This week Tamara Cofman Wittes joins the Bombshell ladies to discuss the fallout of the Khashoggi assassination and the future of US-Saudi relations. We get further bogged down in Afghanistan and try to understand the migrant caravan moving north from Central America. Then Radha tries to cheer us up by explaining the intricacies of the Universal Postal Union. For icing on the cake, we dive deep into the INF treaty and wonder if the Defense Department really being asked to cut its budget.

Saudi

• Emma Ashford, "The U.S.-Saudi alliance was in trouble long before Jamal Khashoggi's death," War on the Rocks

Keeping up Foreign Relations

Caravan

• Delphine Schrank, "Thousands of caravan migrants take shelter in southern Mexico," Reuters

Afghanistan

• Dan Lamothe, "U.S. general wounded in attack in Afghanistan," Washington Post
• Thomas Ruttig, "The Killing of Razeq: Removing the Taleban's strongest foe in Kandahar, an indirect hit at elections," Afghanistan Analysts Network
• Ashley Jackson, "The Taliban Just Won a Key Battle for Afghanistan's Future," Foreign Policy
• Matthieu Aikins, "The Master of Spin Boldak," Harper's
• Maija Liuhto, "Regional leaders are defying Afghanistan's president. The latest is a police chief who was once a close U.S. ally," LA Times

It's Aghast 

• Jen Kirby, "Here's why Trump threatened to pull out of a 144-year-old postal treaty," Vox
• Daniel W. Drezner, "The Trump administration's brinkmanship with *checks notes* the Universal Postal Union," Washington Post

White House Mayhem

INF Treaty

• Amy F. Woolf, "Russian Compliance with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: Background and Issues for Congress," Congressional Research Service
• Jacob Heim, "Missiles for Asia? The Need for Operational Analysis of U.S. Theater Ballistic Missiles in the Pacific," RAND
• Julian Borger and Martin Pengelly, "Trump says US will withdraw from nuclear arms treaty with Russia," Guardian
• Steven Pifer, "The Trump administration is preparing a major mistake on the INF Treaty," Brookings

Budget

• Aaron Mehta, "Trump appears to call for defense spending cuts," Defense News

Pop-Culture

• Caroline Hallemann, "Everything We Know About the New Masterpiece PBS Adaptation of Les Miserables," Town & Country
• "Death Comes to Pemberley," PBS

This week, Loren, Radha, and Erin are reunited to discuss such cheery topics as political assassinations and sexual violence (albeit in the form of Nobel Prizes awarded to combat it). Radha dives deep on NAFTA 2.0, and we work our way through the crazy Chinese hacked hardware story. Rounding out White House Mayhem, John Bolton is back and joins the president and vice president in making blustery foreign policy speeches. And Erin demands answers on Banksy's newest prank.

New WOTR podcast: Melanie Marlowe, Bryan McGrath, and Christopher Preble, "Net Assessment," War on the Rocks

KUFR

Nobel prize

• Emily Sullivan, "Nobel Peace Prize Goes To Denis Mukwege And Nadia Murad For Fighting Sexual Violence," NPR
• Saudi-Turkey
• "Jamal Khashoggi: Turkey says journalist was murdered in Saudi consulate," BBC
• Karim Fahim, "Turkey concludes Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed by 'murder' team, sources say," Washington Post

Trade

• Heather Long, "U.S., Canada and Mexico just reached a sweeping new NAFTA deal. Here's what's in it." Washington Post
• Jacob M. Schlesinger and Josh Zumbrun, "Trump Aims to Model New Trade Deals on Revised Nafta," Wall Street Journal
• Phil Levy, "Trump Faces A Car Conundrum On NAFTA Deal," Forbes
• Jeff Daniels, "New NAFTA falls short of 'more ambitious goals' for agribusiness, says CoBank report," CNBC 
• Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, "The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies," Bloomberg
• James Cook, "Apple and Amazon deny report that Chinese 'spy' chips were used to infiltrate their networks," Telegraph
• Ian Bogost, "The Chinese Motherboard Hack Is a Crisis, Even If It Didn't Really Happen," Atlantic

WH Mayhem

• Jane Perlez, "Pence's China Speech Seen as Portent of 'New Cold War,'" New York Times
• Van Jackson, "Competition with China Isn't a Strategy," War on the Rocks 
• David M. Herszenhorn, "Rebuking Trump, major powers reaffirm Iran nuclear deal," Politico
• Lara Seligman, "Bolton Puts Mattis in a Tight Spot on Syria," Foreign Policy
• Jarrett Blanc, "Here's Why World Leaders Are Laughing at Trump," Politico

Pop-Culture

• Allison Quinn, "Banksy Painting Self-Destructs Seconds After Being Sold for $1.4 Million at Auction," Daily Beast