Assorted musings, none of which have been fully thought out…
It’s a catch-22. The primary reason for NK’s nuclear program is preservation of the Kim dynasty. However, the only way I see to denuclearize the peninsula is to remove Kim, but that would just serve to affirm the original premise of the nuclear program.
Sanctions (the stick) only play into Kim’s hands. He can say to his people, “See what the American devils are doing to us!? The only thing forestalling an all-out invasion is our nuclear program”. A scary external threat is the best way to galvanize your base.
High-level meetings (the carrot) are just as ineffective. The fundamentals have not materially changed since the Trump/Kim’s meetings. I think NK should have given up some concessions to meet with the President. Meeting directly with the “leader of the free world” legitimized the regime and put the two leaders on a level playing field.
I don’t think there can be much progress without China’s cooperation. They don’t want the existing American presence in the Pacific to grow, and they don’t want a NK refugee crisis on their border. I’m sure better minds than my own can figure out how to leverage this to get China’s cooperation.
Pure conjecture here, but everything I’ve seen leads me to believe there was a handshake agreement between Trump and Kim whereby Kim could continue his nuclear program as long as he kept it under the radar and didn’t wave it in America’s face. Win for Kim. Win for Trump because he can (and did) claim a foreign policy victory. Loss for literally everyone else.
Let me add this (and hopefully @loppar can jump in)…what we see publicly is the “easy” part of diplomacy. (The dinners; shaking hands; walking along the DMZ singing “Kumbaya”, etc.)…
The real “nuts-and-bolts” of agreements is the tough negotiations that occur behind closed doors by…(wait for it)…career diplomats…
There was nothing of substance ever really negotiated with Kim…and Trump displays about as much respect for the State Department and the diplomatic core as he does Nancy Pelosi.
Career diplomats= Deep state, Bloated bureaucracy, swamp. Drain it all!!
Kinda like how it’s a good idea to fully gut all management at your company when it’s underperforming and put your best and brightest entry level employees in charge!
They’re also mostly ineffective. There’s almost no economy more separated from the global economy than NK. If it was going to work, it would have done so before now.
Agreed. But China won’t play ball, IMO. They always like the NK government to act as their client mad man.
Maybe. I’ve always thought this one was only ever gonna be a face value win, much like the Cuban crisis.
Also, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the primary problem that Seoul has so many conventional munitions aimed at it that it would be levelled in minutes of any war starting?
Meh. The usa can hit anywhere in 2 hours or less as well. Mostly because of airbases and carriers located all over the world.
But don’t forget Ohio class submarines, now outfitted with conventional and nuclear warheads, on cruise and ballistic missiles. Russia and America are the only countries with final strike capabilities, and there isn’t anything changing that as far as I know?
Assasinate Kim and and his Entourage while he is out of the country. Privately back a Chinese invasion of North Korea during the immediate aftermath and power struggle. China gets a big cultural win without much strategic importance, and the world gets rid of a thorn in it’s sock. Win-win?
I remember when the USSR was supposed to be this scary empire and Drago was its face. Then you find out about people having to wait in line for toilet paper, all the alcoholism and AIDS. Oh yeah, and Putin’s only five feet tall.
This is correct. Thousands of artillery pieces. Plus decades of tunnels and other preparations, including having most of their military assets very close to the DMZ, ready to deploy.
I dunno man, I think China likes having the rabid dog in the region. I have little faith they’d want to annex the place or that a similar creature wouldn’t emerge.
As you’ve correctly assumed, China uses the insanity of successive NK leaders as a bargaining chip, usually by controlling rice imports. However, even Chinese leaders on occasion can be extremely exasperated by the Kim dynasty - total economic and military dependence does not equal total control when it comes to lunatics such as the Kim dynasty.
Why would they invade? China could have annexed NK in the aftermath of the Koran War. North Korea is a nightmare for any invasion force.
Yes, but there’s an important difference - most of the people in the USSR and the Eastern Bloc were grudgingly resigned to the existence communism, with very few true believers. North Koreans were subjected to extreme levels of brainwashing which makes regime change impossible - the majority of the population is more deranged that the Great Leader, comparable to Japanese late stage fanaticism in WW2, with blind obedience to the God-emperor.
Totally half baked idea, addmitedly. But, isn’t China all about consolidating it’s ancestral homelands under one flag? Or only if the economic/strategic benefits are worth it eg South China Sea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc
I always thought that. I would have made a deal with China. You help us & the South get rid of this madman on your border and we leave the peninsula…we take our troops & go home. You are left with a border with a stable country with a booming economy. If not, if China’s territorial enemies gain nuclear arms that could hit your country, it’s out of our hands at this point. You have enabled your ally to strike our nation, our allies should be able to strike yours if need be.
But that’s when I thought the Chinese were rational players in their own right & one’s not having “capitalistic” goals since it flies in the face of their “communism”. Mao is spinning in his grave possibly…or not, maybe he would be proud of this fascist legacy that is China today.
Yeah, but their just capitalists with a different name. They have become everything the revolution was supposedly to be against! Not that I ever was a fan. Our biggest mistake was giving them cash and hoping their people would change their government to be more free when, in reality, the government itself changed and became more like us and thus our global competitors.
I don’t know, tbh. I would say the politburo doesn’t want a failed state to rebuild, nor does it want the political headache of having to annex a putative ally.
