Mr. Marshall tells his readers: If you weren’t worried before, now you should be. Although he acknowledges that today’s confrontation with North Korea is “neither new nor entirely of President Trump’s making” — Mr. Marshall believes that “George W. Bush’s administration wrecked a not great but workable formula in 2001-2003” — the current president’s belligerent statements are making a bad situation worse. Read more »

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• David Corn in Mother Jones:

“What makes Trump’s loose talk — and ignorance — about nuclear weapons particularly worrisome is that in the past, he has taken a fatalistic approach toward the notion of nuclear war.”

Written before the inauguration, Mr. Corn’s article argues that Mr. Trump’s attitudes toward nuclear war have been consistently fatalistic for decades. The president’s persistent remarks that nuclear conflict is inevitable, Mr. Corn writes, are the “stuff of nightmares.” Read more »

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• Mark Hertsgaard in The Nation:

“We need to get Donald Trump’s finger off the nuclear button. This is not a partisan plea.”

Late last month, Mr. Hertsgaard wrote this article outlining the process by which a president can deploy nuclear missiles. While presidents have historically had unfettered authority to launch these weapons, he writes, there is precedent for the military to “veto an ill-advised attack order.” “The system” by which the commander in chief can launch nuclear missiles, Mr. Hertsgaard writes, “must change.” Read more »

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And Finally, From the Center:

• Mark Bowden in The Atlantic:

“Ignorant of the long history of the problem, Trump at least brings fresh eyes to it. But he is going to collide with the same harsh truth that has stymied all his recent predecessors: There are no good options for dealing with North Korea.”

How did we get to this point and what do we do from here? In this cover story for The Atlantic’s July/August issue, Mr. Bowden puts the history of North Korea in context and explains four paths forward for the United States: Prevention, Turning the Screws, Decapitation, and Acceptance. None of them seem particularly appealing. Read more »