The Korean Dilemma

[TopHatter]

Part of my issue with the recent developments is that all the talk (and it's just talk at this point) sounds too good be true in general.

In other words, you're a clear-thinking level-headed person with a firm unblinkered grasp of North Korea's history.

[TopHatter]

Pyongyang Is Playing Washington and Seoul
Hollow summits between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States only serve to benefit the North.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s televised summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday was spectacularly effective as pageantry aimed at South Koreans fearful of a U.S. attack on North Korea — and spectacularly empty in terms of meaningful commitment by the North to denuclearization. In fact, everything Kim put on the table was designed to reaffirm North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state and dilute Chinese and South Korean support for sanctions. Many veterans of negotiations with North Korea worry that Kim is now getting ready to play the United States. While the Trump administration’s tough sanctions no doubt had some role in pushing the North toward this summitry, one can also imagine exactly how this was a scenario the North itself sought from the beginning:

Memorandum to Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission

From: Vice Marshall Kim Jong Gak, director of the Political Bureau, Korean People’s Army

Subject: Your meeting with Donald Trump

The successful test of our road-mobile, solid-fueled Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile in November demonstrated our ability to strike the U.S. homeland with nuclear weapons. We are now preparing to enter the next stage of our plan to secure international status as a nuclear weapons state and to begin decoupling the U.S. alliance from the puppet regime in Seoul. As we expected, the U.S. intelligence community was stunned by the leapfrog in technology we achieved with our Ukrainian rocket engine design on the Hwasong-15 and believes that we are only months away from the final technological step of designing a warhead that could survive re-entry into the atmosphere. In fact, we have already mostly achieved that milestone, but the important point is that we have convinced the Americans that they have only months to stop our ICBM capability. Predictably, the capitalist braggart in the White House built a noisy crescendo for war as we demonstrated our deterrent, and this in turn energized the United Front Department’s fellow travelers in Seoul to clamor for a new peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula and to broker a summit for you with the U.S. President Donald Trump. We can anticipate that the puppet government in Seoul will tell the Americans that their meeting with you on April 27 has demonstrated your good intentions. We can then discard that summit with the South like the boost-phase rocket of our Taepodong missiles. The real target is Trump.

As you declared with pride after the successful launch of the Hwasong-15, we have finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force. Now it remains only for the U.S. president to confirm that fact before the world. You will pledge seemingly historic commitments that are all unverifiable and easily reversed, many of which we have deployed successfully in past negotiations. These include your commitment (like your father’s and grandfather’s) to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, your pledge to join the global quest for denuclearization as the other nuclear weapons states have pledged to do under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a promise not to transfer nuclear weapons to third parties, a no-first use pledge, and a promise to halt testing and to shut down our nuclear test site at Punggye-ri (for added drama, you might invite inspectors to the facility). These commitments all parrot the aspirations of the current members of the nuclear weapons club and will thus confirm our membership in that club as we negotiate arms control with the Americans as a fellow nuclear weapons state. We, of course, made no commitment to cease production and deployment of our deterrent. We can easily reverse all these steps later, at the time of our choosing, yet already many in the imperialist and puppet media are proclaiming these meaningless declarations on your part to be a historic breakthrough.

In exchange, you will offer the U.S. president the historic opportunity to end the Korean War by replacing the current armistice with a peace treaty. We do not need to complete that treaty — indeed, we may want to prolong the negotiations as long as possible so that the Chinese, the Russians, and our fellow travelers in the South all continue urging the Americans not to undermine the prospects for peace by imposing further sanctions or intensifying military exercises and deployments. We will, of course, demand a reduction of sanctions, financial compensation, and an end to criticism of our so-called human rights record as a precondition for further progress. The U.S. hard-liners like national security advisor John Bolton or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may continue to impose unilateral U.S. sanctions, but with peace talks underway, China will relax its implementation of United Nations Security Council sanctions, and Putin will continue backfilling where China is a problem. We will also circumvent the U.S. financial sanctions by using our enhanced cyber capabilities to raid financial centers on the internet. In order to negotiate a peace treaty, the Chinese and the puppet regime in the South will push for four-party talks among the signatories to the 1953 armistice (the puppet leader Syngman Rhee refused to sign the armistice at the time, but it is useful for us to include the current puppet government). The four-party format will exclude Japan and thus weaken the hard-liners’ position within the U.S. camp and undermine the despicable Japanese confidence in the U.S. security commitment. The negotiating process itself will demonstrate that the result of our nuclear weapons status is concessions by the imperialists.

At a minimum, this stratagem will dissipate the U.S. campaign of “maximum pressure” with no appreciable setback to our missile and nuclear weapons programs. It is possible that we may unleash even more favorable forces of history as we press the Americans to abandon their hostile policy toward us. Fellow travelers in the South are already pushing for the transition of wartime operational control from the Americans to the puppet regime, and movement on a peace treaty could lead to calls for scrapping the joint U.S.-South Korean Combined Forces Command and the U.S.-led U.N. Command. We are not certain of the U.S. president’s intentions, but during his electoral campaign he threatened to withdraw all U.S. forces from the South if the puppet regime did not pay more him money. Our assets in Seoul report that the puppet regime’s current negotiations with the Americans for the next round of host nation payments (called the Special Measures Agreement) are going very badly — yet another useful example of how the current U.S. government’s arrogant attitude toward its puppet states is serving our interests. It is possible that the U.S. president will seize on a peace treaty as an excuse to end an expensive U.S. military presence in the South that he derided as a candidate.

While we cannot anticipate exactly how far the U.S. president will be tempted to achieve our objectives for us in his pursuit of vainglory, we will seize every opportunity to decouple the puppet regime and the despicable Japanese from the Americans. When we are ready, we will resume our nuclear testing and other coercive steps that will force a weakened and isolated South to make concessions and that will show the arrogant Chinese that they cannot implode a regime that possesses such powerful weapons. We have successfully executed this strategy many times to date, including: the North-South denuclearization agreement in 1992, the Agreed Framework in 1994, and the Pyongyang Declaration in 2002, and the six-party talks agreement in 2005. The imperialists are so decadent, corrupt, cowardly, and narcissistic that their leaders will continue to grab desperately at the same historic breakthroughs that have allowed our march toward full nuclear weapons status up to this point. We have long sought a summit with an American president to achieve this goal on the international stage and are now presented with that opportunity. Link

[Double Edge]

Part of my issue with the recent developments is that all the talk (and it's just talk at this point) sounds too good be true in general.

All mood setting. The hard work of hammering out details is yet to come

I say forget the past, make history from this point on

[TopHatter]

All mood setting. The hard work of hammering out details is yet to come

I say forget the past, make history from this point on

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás would like to have a word with you.

[Officer of Engineers]

In other words, you're a clear-thinking level-headed person with a firm unblinkered grasp of North Korea's history.

One thing I like about Trump. He ain't going to be screwed on a deal. If Fat Boy don't deliver, Fat Boy don't get paid. Trump is not one to pay cash up front.

[Ironduke]

Can he take Kanye with him?

Part of my issue with the recent developments is that all the talk (and it's just talk at this point) sounds too good be true in general.

Kanye could be appointed as US Ambassador to Africa. Not any particular part of Africa, but rather, the entire country of Africa. ;-)

Ambassador Rodman though, first-ever US Ambassador to North Korea, would be hilarious.

Rather morbidly, I was actually looking forward to a Trump presidency during the 2016 campaigns/elections, for comedic reasons. I was absolutely sure Clinton would win, so I dismissed the possibility of a Trump presidency until the results on election night came in.

Post-election, I continued to view it that way until the Christopher Steele dossier leak, but now that I don't really care about the Mueller investigation, I'm back to viewing the Trump presidency as a source of comedy and laughs.

Let the serious people whose job it is sort out the good from the bad, hope that there's not a nuclear war, or any other type of war, and just sit back and enjoy The Trump Show, the best 24/7 reality TV show ever created.

[Double Edge]

One thing I like about Trump. He ain't going to be screwed on a deal. If Fat Boy don't deliver, Fat Boy don't get paid. Trump is not one to pay cash up front.

He said he would walk if they couldn't get a denuclearisation deal. Question is at what point in time does he make that call.

This is going to take time. More complicated than the Iran deal which took a good few years to hammer out

This is why this playing for time line rings hollow for me.

How much time is enough time here. Does KJU have time

[TopHatter]

One thing I like about Trump. He ain't going to be screwed on a deal. If Fat Boy don't deliver, Fat Boy don't get paid. Trump is not one to pay cash up front.

Sir, with all due respect, the smallest child could con Donald Trump into a bad deal.

He's completely out of his element and is now dealing with geopolitical matters of which he has little-to-no comprehension and even less desire to learn about.
Trump has the attention span of a goldfish and openly disdains any attempt to educate him by the dwindling number of adults in his Administration (a grand total of 2, at last count).
This is a man with a demonstrably unhinged personality and only a nodding grasp of how his own government works, whose constant source of information is Fox News for the love of God.

Or as Trump's former professor at UPenn's Wharton School of Business and Finance once referred to him: “Trump Was the Dumbest Goddamn Student I Ever Had”.

[Officer of Engineers]

Sir, with all due respect, the smallest child could con Donald Trump into a bad deal.

I don't know how bad of a deal that was but I will leave that up to you if it's a good deal or not.

However, one does not make $billions and have own Miss America and 2 TV shows by being conned.

He's completely out of his element and is now dealing with geopolitical matters of which he has little-to-no comprehension and even less desire to learn about.
Trump has the attention span of a goldfish and openly disdains any attempt to educate him by the dwindling number of adults in his Administration (a grand total of 2, at last count).
This is a man with a demonstrably unhinged personality and only a nodding grasp of how his own government works, whose constant source of information is Fox News for the love of God.

He's in good company. KJU has delusions of grandeur and until recently believed his own press until he was forced to kowtow to Xi. Between the two, I pick Trump. At least he dealt with real sharks with mafia and union bosses.

Or as Trump's former professor at UPenn's Wharton School of Business and Finance once referred to him: “Trump Was the Dumbest Goddamn Student I Ever Had”.

I find that to be self serving. Trump did graduate while I'm sure the prof had students who did not.

[Double Edge]

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás would like to have a word with you.

Introduce them to incessantly accumulate positive energy : D

This is not an ad from Red Bull

[Ironduke]

I find that to be self serving. Trump did graduate while I'm sure the prof had students who did not.

There may be a flip side to that argument: wealthy parents make donations to schools, students with wealthy parents feel entitled and complain and make excuses for poor academic results, and demand special treatment.

Professors, especially in the past, were reluctant to give bad grades or fail students, if the student and parents made a lot of noise about these things, or it became known through the grapevine, from previous occurrences, that they were willing to do so.

The student may have been the worst student a professor ever had - but the professor may have also passed him, grudgingly and reluctantly, due to the forementioned factors, and the professor may still be angry with himself for doing so, to this day.

[Officer of Engineers]

That is speculation unworthy of you.

[Ironduke]

That is speculation unworthy of you.

I didn't name him. I was making a general statement about a practice that is known to happen.

But you're right - it is otherwise worthless speculation if it's concerning an individual, when there's no evidence to prove the charge.

We don't know the facts concerning this man's academics - and everything that's being said about it is "he said, he said", and it's not a worthwhile topic of discussion.

Thanks for catching me on that.

[tbm3fan]

One thing I like about Trump. He ain't going to be screwed on a deal. If Fat Boy don't deliver, Fat Boy don't get paid. Trump is not one to pay cash up front.

True, Trump doesn't like to pay cash up front just ask one of his many past material/service suppliers who weren't paid and if they were paid was it 30 days net or more than a year.

[TopHatter]

I don't know how bad of a deal that was but I will leave that up to you if it's a good deal or not.

Trump himself thought it was a horrible deal but he signed it anyway.

However, one does not make $billions and have own Miss America and 2 TV shows by being conned.

Trump started out from an extremely wealthy family and then failed his upwards, usually by doing a shitload of conning himself. It's easy to make money when you cheat your vendors out of payment, for example. It's estimated that had he simply invested his money decades ago and sat back and did nothing, he'd be worth far more than he is today.

Trump's success is more of a product of self-promoting showmanship and outrageous lies.

A really successful billionaire is someone like Warren Buffet. Trump is no Warren Buffet.

In any case, this is all academic anyway: Trump is now in the business of government and geopolitics. Two things that, as I said, he knows little of and has no desire to learn about.

He's in good company. KJU has delusions of grandeur and until recently believed his own press until he was forced to kowtow to Xi. Between the two, I pick Trump. At least he dealt with real sharks with mafia and union bosses.

That's just the problem: KJU has Xi advising him in how to deal with Trump. Between the two, I pick Xi.

As for dealing with mafia and union bosses, your choice is simple: Pay them now or pay them later. Not a lot of "dealing" going on there.

I find that to be self serving. Trump did graduate while I'm sure the prof had students who did not.

I find that assessment of Trump to be typical of people that have been able to examine him up close.

One thing's for damn certain, he can't even keep his own mouth shut, even as he's incriminating the living hell out of himself and his people.

I call that really really stupid.