Reports: Trump requests National Security Council meeting
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Japan Times
5 hours ago
- Japan Times
Putin is about to outplay Trump again in Alaska
Ukrainian and European leaders are worried Donald Trump will get played for a second time when and if he meets his Russian counterpart in a meeting tentatively scheduled to take place in Alaska on Friday, and they're right to be nervous. Indeed, if Trump wants to emerge from the talks a master negotiator rather than a pushover, his smartest move would have been to postpone the summit until it's better prepared. Trump isn't wrong to try sitting down with U.S. foes and rivals, even where more conventional leaders would avoid the risk. But hastily arranged encounters rarely result as hoped and everything about the visit by Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow that produced the Alaska invitation last week screams confusion. With so much fog on the American side, it's best to understand what Friday's scheduled meeting is really about from the point of view of Vladimir Putin. To him, this is a windfall he can use both to defuse Trump's threat of sanctions and further his war effort. That's what happened earlier this year, when the former KGB handler made good use of Trump's obvious desperation to secure a peace deal in Ukraine and an economic reset with Moscow. No matter how much Trump was willing to give away, including sanctions relief, Putin saw just one thing: a strategic opportunity. With the U.S. no longer willing to help arm Ukraine's defense, except — as eventually persuaded — when paid, Putin did the only logical thing: He upped the pace of his war effort, both on land and in the air, to take advantage of Kyiv's weakening position. Eventually, even Trump had to acknowledge he was getting strung along. Faced with an Aug. 8 deadline before the U.S. imposed financial consequences on Russia for its intransigence, Putin's task when Witkoff arrived in Moscow was once again to do just enough to stall any U.S. action, while making sure any concrete outcomes would strengthen Russia's position. So far, that's going swimmingly. He got something for nothing. The first priority was to keep Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the room, rather than have the three-way meeting that Trump — to his credit — was suggesting. The Ukrainian leader's presence would require actual negotiation, making Russian disinterest hard to hide. By insisting on a bilateral sit down with Trump, Putin can seek to propose terms this U.S. administration might accept, but he knows Ukraine can't. That would once again make Zelenskyy the person Trump blames for standing in the way of peace, taking the pressure off Putin. The second goal was to find a location for the meeting that would demonstrate, both to Russians and to leaders around the world, that Putin is no longer a pariah avoiding travel for fear of arrest under a war crimes warrant the International Criminal Court issued against him in 2023. Indeed, this would be Putin's first visit to the U.S. (outside trips to the United Nations in New York) since 2007, before his invasion of Georgia the following year. A summit in Alaska — a U.S. state that once belonged to the Russian Empire — would send a strong signal of Putin's rehabilitation, while also pointing to the Kremlin's long historical reach as a great power. Trump's invitation alone is a win for the Kremlin. If the summit also serves to delay U.S. sanctions or produces a "peace' plan that sows dissension between Ukraine and its allies, all the more so. But any genuine path to a lasting end to hostilities will need a lot more pressure, both financial and military, as well as preparation. If an account in Germany's Bild magazine is correct, Putin and his officials ran rings around Witkoff when they met the U.S. real estate-developer-turned-diplomat last week, leaving him confused about what was on offer. Whatever Witkoff may have misunderstood, it was enough for the U.S. president to say land swaps were on the table, when they aren't. What the Kremlin appears ready to consider is that Ukraine should hand over parts of the Donbas that Russia hasn't yet been able to conquer, in exchange for a ceasefire. So, not a land swap, but land handed over in perpetuity in exchange for a truce that's probably temporary. According to Bild, the Russian "offer' may also have required Ukraine to first withdraw its troops from much larger areas of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces that Russia also claims to have annexed but has yet been unable to occupy. The Kremlin may also be willing to offer a truce in its air war to ward off sanctions, but that's less of a concession than it seems. Unlike two years ago, when that was a one-way fight, Ukraine's newly built long-range drones and missiles are doing increasing damage to Russian energy and military assets. On Monday, they hit a factory making guidance systems for Russia's missiles near the city of Nizhny Novgorod, about 440 kilometers (270 miles) east of Moscow. A truce might at this point be welcomed by both sides. Ukrainians know they'll to have to cede control of territory to end Putin's invasion. But they have in mind the kinds of concessions made to the Josef Stalin in Germany at the end of World War II. He secured control over the eastern half of that country for the Soviet Union, but West Germany retained its sovereign claim over the east and — eventually — got it back. Just as important is that after a brief attempt at seizing all of Berlin, the Kremlin left West Germany to prosper in peace. There's no indication Putin wants that kind of deal. It would do nothing to further his actual goals in going to war, which were to secure control over a de-militarized Ukraine as well as U.S. acceptance of a Russian sphere of influence in Europe, uncontested by NATO. Putin never hides this. It's what he means when he says he's happy to talk about a ceasefire, just as soon as the "root causes' of the war are addressed. There will be a time and place for a Trump-Putin summit. But it's unlikely to be this week in Alaska. Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East.
Yomiuri Shimbun
5 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
TICAD Draft Outlines African Development Strategies;Japanese Technologies to Have Key Role in Cooperation
Leaders of Japan and African countries aim to support economic growth in Africa through private-sector initiatives using Japan's cutting-edge technologies, according to a draft document to be adopted at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 9) to be held on Aug. 20-22 in Yokohama. The draft document, the Yokohama Declaration, obtained by The Yomiuri Shimbun, also states the importance of the 'rule of law' for sustainable growth on the continent. TICAD 9 will be cohosted by the Japanese government, the United Nations, the African Union Commission and others, and will be chaired by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. TICAD 8 was held in Tunisia in 2022, and this will be the first time for the conference to be held in Japan since 2019. The draft proposes cooperation measures in three key areas — economy, peace and stability, and society — aimed at strengthening relations between Japan and Africa, where population growth is expected to continue and economic growth is anticipated. In the field of economy, the draft proposes the establishment of 'Africa-Japan Innovation Hubs' to promote digitization and technological cooperation. Japan will support Africa's economic growth by leveraging its strengths in robotics and artificial intelligence. The draft also calls for the establishment of a governance system aimed at realizing 'safe, secure and trustworthy AI.' In regard to procurement of development funds in African countries, the draft emphasizes the need for reforms, such as improving transparency. 'The high cost of capital, largely due to inadequate credit ratings … [is] diverting Africa's resources away from financing development,' the draft says. The background to this is that China has provided huge loans to African countries for the purpose of securing resources, resulting in many of these countries falling into debt and facing the risk of default. The draft also says, 'Increasing trade protectionism is limiting Africa's access to global markets.' This appears to be in response to tariff measures taken by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. The draft says, 'We aim to accelerate efforts to … integrate African countries into global supply chains through a free, open, and fair trade and investment environment.' In the field of peace and stability, the draft emphasizes that 'democracy and the rule of law are foundational pillars.' It also states the view that strategic cooperation between Japan and the African Union, which conducts peacekeeping activities in Somalia, should be strengthened to improve security in Africa. In the field of society, the draft mentions plans to promote the manufacturing of medicines and vaccines in Africa. It also proposes the use of Japanese satellite data for drought and flood countermeasures.
Japan Times
6 hours ago
- Japan Times
The real nuclear moonshot is here on Earth
In America in 2025 it's tough to know which we will see first, the Epstein files or a nuclear power plant on the moon. The Trump administration certainly seems more committed to the latter. Transportation Secretary and acting head of NASA Sean Duffy wants a lunar-ready reactor by 2030. This is certainly one way of pushing more federal funding toward advanced reactor research. It also magnifies, through a fantastical lens, the broader hype around new nuclear power — and the daunting challenge of getting it deployed to meet our more immediate needs for carbon-free power back here at home. Developing extraterrestrial nuclear power is a worthy research project. If we are to someday establish permanent settlements on the moon, they will require a lot of energy for melting ice, growing food, mining crypto and whatnot. Nuclear power offers the benefit of requiring relatively little fuel for high output and, unlike solar power, could keep running through the roughly two-weeklong lunar night. NASA already has an ongoing effort to develop a 40 kilowatt reactor design, the Fission Surface Power project. A typical nuclear plant is one gigawatt, or 25,000 times that, and even so-called small modular reactor, or SMR, designs usually aim for tens of megawatts. Duffy is aiming for a 100 kilowatt unit. The U.S. has certainly designed nuclear reactors for demanding environments before, like beneath the Greenland ice cap or inside submarines sailing the ocean depths. But developing one that can operate safely in the face of the moon's ultraextreme temperatures, low gravity and exposure to solar radiation, to cite a few wrinkles, is far beyond that. It would also have to be carried almost a quarter-of-a-million miles through space and deposited gently on the lunar surface. The transport cost alone would be literally astronomical. NASA has previously targeted a reactor weight of under six metric tons. Even assuming that could be met, before taking into account the cost of designing and building the thing, shipping it skyward could cost $7 billion alone — or, on a per kilowatt basis, roughly 6,000 times the estimated cost of building a regular nuclear plant on Earth. Putting dollars towards this when ordinary household power bills are taking off possibly doesn't present the best optics. Conceivably, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, might eventually cut that shipping cost dramatically. But this rather assumes we are all happy putting fissile material on rockets that have sometimes spontaneously disassembled in spectacular fashion as well as U.S. President Donald Trump allowing such a contract to go to one of Elon Musk's companies in the first place. You don't go to the moon to save money, though. The bigger problem here is the five-year goal. True, the U.S. crushed that 1960s end-of-decade space deadline. But the U.S. nuclear power industry's track record is less inspiring. One of the main pitches for SMRs is that they offer a solution to the time and cost overruns that have plagued conventional plants. As of today, however, only one developer, NuScale Power, has received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its reactor, and there are no commercial reactors under construction. Trump has signed several executive orders to reinvigorate the U.S. nuclear sector by streamlining approvals and directing national laboratories and the military to pitch in, calling for 10 gigawatts of new capacity to get under way by the end of this decade. Strategic considerations mean the ambition is laudable enough and there are signs of growing interest in nuclear power, from Silicon Valley's hyperscalers to New York's governor. But interest does not a nuclear renaissance make — and certainly not one that delivers at scale this side of 2030. The inherent risks and higher costs involved in first-of-a-kind deployments of new nuclear capacity mean potential customers would rather see someone else take the plunge first. Even the hyperscalers, with their deep pockets and power-hungry AI ambitions, remain long on intent and short on binding commitments. There is much government push but less in the way of market pull, as Bloomberg NEF's Chris Gadomski summed up in a recent report. Yet you wouldn't know that from looking at the stocks of SMR startups, which have launched early. Duffy's lunar ambitions will no doubt add to the enthusiasm. But for the SMR darlings, delivering on such high-priced expectations, just for here on plain old planet Earth, is a moonshot already. Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy.
