Learning to Live with a Nuclear North Korea | CRINK’s Support of Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities | Modi’s Electoral Setback Leaves India’s Muslims Feeling More Secure, and more

Learning to Live with a Nuclear North Korea  (Doug Bandow, Foreign Policy)
Only one nation—South Africa—has ever abandoned functioning nuclear weapons, of which the country had only six. (Ukraine gave up Soviet nuclear weapons that were stationed on its territory, but those weapons were never under its control.) Virtually no one studying Korea believes (or at least publicly expresses the belief) that the North will voluntarily disarm—certainly not while the Kim regime remains in power.
Yet policymakers who expect talks to fail nevertheless commonly advocate maintaining and increasing pressure on North Korea. Some analysts, such as the Rand Corporation’s Soo Kim and the Brookings Institution’s Evans Revere, explicitly reject any switch to arms control, which would accept North Korea as a nuclear power and negotiate to limit its weapons and activities.
Rather, they insist on reiterating the demand that Pyongyang denuclearize. Washington also lectures Chinese President Xi Jinping that it is in his nation’s interest to destabilize North Korea, China’s one formal military ally. No one should expect anything good to come from such an approach.
A diplomatic shift is necessary, but it will not be easy.

How Africa’s War on Disinformation Can Save Democracies Everywhere  (Abdullahi Alim, Foreign Policy)
Over the last few years, social media companies have culled their trust and safety units, reversing the gains made in the wake of the Myanmar genocide and the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. elections. Nowhere else are these reductions more consequential than in Africa. Low levels of digital literacy, fragile politics, and limited online safety systems render the continent ripe for hate speech and violence.
Last year, a Kenyan court held Facebook parent company Meta liable for the unlawful dismissal of 184 content moderators, after the company invested in only one content moderator for every 64,000 users in neighboring Ethiopia.
This was while Ethiopia spiraled into one of the world’s deadliest wars this century. During this time, Facebook was awash with content inciting ethnic violence and genocide. Its algorithms couldn’t detect hate speech in local languages while its engagement-based ranking systems continued to provide a platform for violent content. The scale of disinformation meant that the website’s remaining content moderators were no match for the moment.
The advent of adversarial artificial intelligence—which involves algorithms that seek to dodge content moderation tools—could light the match of the continent’s next war, and most social media companies are woefully underprepared.
And even if safety systems were to be put in place, hateful posts will spread at a far greater pace and scale, which would undermine the algorithms used to detect incendiary content. Sophisticated new AI systems could also analyze the most effective forms of disinformation messaging, produce them at scale, and effectively tailor them according to the targeted audience.

CRINK’s Support of Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities  (Farhad Rezaei, National Interest)
Iran is steadily edging towards the dangerous point of becoming a nuclear state. According to the latest assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Iran now possesses enough weapons-grade uranium to produce several nuclear weapons within a month. Iran’s membership in the unofficial Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean (CRINK) geopolitical grouping is a particularly concerning development. CRINK countries are motivated by their intense animosity toward the United States and its Western allies. Therefore, they might, under certain circumstances, help Iran with its nuclear project.
The regime has made significant progress in two essential components of building a nuclear weapon: enriching uranium to a weapons-grade level and developing the delivery vehicle (missile). According to the latest assessment by the IAEA, as of February 10, 2024, the regime’s stock of highly enriched uranium (HEU) stands at 712.2 kg of 20 percent HEU and 121.5 kg of 60 percent HEU. This amount can make enough weapon-grade uranium (WGU) for seven nuclear weapons in one month, nine in two months, eleven in three months, twelve in four months, and thirteen in five months. Additionally, Iran made substantial advances in its nuclear-weapons-capable ballistic missile program. Currently, Iran has the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East, and many of its missiles are medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) capable of delivering nuclear warheads.