Admiral Harris Belives that North Korea Will Not Give Up Their Nuclear Weapons

Former INDOPACOM Commander and Ambassador to South Korea, Admiral Harry Harris had some interesting things to say about North Korea recently:

Military readiness of the South Korea-U.S. alliance weakened “counterintuitively” during former President Donald Trump’s personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a former top U.S. envoy to Seoul said Tuesday.

Retired Adm. Harry Harris, who served as the U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 2018-2021, made the remarks, citing the suspension of major South Korea-U.S. military drills, which was aimed at facilitating diplomacy with Pyongyang during Trump’s time in office.

Harris’ remarks came amid speculation that the Republican presidential candidate might revive his leader-to-leader engagement with Kim should he return to the White House. In his recent stump speech, Trump said “getting along” with Kim is a “good thing.” (…….)

“Counterintuitively again during this time, I think our military readiness actually decreased because of the prohibition against military exercises — significant military exercises, large-scale military exercises on the peninsula,” he added.

Shortly after the first-ever summit between the U.S. and North Korea in Singapore in 2018, Trump unveiled a plan to stop “provocative” and “expensive” war games with the South, which Pyongyang has decried as an invasion rehearsal. Later, the allies suspended major combined exercises to back diplomacy to encourage North Korea’s denuclearization.

Yonhap

It only makes sense that readiness would decrease if joint exercises are canceled or downgraded. However, here is the most interesting Admiral Harris had to say:

The former ambassador also said that the North Korean leader is unlikely to renounce his regime’s nuclear weapons, while claiming that Kim has been sticking to four goals — getting sanctions relief, keeping his nuclear arsenal, splitting the Seoul-Washington alliance and “dominating” the Korean Peninsula.

“I think it’s naive to think he’s ever going to give up his nuclear weapons,” he said. “I think we have to adjust our thinking to this new reality.”

You can read more at the link, but I have been saying this for years that the Kim regime has reached a point where they will not give up their nuclear weapons. However, our government continues to stick to the fantasy that their nuclear weapons can be negotiated away.