Trump given options for ousting Nicolas Maduro

Donald Trump is weighing all the options for acting against Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator/leader. Could the US president seriously be contemplating sending in US troops? It will clearly be on the shortlist of options, but more likely to be the last on the list, not the first. The White House national security officials who have drawn up the options know that Trump wants to avoid putting US boots on the ground, anywhere, except of course for American cities where crime is high. So I can't see him launching a war to oust Maduro. But, according to the The New York Times, Trump is trying to make up his mind which option to go for. He might think it's opportune to do something to divert attention away from all the things going wrong in the US, such as the five-week-old total government shutdown, and the federal workers being booted out of work. So, perhaps Trump will go for something spectaular to change the headlines in all the papers, not helped by the election of a young Asian/American Muslim as the next Mayor of New York. Perhaps a special forces helicopter-borne assault on the presidential palace in Caracas to seize Maduro as he sleeps. I can envisage something happening quite soon whatever it is. Trump said Maduros's regime is going to come to an end very soon. He must have something up his sleeve to make such a boast.

Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney, the most powerful US vice president

Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84 was probably the most powerful and most inflential vice president in America's history. Serving for eight years as President George W Bush's deputy, he was on occasions, more presidential than vice presidential. In an informal srrangement with Bush, Cheney took on the role of masterminding America's national security and international security policy. It was never an official, properly formulated agreement. But fronm the moment Bush agreed to let his vice president take on a role never donned by any of his predecessors, Cheney assumed one of the most powerful jobs in Washington. Rather than staying in the background, like previous and subsequent vice presidents, Cheney created his own power base and was the key person driving the US to take on aggressive stances towards the country's potential or suspected enemies. After the 9/11 terrorist atrocities by al-Qaeda, Cheney adopted what he called a One Per Cent doctrine which quickly became known as the Cheney Doctrine, in which the US reserved the right to take preemptive action against any enemies to stop them before they attacked the US, even if the evidece was very very low. It was his most controversial idea which George W Bush eagerly agreed to. Thus followed the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The justification for the former was the Taleban's support for al-Qaeda terrorists operating from Afghanistan, and the latter for what Cheney insisted was evidence that Saddam Hussein had provided help to al-Qaeda for the 9/11 atrocity and that the Baghdad regime had secret stocks of weapons of mass destruction. Neither of the reasonings for the Iraq invasion proved to be accurate. But Cheney never regretted the role he played in bringing down Saddam Hussein. After a TV late show comedian referred to Cheney as Darth Vader, he didn't object. In fact, he loved the sobriquet. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, DESCRIBED IN REVIEWS AS A FANTASTIC READ. CHECK IT OUT ON AMAZON OR IN WATERSTONES.

So no nuclear test explosion after all, Mr President

The US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has made it clear that despite Donald Trump promising to restart nuclear tests, there won't actually be nuclear explosions involved. He said the tests would be sub-critical. What this means is that in laboratory tests, the plutonium atomic fuel would never get to a critical - ie detonation - stage but would get close enpough to evaluate the effectiveness of both the fissile material and the technological means to reach that critical state. But this sort of testing is already carried out at the special US laboratory in the Nevada desert, known as the Principal Underground Laboratory for Subcritical Experimentation (PULSE.)The scientists and engineers there simulate the conditions inside a nuclear weapon and then put it under pressure to a certain level. They use supercomputers and a huge X-ray machine called Scorpius which peer through the plutonium to see what's going on. Some of the plutonium is pretty old, perhaps 80 years old, so the X-rays show whether the fissile material is still functioning properly. Being the president of the United States, Trump will know all this. So it's not clear what he had in mind when he said the US was about to renew nuclear testing unless there is something he has not told us. I'm thinking super-classified intelligence which reveals Russia and China are redeveloping their old nuclear test sites and are planning to do what Trump says the US is going to do in the future. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK AS A CHRISTMAS GIFT. PUBLISHED BY ROWANVALE BOOKS AND AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON, WATERSTONES AND OTHER BOOKSHOPS.

Could US military intervene in Nigeria?

There is so much violence and killing going on in the world that if the US still sees itself as the global policeman, then the Trump administration is going to be excessively busy and involved in the next few years. Donald Trump is now talking about sending special forces into Nigeria "with guns a-blazing" to stop Islamic terrorists from killing Christians. He accuses the Nigerian government of failing to tackle action as Christians are being slaughtered. But what about Sudan? There, the horrific militia organisation called Rapid Support Forces (a misnomer if ever there was one) have been killing and raping on a huge scale while the Sudanese government forces have retreated. It is a terrible civil war and no one is intervening. The militia force is backed by the United Arab Emirates. Can Trump not compel the UAE to stop arming this ghastly genocidal militia? Meanwhile Trump thinks it's time to intervene in Nigeria to stop another appalling eruption of killings. This is the world we live in, violence is everywhere. The US cannot intervene every time. Trump has already sent a huge number of warships to the Caribbean to apply pressure on the corrupt Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Every week there seems to be some new action drama emanating from the White House. But even the mighty US can't do everything. Sending special forces into Nigeria, a huge country, is never going to stop the Islamist terrorists from prosecuting their murderous hatred.

JD Vance or Marco Rubio for 2029?

Donald Trump has cleverly put forward two names as his potential successor in 2029: JD Vance, his vice president, and Marco Rubio, his secretary of state and (still) national security adviser rolled into one. Both men have been making their pitch in recent weeks, not deliberately so, but to prove that they have the right stuff to be the next president. It's probably a little easier for Rubio to prove his credentials because with the two security jobs in bis hands, he is always in the news, whether it be about the war in Ukraine or the neoptiated settlement in Gaza. Rubio has been involved in all the big foreign policy crises from day one. Vance, as vice president, doesn't have a specific job to do other than to support Trump. This is always the problem for vice presidents. However, he recently went to Israel and was able to put in his pennorth about what should be happening to ensure the ceasefire lasts. He will no doubt be hoping to get more foreign trips to outshine Rubio. Of course, what Vance has going for him is that as vice president he is regarded as the natural sucessor to the president and will be several steps ahead of Rubio as a consequence. But they could be the two-ticket item in the next election, with Rubio as his running mate. But much will depend on whether the Trump Big Guy momentum is kept up over the next three years. If so, Vance and Rubio will probably clean up, leaving their Democratic rivals in the dust. HAVE YOU YET BOUGHT AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, PUBLISHED BY ROWANVALE BOOKS? ALL REVIEWS SAY IT'S A BRILLIANT AND THRILLING READ.

Hamas are looking comfortably in charge of their half of Gaza

Gaza is currently split into two near-equal halves, with the south controlled and occupied by Israeli troops and the rest, about 48 per cent, looking every day like a state run by Hamas gunmen. They are everywhere in the streets, ruthlessly enforcing their brand of security and clearly happy to wave their guns at the locals to keep them under their control. Or, to put it anpother way, to keep them in constant fear. Gaza is a grim place and will remain so for years. King Abdullah of Jordan has told the BBC that there will be no international peacekeeping force willing to deploy to Gaza until there is a proper peace, or at least no violence. Judging by the frequent breaches of the ceasefire, this is going to take a long time. But the truth is, until an international largely Muslim force arrives in the territory, the threat of new outbreaks of violence is not going to go away. Without Hamas in control in central and northern parts of Gaza there would be anarchy, but with Hamas in charge it shows that the threat this terror organisation poses is still very real. They have weapons to attack the Israelis, and hundreds of new recruits released from Israeli jails in exchange for dead Israeli hostages. So, despite King Abdullah's doubts, Hamas's presence in Gaza should be replaced by an international force as soon as possible, and the thousands of Hamas fighters milling around on the streets need to be disarmed and sent into exile.

Trump wants to revive nuclear tests

President Trump has ordered the Pentagon (Department of War) to restart nuclear testing, reviving a Cold War military programme which was suspended soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, what did the president have in mind when he made his announcement in a Truth Social posting? He implied that rival nuclear powers were carrying out tests and that it was crucial for the US to start “testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis”. What does this mean? Neither Russia nor China, America’s “big power rivals”, have been engaged in nuclear testing since a moratorium was agreed. The last US test was in 1992, Russia stopped testing in 1990 and China in 1996, the same year the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed. The only countries which have carried out nuclear tests since then have been North Korea- the last one was in 2017 - as well as India and Pakistan, both of whom completed underground testing in May 1998. Britain’s last test, codenamed Operation Bristol, was in November, 1991, and France has not carried out a nuclear test since January, 1996. The only other nuclear power, Israel, has never acknowledged it has such weapons and the only indication of a suspected nuclear test was in 1979. Trump specifically mentioned that Russia had just tested a nuclear torpedo codenamed Poseidon. Was it this which persuaded him to make his order to the Pentagon? He also said that “with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also”. Russia did carry out a recent test but the torpedo was the first of its kind to be powered by a miniature nuclear reactor to give it unlimited range under the ocean. The Poseidon is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but the test did not involve any type of detonation. The US has never given up testing its own nuclear missile forces, silo-based, submarine-launched and air-launched. But each test has always been fitted with dummy warheads. The only nuclear testing has been based on laboratory calculations. It’s imperative to ensure the safety of these weapons, in particular the plutonium fuel used as the fissile material. So the US relies on supercomputers to conduct digital simulations of a nuclear explosion. The laboratory tests are carried out by the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration, not by the Pentagon. The other nuclear weapons countries carry out similar laboratory testing. The US originally carried out nuclear tests in the atmosphere, mostly on remote atolls in the Pacific Marshall Islands but also in Nevada, about 65 miles north of Las Vegas. The last such test was in 1962 after which the U.S switched to underground testing. With the build-up of nuclear weapons, particularly by China and North Korea, Trump appears to believe that the moratorium on testing can no longer be justified. He said the US had more nuclear weapons than any other power, but China would catch up in five years. The reality is that Russia is believed to have the most nuclear warheads, about 5,580, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, of which an estimated 1,718 are operationally deployed. The US has 5,225, with about 1,770 deployed. The remainder are held in storage. China will not be anywhere near the total US and Russian stockpiles within the next five years. But, according to Pentagon estimates, China has doubled its warhead inventory from 300 in 2020 to 600 today and will have more than 1,000 by 2030, all of which will be operational. What impact would a resumption of US testing have on the rest of the world’s nuclear club? Inevitably, the risk is that Russia and China would follow suit, undermining any hopes of a future strategic arms reduction treaty, involving both Moscow and Beijing. North Korea might also be tempted to carry out an atmospheric test which it threatened to do over the Pacific in 2017. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, SEQUEL TO SHADOW LIVES, AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON, WATERSTSONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS AND OTHER DECENT BOOKSHOPS.