By Ankit Panda & Vipin Narang, War on the Rocks: “Earlier this month, an anonymous senior U.S. administration official offered an explanation for why North Korea pursued nuclear weapons. “North Korea’s goal is not to simply acquire these horrific weapons to maintain the status quo in the Peninsula,” the official noted. “[I]t is seeking these weapons in order to fundamentally change that status quo. Its primary goal, as stated … is to reunify [with] South Korea. These weapons are part of the plan to reunify with South Korea.””
By Faisel Pervaiz, Stratfor: “ ... even if Washington takes harsher punitive action toward Islamabad, it won't achieve the results it's hoping for. Militancy isn't the only enemy in Afghanistan; the United States is also fighting against the basic forces of geopolitics.”