TOP NEWS North Korea has no economic future if it has nuclear weapons, says Trump Reuters Stop Shredding Our Nuclear Safety Net New York Times – Michael Krepon Crisis May Be Easing, But Nuclear Threat Still Hangs Over India And Pakistan CNN East Asia North Korea has no economic future if it has nuclear weapons, says Trump Reuters3/2/2019 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that North Korea does not have any economic future with nuclear weapons as the Pentagon confirmed the United States and South Korea had agreed to end joint large scale spring military exercises. U.S. To End Large-Scale Military Drills With South Korea NBC News3/1/2019 The major U.S.-South Korea exercises are being curtailed as part of the Trump administration’s effort to ease tensions with North Korea, the officials said. The exercises — known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle — will be replaced with smaller, mission-specific training, according to the officials. South Asia Crisis May Be Easing, But Nuclear Threat Still Hangs Over India And Pakistan CNN3/4/2019 Tensions on the border between India and Pakistan last week pushed the two nuclear-powered South Asian adversaries closer to conflict than at any point in the past two decades. While the situation has calmed — Pakistan on Friday released an Indian air force pilot it captured after shooting his pane down — drastic swings in relations are the norm. Both countries know the risks when tensions spike Russia/Europe/FSU At Germany’s Last Nuclear Base, Fears of A New Arms Race As U.S.-Russia Treaty Collapses Washington Post3/4/2019 With the Trump administration’s decision last month to ditch the treaty that ended an era-defining standoff — and with Russia following suit — the prospect of a nuclear arms race is back. And so is the debate over whether Europe should host more American weapons of mass destruction. France is Prepared to Extend its Nuclear Deterrent to Germany Washington Post2/28/2019 The French action comes as perhaps the strongest signal yet that European governments are reevaluating basic defense doctrines that have underpinned the Western alliance for the past 70 years. The implicit French promise is contained in a 16-page treaty signed in the town of Aachen, Germany, last month by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. Middle East Iran’s Top Leader Warns Against Trusting Europe On Nuke Deal San Francisco Chronicle3/4/2019 Iran’s supreme leader has cautioned the country’s government not to pin its hopes on Europe as Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers founders under U.S. pressure. Opinion and Analysis The Hanoi Summit: Comparing Trump to Reagan at Reykjavik is Wrong The Hill – Lori Esposito Murray3/3/2019 President Trump’s walk away from his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is being compared to President Reagan’s walk away from the 1986 Reykjavik summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev — a U.S. leader with the strength to say no deal and suffer the short-term political fallout of a failed summit, with the eventual outcome being historic progress in nuclear arms reductions Stop Shredding Our Nuclear Safety Net New York Times – Michael Krepon3/3/2019 The globe’s nuclear safety net is fraying badly. Dangers of nuclear confrontations are growing not only in Europe, with decisions by the presidents of both nuclear superpowers, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, to withdraw from a treaty banning intermediate-range missiles; they are suddenly rising, too, in Asia, where India and Pakistan — both nuclear powers — have carried out conventional airstrikes across the Kashmir divide. Opinion: Trump Just Walked Away From The Best North Korea Deal He’ll Ever Get NPR – Jeffrey Lewis3/1/2019 A bipartisan consensus seems to be forming that President Trump was right to walk away from the deal offered by Kim Jong Un at the two leaders’ summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. The Hanoi Talks Failed. But That Could Be a Blessing in Disguise Foreign Policy – Colum Lynch with Gary Samore3/1/2019 This week, U.S. President Donald Trump failed to clinch a landmark nuclear deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi. But Gary Samore, who served as former President Barack Obama’s arms control czar, tells Foreign Policy that the breakdown in talks could ultimately be a good thing for the United States. Special Interest Nuclear Explosions: Preserving Images of Terrifying, Swift Power CBS News – Sunday Morning3/3/2019 The force of nuclear weapons has to be seen to be believed. Now, thanks to a project headed by Gregg Spriggs at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the public can see the destructive power of atomic blasts as never before.