Wednesday NatSec Roundup

He who plots to hurt others often hurts himself.   

• Kyle Mizokami has a brief, useful rundown of the recent history of the US relationship with the Kurds. The great thing about being America is that it doesn’t matter if we’re “credible;” it just matters that we’re big.
• Kyle also has a pretty good account of what was on display in China’s big, recent military parade.
• You’d think the one upside, from a realist point of view, of selling out the Kurds would be a better relationship with Turkey. But of course you’d be wrong, because Trump and his cronies somehow managed to fuck up stabbing the Kurds in the back.
• Michael Krepon discusses the abject stupidity of the Trump administration’s decision to abandon the Open Skies Treaty. Trump is an awfully stupid man who has surrounded himself by fools and ideologues, with unsurprising consequences.
• Interesting bit on Trump’s courting of the Polish-American vote. My sense is that the association with Russia is going to be a dealbreaker, but it’s a relatively conservative constituency, so who knows?
• Interesting Pakistani perspective on flying and fighting in the F-86F Sabre. Hush Kit manages to consistently get some great pilot interviews on flying interesting aircraft.