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.
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
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.”
@2ID Doc, that is why one of the follow on reasons for the North’s nuclear program as well as maintaining their conventional threat, I think is to extort the South to agree to a confederation on the Kim regime’s terms. The confederation will allow the Kim regime to remain in power while forcing the ROK to likely become Finland-ized and pay extortion money to the North.
At some point in the future if the Kim regime is confident the ROK will not receive outside military assistance they can create some kind of political crisis in the South and roll the tanks across the border for “peacekeeping purposes” to finalize their conquest. This could happen 30 years in the future, but the Kim regime is thinking the long game and have not given up on conquering the South despite what people may think now.
@setnaffa, the gamble that Trump will have to make if he lets Mattis finish the negotiations is what will be North Korea’s retaliation to a strike against their nuclear program. The conventional wisdom just like this Daily Beast article states is that a horrible war will happen and millions will die when Seoul is destroyed.
I have stated this before but think that is not necessarily true. If the Yongbyon nuclear facility, supporting industry, and the Seohae missile test site are bombed would Kim Jong-un really destroy Seoul and kill millions in response? I doubt it because it would mean regime change and his likely death.
I think he will retaliate in a measured way that will not invite a regime change war against him. For example he could launch missile strikes against US bases in South Korea and the region. He could launch terrorist attacks against US bases and personnel in the region as well.
With Moon in power it seems he would not want to have the ROK government and its citizens to turn against him if he attacked them. A US only pre-emptive strike I think would not be received well in the ROK and retaliatory attacks against US targets even if it killed a few Koreans near the US bases would be blamed on the US not the Kim regime. I would not be surprised though if missile attacks are only against regional US bases in Japan and Guam while using terrorist attacks against US forces in South Korea to minimize ROK casualties.
This is where the danger lies is in escalation, after North Korea’s retaliation does the US launch more attacks against North Korea which invites more retaliation?
Even Bolton is starting to realize that Trump is a wuss who will not order a pre-emptive strike on the DPRK.
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.