North Korea Seeks to Be As Denuclearized as Pakistan

For seven years, Kim Jong-un has pursued an in-your-face strategy for building his nuclear arsenal: detonating blasts underground and firing missiles into the sky, all to send the message that his country’s nuclear buildup is irreversible.

Now he appears to be changing his approach, current and former American intelligence officials say, tailoring it to his reading of the man he met for a few hours three months ago in Singapore: President Trump.

North Korea is making nuclear fuel and building weapons as actively as ever, the publicly available evidence suggests. But he now appears to be borrowing a page from Israel, Pakistan and India: He is keeping quiet about it, conducting no public nuclear demonstrations and creating no crises, allowing Mr. Trump to portray a denuclearization effort as on track.  (……..)

Still, nuclear production continues unabated, satellite photographs and other evidence suggest. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has not persuaded the North Koreans to turn over an inventory of their major nuclear facilities and materials, much less declare how many weapons they possess. While Mr. Kim has blown up entrances to a nuclear test site and appeared to start dismantling a test stand for missile engines, he has not allowed in any inspectors to determine whether the actions were simply for show.  (………..)

Mr. Kim’s strategy now appears to be simple: Mimic Pakistan, which conducted a major nuclear test in 1998 and deflected demands for years that it give up its weapons. Pakistan has largely succeeded. It has a substantial arsenal, and when Mr. Pompeo visited Islamabad recently, there was little public discussion of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link, but I have been saying this repeatedly that the Kim regime wants “Pretend Denuclearization” and not real denuclearization.  Pretend denuclearization allows them to keep their nukes like Pakistan in return for a peace treaty ending the Korean War and having sanctions dropped.  It seems foolish that anyone would agree to this, but there are many people in the academic class, political class, and US adversaries who think this is a great idea.

In the coming weeks we will see if the Trump administration agrees to this because clearly North Korea is betting that with the US midterm elections coming up that President Trump will want a supposed foreign policy victory.