The old saying goes that it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. So if you are North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, taking extraordinary steps to ensure your personal security is not crazy, it's simply common sense.
When President Donald Trump threatened "fire and fury" in response to potential nuclear aggression from North Korea, the world held its collective breath. But a week later, the brewing calamity had abated, in large part due to the Trump administration's no-nonsense style of crisis management.
President Donald Trump spoke Thursday in Warsaw, Poland, to an enthusiastic crowd in historic Krasinski Square. He discussed the longstanding history of the U.S./Poland relationship, and the heroism of the Polish people during the 1944 Warsaw uprising against Nazism. He also laid the groundwork for what might be an emerging Trump doctrine of U.S. and European national security.
The United States and Russia seem to be on a collision course in Syria, which is just fine for the regime in Damascus.
On Sunday, a U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet shot down a Syrian Su-22 fighter bomber that was conducting operations near positions held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces outside the besieged Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. The shoot-down took place after repeated warnings for the Syrian aircraft to disengage, and the Coalition justified the action as being "in accordance with rules of engagement and in collective self-defense of Coalition partnered forces." The next day, a U.S. Air Force F-15E downed an Iranian-made Shahed 129 armed drone near the site of a U.S.-backed training base at al Tanf for rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The diplomatic row between Qatar and seven mostly Sunni Arab countries is being called a stumbling block for U.S. efforts to promote a united front against Islamic extremism in the region. But it won't be - because it is not in any country's interest for the rift to become permanent.