China's larger arsenal and confirmed nuclear triad are concerning, but as Chinese arms control expert Wu Riqiang recently argued in International Security, they may also increase the possibility of Beijing engaging in nuclear risk reduction. My blog: blog.ucs.org/robert-rust/...

hi, just piling on to say that the premise of a single icbm causing a "we have to act now or risk annihilation" crisis is, and I know I have complained about this a lot lately, murdering my few remaining brain cells www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wpw...

(From 2012): "U.S. officials feel no embarrassment when they think and speak about the history of the China-Japan relationship in this way. “Never again,” in this context, is a lesson they either never learned or have long forgotten." blog.ucs.org/gregory-kula...

Morning walk

The much-hyped SIM farm the Secret Service seized uses readily available off the shelf tech that, very interestingly, has also become critical to ticket scalping. I, like others, am extremely not buying the idea that this was intended to take down the cell network www.404media.co/the-sim-farm...

Biden admin banned Russian LEU imports in May 2024, but there were waivers for several categories. The fact numbers have actually gone up is still very interesting. Also looks like there's no circumvention via China, which was a potential concern in late 2024.

My colleague @gkucs.bsky.social on what the US needs to do to successfully talk to North Korea: blog.ucs.org/gregory-kula...

David Petraeus greeting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Concordia Summit in NYC. When Petraeus was a 3-star in Iraq in 2004-6, Sharaa was fighting the US as a member of the al-Qaida branch there; when Petraeus was a 4-star, Sharaa was teaching fellow Camp Bucca detainees classical Arabic

There's been a lot of talk accusing Beijing of taking undue credit for leading the resistance to Japan in WWII. My feeling has been that the CCP celebrates its own important role while emphasizing that it was a whole-of-China fight. One example from PD on 8.28: paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/pc/cont...

What I really want to know is what Trump heard, and from whom, that got processed and spit back out as "we need Bagram air base cause it's an hour from where China makes their nukes." www.bbc.com/news/article...

The DOE has ordered a review of a key part of nuclear modernization - plutonium pit production. Here’s my take on why it (and plans for other parts of the US triad) deserve reconsideration and rescoping. At present, ambition and reality don’t align.

Netanyahu takes aim at China, accusing it of running disinformation campaigns intended to isolate Israel internationally. Curious this is happening at the same time as Trump seems to have closed a sale of the US side of TikTok (it's not actually curious.) substack.com/home/post/p-...

A DOJ study showing most domestic terrorism in the US comes from the far right is suddenly missing and replaced with a note saying DOJ is complying with Trump's executive order www.404media.co/doj-deletes-...

"A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy, which landed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk last week, places domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow, according to three people briefed on early versions of the report."

A common theme in (mostly US) writing about the China-Japan relationship is glossing over Chinese anger at Japanese atrocities in China, even waving them off as insincere. It's infuriating and makes little sense when many high-profile Japanese pols and others are basically overt holocaust-deniers.

"Anywhere in the world, it’s good practice to meet people where they are ... I’ve heard many foreigners complain about their lack of meaningful conversations with Chinese people in China. Personally, I think that you receive the answers you deserve." jing2.substack.com/p/copium-war...

one of the most insufferable things the NYT does is run a story and then spend half of the page talking about itself and its reporters

The foreign policy establishment seems to increasingly exist in some theoretical parallel universe, certainly not the one we all live in. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Xinhua on China's new toys today: "Jinglei-1 (air), Junlei-3 SLBM, DF-61 ICBM and new DF-31 ICBM is the first assembled display of our land, sea, and air-based strategic nuclear triad; it is the strategic "trump card" for protecting national sovereignty and dignity." www.news.cn/20250903/c8f...

"He's 48 until he becomes 49, that's how it works"

This Breakneck excerpt is a bit strange to me. China should bump up its welfare spending and treat labor better, but why would China be an immigration country? Is China really that relatively hardcore about gender roles? Seems this comp is to EU states, not geographic/demographic/political peers.

The Manhattan Project was accelerated to ensure its use against Japan. It was, among other things, a message to the Soviets. General Groves had believed since 1942 that “Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis …" thebulletin.org/2025/08/the-...

My smart colleague @rrucs.bsky.social's smart question: Amid US-China rivalry, what do Asian nations really want? He notes US is putting allies in a bind, caught between US security priorities & the region's economic interests, which are increasingly tied to China. blog.ucs.org/robert-rust/...

Huh. Another positive supply shock in global energy helped by a few hundred billion dollars of losses suffered by investors that nevertheless collapsed the cost curve. Except that this time, it’s not American shale, it’s Chinese solar panels.

And as ever, it is even dumber than that. As noted by @williamgallo.bsky.social, it is more likely he saw Gordon Chang on Fox News. This could go unsaid, but for those who are unsure, Gordon Chang doesn't know anything about South Korea.

Everyone post your favorite graphs, I'll start:

"Participants agreed that these strengths (HK's unique financial strengths) are poorly communicated. One participant highlighted how the imposition of the NSL has distracted international observers from Beijing’s commitment to maintaining the common law system." asiasociety.org/sites/defaul...

The way to avoid the Thucydides Trap is to seize the Metternich Moment and find Bismarckian Balance through Tordesillas Tradeoffs, thus avoiding the danger of a Sarajevo Surprise that leads to the Macedonian Mastery of a Standby Successor from outside the Pacific Peloponnesus.

China has announced completion of initial design plans for its million kilowatt commercial fast reactor, CFR1000. Next step in nuclear energy strategy after the two CFR600s in Fujian. news.bjx.com.cn/html/2025072...

It seems that helping Israel starve children is what constitutes an “America First” foreign policy. Congrats to all the U.S. officials involved in arms transfers to Israel. You’re no doubt very proud. www.cbsnews.com/news/gaza-st...

I still wonder whether Trump and the gang's insistence on Mission Accomplished has less to do with genuine belief or pride and more to do with getting Israel off their backs.

Been reading Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler, which is great. He ridicules figures like Goering, Himmler, Borrman throughout for deluding themselves into thinking there would be any "power" left to inherit once Hitler was gone. In other words, no Hitler no party.

Came across this interesting little nugget, from China Daily via China Atomic Energy Agency in 2001. Apparently there were rumors, later denied, that an agreement between Russia and Ukraine on space and aviation was going to include cooperation on ICBMs. www.caea.gov.cn/n6760338/n67...

Consent manufacturers not sending their best bsky.app/profile/edro...

My thoughts on China's approach to Iran-Israel. After the ceasefire, many were quick to say China "won" or "lost." Despite China's political leaning towards Tehran, its foreign policy approach, avoiding security obligations, delegitimizes the idea of a China-led "axis." blog.ucs.org/robert-rust/...

If you read one thing today, let it be Edwin Lyman's piece on Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb.

As per usual, China was years ahead of us on this marketing style

More of the same junk. All these pieces cite the '22 Pentagon report's guesstimate that China "might seek 1500 nukes by 2035" instead of 23/24's "maybe 1000 by 2030." There's also no indication that China wants to use nukes offensively. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Think of treaties as like vaccines -- more effective than quack cures but deeply unpopular among the stupidest people on earth.

There are prominent members of the current admin who have said the exact same thing about Japan.

Trump-Xi call this AM. Readout mainly focused on adhering to Geneva progress. Xi says China "is sincere, but also principled." Taiwan gets its own one-sentence para ("don't let independence minority drag us into dangerous situation of conflict and confrontation.") www.news.cn/politics/lea...

How far are we from Yglesias finally admitting he's a Republican?

Extremely cowardly to come out like this after months of sneering at the podium and still try to hedge your bets.

"Ironically, Washington’s proclivity to intervene in other countries’ affairs and use military power as a first resort has only grown. It seems the true lessons of Vietnam were left on that rooftop from which the last helicopter left Saigon 50 years ago." responsiblestatecraft.org/vietnam-war/...

Read a summary of Rubio's comments to SFRC last week. On humanitarian assistance, he made the point that China won't fill the gap because they generally don't do humanitarian assistance (true) and prefer BRI projects intended to indebt/trap the borrowing country (not true).

FA publishes some version of this article every few months. The main issue with the deterrence crowd's approach is thinking less US commitment to Taiwan increases war risk. What really raises risks is US abandoning diplomatic commitments in favor of force. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...