers the Beretta M9.

Roughly 70,000 troops are split between South Korea and Japan remnants of wars past and along with those troops came part of the American nuclear arsenal. Non-nuclear weapons capable allies of the United States are often brought into the “nuclear shield” which ensures that if that nation is attacked with nuclear weapons the United States will respond in kind in defense of her ally. It’s a strong statement that almost guarantee’s no one will attack those nation’s with said weapons because few possess the arsenal that the United States does and no one wants to see their homeland turned to glass. However even with the world’s largest superpower defending you, you always feel safer having complete control over your nation’s defense.

This matter of pride mixed with fears that they will soon be the only ones in the region without their own nuclear weapons have caused many prominent people in Japan and South Korea to want to develop their own. It’s an arms race that both China and the United States have wanted to prevent for some time but as countries like Iran and North Korea edge closer to gaining offensive nukes it’s harder to argue against. North Korea’s recent test of a smaller nuclear bomb that indicates they’re close to creating an ICBM capable nuke has only increased the debate in both nations.

Several prominent South Korean politicians have suggested allowing the United States to once again store nuclear weapons on its bases and they have also opened the dialogue for developing their own nukes. A major South Korean newspaper also questioned if the United States would come to their defense if the North threatened a nuclear attack and called their latest test an “existential threat to Seoul”.

Japan is also within reach of North Korea’s rockets and they too are concerned about their lack of nuclear armament. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is advocating for a revision to Article 9 of their constitution to allow them to possess the power to make war because currently they’re prohibited from possessing anything but a defensive force. Itsunori Onodera, the countries Defense minister, said that the current response would be to strengthen the U.S.-Japan security agreement since their constitution prohibits offensive nuclear weapons. Article 9 does not prohibit Japan from having nuclear weapons solely for self-defense.

Forcing China’s hand

There are some that believe that this rhetoric is an attempt to get China to reign in North Korea. China certainly wouldn’t want two of its rivals having nuclear weapons so close especially with Japan taking a more conservative and at times outright hawkish stance on national defense. China’s problems will only increase if North Korea continues with another nuclear test this year as they plan to and they will only continue to increase if North Korea succeeds in developing an ICBM. China has a lot to lose if they cannot get the North under control but they’re not alone.

Not so secret secrets

Both Japan and South Korea have secretly kicked around the idea of arming themselves with nuclear weapons and South Korea is rumored to have enough material for a bomb or two already on hand. Japan has the scientific capability to repurpose material from their nuclear power reactors and build a nuclear weapon in less than a year according to anonymous Japanese officials. While they both have the knowledge and capabilities to do so they face stiff resistance from the United States that feels the nuclear shield is enough of a deterrent and that a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty would be unacceptable. Still Japan and South Korea have conducted classified internal reviews to see just how feasible it would be and they also know that the United States didn’t mind when Israel magically obtained nuclear weapons.

The United States is also keenly aware that if these countries gain the ability to defend themselves with nuclear weapons it will likely face tougher questions over the presence of its troops which has been a hot button issue over the years. The United States cannot afford to lose two major military installations especially now that the focus is shifting to Asia.

This is why it is in the interests of China and the United States to get North Korea to the table and to actually listen because if North Korea continues down this path it will be much harder to deny countries in harm’s way the ability to defend themselves in kind. Where is the red line for North Korea’s nuclear program?