The North Korea Thread

I expect to hear the deal of reconciliation with the S. Koreans involves reducing American presence on the peninsula. That will play well with Trump’s isolationist base.

I’d not read too much into this, in terms of actual results. They probably have finished the testing they actually need to do, or are moving to a new phase in testing where the current facilities aren’t really useful. The NKs are not going to give up their nuclear weapons, period. End of story.

I think talking to North Korea makes a lot of sense. What concerns me is that we will end up pulling all military out of the peninsula in exchange for a promise to denuke. Trump will see that as a big win, but it’s a huge win for China. Once we leave, nothing to stop China from doing whatever they want (or Kim if China doesn’t care)

They are no longer demanding that. Of course it’s NK, who knows how this will play out, but what they are saying is far from the norm for them.

doesnt matter. Trump could simply decide they don’t need us there. After all, they aren’t paying us to protect them like he thinks they should be. Remember, this is the man who thought we could get all troops out of Syria in…was it 48 hours? Or 24? I forget.

That won’t stop trump or much of the media from (uh) trumpeting this as a trump success story.

Perspectives like this will get lost in the shuffle:

North Korea basically just said, “take the sanctions off, and we will stop launching missiles.”

Until they decide to launch them again.

Yes you are, but you have company. The time sucks for me, because I guy I don’t like but have to work with and I started to get into a fight about Trump. He claimed that Trump would keep NK from getting nukes, I said I hope you right but I’ll believe it when I see it. Damned if I don’t have a dinner with him Monday.

The reality is we can’t judge the effectiveness of this for several years, 2020 by the earliest. But of course Trump will take credit for anything.

I mean… NK already has nukes and they’re not getting rid of them.

Even if Trump’s insane strategy works, that doesn’t make his strategy any less idiotic or dangerous.

Like crossing a motorway on foot. Yes, you might have survived and reached the other side. That didn’t make it a good idea.

NK has a history of doing this with their nuclear program. Remember when they shut it down and let in the inspectors? Wait a few years for the pressure/sanctions to ease, and then they start it all back up.

What’s mind-boggling is this arbitrary and artificial separation of issues from contexts. Trying to view Pyongyang’s nuclear program in isolation makes it easy to construct scenarios involving them giving up their weapons or making this or that trade-off. But if you look at it in the context of their overall national agenda and goals, which you should, there simply isn’t any remotely likely scenario where giving up this hard-won capability makes any sense.

Then again, we’re a nation with zero idea of what our own national goals are, so how can we expect us to understand the concept in other nations?

If you’re a second- or third-world power, it’s hard to not watch the US and Russia roll over other countries with little effort, ie, Afghanistan, Iraq, LIbya, and Ukraine. There’s absolutely no way that the regime in North Korea are thinking they can go without nuclear weapons.

Every single country should be working towards nuclear weapons. If you’re the president/dictator/whatever of a non-power, those nukes are the only thing going to keep you safe. So you better pour every resource you have into building them.

There’s no point in negotiating with the US, when we elect a moron like Trump who wants to rip up the deal with Iran and start over. Or like Ukraine, where we left them out to dry. So build those nukes and build them fast, or your number might be up next.

Good article by Max Boot. Our skepticism is well founded.

The testing the DPRK was doing was very expensive for their impoverished nation. Kim is probably at the point of, “Shoot another missile into the sea (we barely have any left), or keep the expensive booze and caviar coming?”

One look at him and I think you know the answer. Plus he’s much smarter than trump. He knows how the West works as he was schooled in Switzerland.

Most experts tend to think they were done with their testing anyway and they have nukes.

So they’re “giving up” something they were done with anyway. If they need to do it again in the future, they’ll just do it like they did in the first place.

I don’t see this happening w/out some sort of money compensation for NK. They have never stopped in the past w/out it. Without money, I don’t see a deal.

But Trump & company could try & keep a lid on any payment. How successful would they be trying to hide that?

I expect it to be South Korea that makes the payment. In the 1990s they paid hundreds of millions of dollars in secret bribes. They also set up joint ventures with Hyundai that were presumably used to funnel more money to the North. The families running the big conglomerates are always looking to do favors for the government in exchange for leniency on their white collar crimes, so I doubt Moon Jae In would have trouble getting one to help him out.

In fairness, perhaps to the Blue House folks (and most Koreans), a few billion here and there might be preferable to the alternatives. Sure, it’s a form of blackmail, but the South Koreans can always make more money.