By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 2 December 2025
Soviet Strategy and the Downfall of Salvador Allende
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Tag Archives: North Korea
Book Review: ‘The Knife Went In’
The CIA: In Theory and In Practice
The 1954 Coup in Guatemala: A More Interesting Story Than American “Economic Imperialism”
Remembering Korea: The First “Hot War” of the Cold War
A Note on Iran and the “Axis of Evil”
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on 20 June 2023
President George W. Bush said in his first State of the Union speech after 9/11, on 29 January 2002:
Our nation will continue to be steadfast, and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans and bring terrorists to justice. … Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. …
North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. … This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens …
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.
The Iranian Nuclear Deal and North Korea
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on January 18, 2016
In the last few days, the international sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program were lifted, which will allow Tehran access to $30 billion immediately and more than $100 billion will become available in short order. There are many fears about the uses Iran will put this money to, whether on the nuclear program itself, in aiding Iran’s imperial policy in the region, now proceeding with assistance from Russia, or perhaps exporting terrorism further abroad. An under-examined potential use of this money, highlighted by new sanctions the United States applied to Iran over its ballistic missile program, is to purchase weapons from North Korea. Pyongyang has already conducted what it claims is a hydrogen bomb test this year; fuelled by Iranian money the Hermit Kingdom might yet make more trouble for its neighbours and beyond. Continue reading
Surrendering To North Korea Over ‘The Interview’ Sets (Another) Bad Precedent
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 18, 2014
Last night, Sony Pictures pulled its planned release of The Interview. The film, a satire starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, had been based around a plot to kill the North Korean tyrant. About a month ago, Sony was hacked, and there is every indication that the North Korean regime was behind it. Under threats of further hacks, Sony backed down, apparently prepared to liquidate a forty-million dollar investment. Continue reading
A Tetchy Defence of a Bad Foreign Policy
By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 7, 2014
A little over a week ago, President Obama was asked in the Philippines about his foreign policy. It was a rather complex question that asked for Obama’s “vision,” “doctrine,” and “guiding principle“—and also how he “answer[s] those critics who say they think the doctrine is weakness.” The President gave a 949-word answer. To say that it was defensive, disingenuous, and wrong-headed would be to say the least of it. Continue reading
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