Who is Playing Who In Regards to the North Korea Nuclear Issue?

It looks like people are starting to realize that President Trump has been following John Bolton’s advice all along in regards to North Korea:

First, Trump could simply choose to shrug, continue to tweet that the North Korean threat has evaporated, and direct Pompeo to secure concessions in any way possible. This would be a likely path to appeasing Pyongyang, resulting in the United States giving up valuable leverage for virtually cosmetic North Korean concessions like the reversible dismantlement of tunnel entrances at the Punggye-ri nuclear site. North Korea has plenty of old and now out-of-use nuclear and missile sites it could happily detonate before the international press.

Second, Trump could simply allow the North Korea process that began on June 12 to quietly collapse and put the issue of its nuclear program and disarmament on ice—call it a return to “strategic patience.”

The problem here is that the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign is all but dead after the Singapore summit and it’s more likely than not that China, along with Russia, will ease up on the implementation of existing sanctions and perhaps even call for a removal of United Nations sanctions applied in 2017 on North Korean exports.

In this scenario, the U.S. loses interest and North Korea benefits economically while continuing to build out its nuclear program without constraints. This would be the equivalent of a continuation of the muddling-through approach that three consecutive U.S. administrations found themselves resigned to with North Korea, updated for the era of a considerably more capable North Korea.

Third, Trump could find himself left with nothing but the literal nuclear option. Feeling spurned and humiliated by Kim, Trump may find that the only way to move forward is to let John Bolton’s March 2017 prophecy come true.

Weeks before entering the White House as Trump’s advisor on national security affairs, Bolton, as a private citizen, had remarked on Trump’s acceptance of Kim’s invitation that “[The purpose of this process is to] foreshorten the amount of time that we’re going to waste in negotiations that will never produce the result we want, which is Kim giving up his nuclear program.”

Gone would be the days of “all options” being on the table. Trump might conclude then that the only path to denuclearization is an all-out military strike on North Korea—a trigger to a nuclear war that would engulf Northeast Asia in tremendous destruction and likely parts of the U.S. homeland, given North Korea’s intercontinental-range ballistic missile capability.

None of these scenarios are appealing, though the third is quite clearly the worst. Trump’s Monday tweet offers the clearest glimpse of why diplomacy-for-diplomacy’s-sake with North Korea can be dangerous—even if it pulled us back from the brink of “fire and fury.”  [Daily Beast]

You can read more at the link, but I have been saying this for quite sometime that I think the Trump administration is simply giving the Kim regime one last chance to rejoin the world community and denuclearize.  It almost seems like they are checking every box to say they have tried every peaceful means to get them to denuclearize.  If the Kim regime does not take advantage of this chance I think other options will be seriously considered and appeasement which this article suggests will not be one of those options.

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setnaffa
setnaffa
6 years ago

The Daily Bleat is disengenuous at best. As RockTroll has told us, Trump is too much of a Wuss to appoint Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, lower unemployment, decrease taxes,… Wait. I mean preemptively strike North Korea.

If I was Kim Jong Un, I would be playing nice before the American Election, because after that, Trump is gonna let Mad Dog finish the negotiations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snRvmi8kelQ

2ID Doc
2ID Doc
6 years ago

I wonder if Trump will go so far as to sign a peace treaty with the Norks? If he does and strikes, then the UN (with their media allies) will paint him immediately as a war criminal (true or not). If he, as it seems he has let the peace treaty just fall away from discussion, then we are at 1953 with an armistice, which both sides have rigorously ignored since then (weapons in the DMZ, personnel in the DMZ, daily peace discussions, etc.). The last thing I want to see is a resumption of the fighting, South Korea is a world player and a country that has rebounded from 50 years of systematic destruction into a beautiful country, war will once again destroy that. My advice to military personnel in Korea is the same advice I got 30 years ago. “Pray for peace, prepare for war.”

Rockmarne
Rockmarne
6 years ago

Even Bolton is starting to realize that Trump is a wuss who will not order a pre-emptive strike on the DPRK.

setnaffa
setnaffa
6 years ago

GI, given the photos of KJU in that secret room, I wonder if the preemptive strike might first be to replace the leadership with someone more amenable to negotiation and a sinecure in LG, Samsung, or Hyundai…

US Conventional forces (missiles and bombers) could eliminate all command and control facilities, HQs, and political leaders before fire orders could be given (especially with intel on where rocketboy is at any given time). And, as we know, the Kim regime has not encouraged unit commanders outside a limited circle to exercise any creative or independent action.

I don’t want a war because many people would die. The Norks know this too, and misinterpret compassion as weakness. The trick is the brinkmanship they have played since 1953 has always resulted in payola. This always works with politicians, as they are mostly moral cowards.

I think Trump is playing the game well. I would already have told KJU when to be finished playing with his WMDs–and told Seoul we were pulling out our troops unless they pulled their heads out of their arses. But I’m not a master negotiator.

As I stated elsewhere, the worms in Nork guts may be a bigger factor than Fatty’s pride.

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