The North Korea Thread

Nobody else read this and immediately thought of Trump floating in a shark tank?

“WHAT NOW HANS BWIX!?”

Unlike saluting him while draped in a swastika and masturbating furiously, or as you call it, a Thursday night.

Communication, with the goal of diplomatic agreement, is one thing. Ceremonial meetings of heads of state as equals, that is entirely another thing. No one would deny the utility (in theory at the very least) of communication between the US and North Korea on the many issues on the table. That, um, is what the State Department is for. Middle to senior level people meet their middle to senior level people and discuss, you know, actual stuff, and try to work out some sort of agreements. Then, and only then, when the detail work has been done and the quid pro quos have been doled out, do the heads of state meet to do the ritual signing of the paper or whatever. Sure, there are exceptions–Begin and Sadat, for example–but even that drama was played out against the background of actual diplomacy and negotiation behind the scenes.

Here, all we have is theater, of the most, um, deplorable kind.

I wonder how similar to the Iran deal a deal with North Korea would end up being. I’m sure Malathor and the rest of his type will be equally harsh on any deal we make with North Korea.

Oh wait, no, he’ll call Trump’s deal worthy of a Nobel Prize, while continuing to call the Iran deal “the worst in history” because reasons.

The issue at this point is that the president himself should not be meeting directly with the likes of Kim Hong Un.

I totally agree, but there is no force on Earth that would keep Trump out of that room. His ego is so huge and fragile he could not possibly pass up his moment, no matter how bad an idea it is.

I just wonder what he would possibly say in that meeting. He is not interested in learning anything that would be helpful to him in that situation.

I imagine Trump will push complete denuclearization, in exchange for reducing or eliminating sanctions.

But what Kim and the rest of us know is that Kim already won just by being photographed in the same room as Trump and thus has no incentive to actually change anything.

This is why every diplomat on Earth is probably trying to get in to the Oval Office to explain to Trump why this meeting is a bad idea. But Trump will not listen.

It is of course absurd, since the only point of the meeting is to allow a buffoonish egomaniacal authoritarian with delusions of grandeur to score a propaganda coup while distracting the world from his crumbling regime.

But hey, if Kim wants to risk his good name by appearing with Trump, who’s gonna stop him?

Yeah, from the get go the announcement of a pending announcement about North Korea struck me as someone waving their hands in the air, saying “Hey, look over here!” Now the weekend news cycle will spin more favorably for Trump. My guess is he started asking someone what would draw attention away from the rest of the messes and maybe get a little positivity in the air. Perhaps someone suggested this, and he went for it against all advice to the contrary.

I know how this ends. US troops leave South Korea, in return for North Korea double pinkie swearing that are done developing nuclear weapons, and promises to stop with testing ballistic missiles.

If at the end of a year NK hasn’t done anything. US agrees to left sanctions.

Trump announces this the bestest ever deal in the whole history of the US. Because we don’t have pay money to keep troops in South Korea. The next president faces the Korean re-unification war.

You forgot arms sales to NK.

You nailed it.

For personal safety reasons, or because it implies legitimacy for Kim’s regime?

Presidents have met with worse dictators, such as Stalin or Mao. You might say the cause was better then, but you might also say the cause here (trying to avert a second Korean War – at least I hope that’s the cause) is worthy.

Stalin and Mao were leaders of powerful, potent nations that were major players on the world stage.

Kim is the leader of a podunk country the size of Pennsylvania and with a GPD less than half of that of Vermont. The entire nation’s output is one fifh that of the Birmingham Alabama metro area.

Can you imagine the US president rushing down to meet with the Birmingham city council because they were “ready to talk”?

Is the Birmingham city council in possession of nukes?

I wouldn’t doubt it. Their BBQ is great too.

Eww. Alabama white sauce? That shit SHOULD be nuked from orbit.

Having a strong military (and it’s not just nukes – even conventionally speaking, NK is a threat to Seoul) makes you de facto a power worth sitting down with. Which is why countries want to have nukes.

Agreed. I don’t see how it makes sense to act like nothing has changed in the dynamic. OTOH, Trump is about the last person I think should be doing any sort of negotiating. All these news articles are acting like “wow, can’t believe they are going to sit down with them and legitimize them that way”. Well, nukes have a way of doing that. Are we seriously supposed to act like that doesn’t matter? And again, the whole “not going to treat you like a real country” has accomplished so much in the last few decades.

The problem is, stuff usually doesn’t get done with leaders meeting like this, not unless the groundwork has been done through a lot of behind the scenes diplomacy and back and forth. Then, if the leaders involved are both intelligent and sincere, the personal face to face stuff can seal the deal.

Part of the problem here is that US policy has been, for a long time, not to legitimate North Korea by having presidential-level meetings. While that policy certainly is subject to change, there seems to be no reason to do so before some breakthrough or fundamental change in circumstances, neither of which has occurred. Another problem is that bit about groundwork. Having effectively gutted the State Department, Trump has no groundwork to work with. One reason no president dives into this sort of thing at the nuts and bolts level–the only level were real results occur, even if it ultimately involves some more theatrical posturing by the big shots–is that no matter how good or smart they are, they don’t have the bandwidth for the all of the nitty gritty. It’s why we have an entire department under the Constitution to handle stuff like this. Or did, before Trump started ripping it up. Going in blind so to speak means any agreement is going to be off the cuff and impossible to really implement with any degree of effectiveness.

Well, any agreement worth doing. Even if dictator Kim decides to do something, without negotiating all the details it’s sort of worthless, as he can just do whatever he wants and claim it’s done. i suppose it’s theoretically possible the two could agree to something, publicize it, and then get the diplos working on the details, but that puts the cart before the horse. The usual result is it dies in the back and forth, as the parameters were artificially imposed and don’t emerge from real negotiation.

The real problem here is lack of process, intentionality, and expertise, on top of everything else.