Morning Joe: May 27, 2009

The North Korean Challenge

Stories Joe is following from Moscow:

North Korea Threatens Attack on South - Washington Post[link]

• North Korea vowed Wednesday to attack South Korea if its ships are searched as part a U.S.-led effort to interdict vessels carrying missiles or weapons of mass destruction. It also declared that the truce that ended the Korean War was no longer valid.

First, Take a Deep Breath - Fred Kaplan in Slate [link]

• Obama shouldn't respond too quickly, or too aggressively, to the North Korean nuclear test.
• Above all, Obama should put the whole subject of North Korea on the back burner, at least in terms of public statements. Don't react to Pyongyang's screams and threats, which will be as hollow as they are torrential. Don't play North Korea's game.

How to Reduce the Nuclear Threat - William Perry, Brent Scowcroft, and Charles Ferguson [link]

• Indeed, it is difficult to envision the necessary geopolitical conditions that would permit even approaching that goal. Unless the U.S. and its partners re-energize international efforts to lessen the present dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, they will never have the hope of reaching this long-term objective.

Obama in Netanyahu’s Web - Roger Cohen in the New York Times [link]

• Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, won the first round over President Barack Obama. That’s not good for American interests or for Israel’s long-term security.

The Foreign Policy Factor in Iran's Presidential Race - Farideh Farhi interview from CFR.org [link]

• "What we have in this election are very clear policy differences in terms of how Iran's foreign policy will be conducted, and of course it will have an impact in terms of the people who will be running foreign policy. Again, that is significant if Iran has direct negotiation with the United States."

Reintroducing Arms Control to Higher Education - Douglas Shaw in the Bulletin of the Atmoic Scientists [link]

• When it comes to nuclear disarmament, Nuclear Threat Initiative Chairman Sam Nunn has admitted that "we can't see the top of the mountain." In part, this is because the U.S. higher education community lags behind in educating the next generation of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament experts and scholars. The drift of resources, course offerings, and scholarly attention away from nuclear weapons has obscured the growth of at least four sets of implicit tensions within the nuclear epistemic community, and it is now up to higher education institutions to surface and manage these tensions.