The DPRK has nuclear weapons. Crude, perhaps, but certainly no cruder than the weapons used in 1945. Donnie Trump hasn't "made" North Korea a nuclear power; North Korea IS a nuclear power. Short of risking nuclear detonation on the Korean peninsula, what the hell is the U.S. going to do to change that? Kim, as big a sonofabitch as he is, is not a fool. He knows his survival and that of the Kim Dynasty depends on making his little fiefdom too nasty for a larger enemy to take down without paying an unacceptable price. He's seen what happens to the Saddams and the Gadaffis of the world. He's no more going to "denuclearize" than he's going to appear on The Apprentice in a cheap suit.
Only a monstrous simulacrum of a human being with the intellectual capacity of a brain-damaged marmoset would think or expect otherwise.
Oh, wait...
Christ, what a maroon. What an im-bessal. Can anyone explain why the Mustache of Stupidity still has any geopolitical credibility whatsoever?
Christ, what an asshole.
So while I'm perfectly willing to dopeslap the Tangerine Tinpot for his behavior at the G20, where he did his best to imitate his boss from Moscow and follow the boss' direction for continuing his efforts towards the demolition of the Western hegemony (his comments on the 1951-1960 US-Japan agreement were particularly moronic), I can't really get too arsed about this little jaunt around the bricks at Panmunjom.
The notion that the U.S. can do what it can and the NORKs must suffer what they must died the moment the first fission test succeeded north of the DMZ.
North Korea is and will be a nuclear power; regardless of what gas Trump and the Trumpkins may expel, the U.S. is going to have to accept that unless and until the people running the show in the U.S. are willing to risk a nuclear, biological, and chemical attack on their Korean and Japanese allies. Bolton may be willing to do that, and Trump may be ignorant enough to let him, but almost no one else in the U.S. government is.
For the U.S. "news" media to bloviate otherwise simply makes that acceptance more difficult and fraught.
Here, some good news for a change:
ReplyDeletehttps://preview.tinyurl.com/yxwq3o9r
Interesting. I'll be curious to see who, if anyone, will sign onto their ideas. I'd like to think that there's a political constituency for the notions Bachevich has been trying to pitch for a decade or more, but the neocon/interventionist wing of the GOP seems to be unwilling to consider them, and the "center-left" Democrats are still terrified of being Dukakised on not "being tough". Only the Sanders wing of the left is not afraid, and I hate to say this but that's probably only about a quarter or a fifth of the US electorate.
DeleteBut it is encouraging that SOME one - and especially weathy someones - are willing to do this.
In general, I mistrust billionaires. Especially when they are "healing the world". But I have no actual knowledge of where the "catch" is in this case. Let's wait and see how this develops.
DeleteI'm okay with these guys bankrolling this, but it'll be worth keeping a skeptical eye on to see where it goes. It's encouraging to me that Bachevich is involved, but, then, I assumed that McMaster would have the effect of driving the Trumpkins' military policy in a sane, sensible direction and instead got the clown car to Crazytown. So it's also possible that these guys turn Bachevich, instead.
DeleteThe basic notion is still sensible. How much traction it'll get in the "war works" world of U.S. politics...I dunno.
Maybe you remember I was never really impressed by McMaster anyway. Nor by MacGregor, Vandergriff, Petraeus, or any other celebrity general/admiral.
DeleteCebrowski and van Riper made some interesting things shortly before their deaths, and I suspect they didn't do them themselves, but rather knew hot to pick a crew with good thinkers.
I'm rarely impressed by living thinkers. Robert R. Leonhard is underrated IMO.
I have confidence in Bacevich being a good voice against interventionism and wars of aggression. He's too old, too committed and too scarred to turn around.
Some other news
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/02/trumps-militarized-july-4-1567767
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/02/keane-fox-news-iran-trump-1394148
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMUymzX9ImU
Interesting that Xi spent two days in Pyongyang with KJu just prior to the G20 at Osaka. Is that why Bozo-Boy had a brainfart to to do his off-the-cuff visit as he did not want to be upstaged?
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese seem to have a better insight in how to defuze the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Their suggestions are that China's 1400 kilometer border with NorKo means they have a central role; and issues should be settled via multilateral arrangements instead of Trump/Kim one-on-ones. Several steps should happen prior to any talks on denuclearization:
1] a preliminary declaration of intent to end the Korean War,
2] conclusion of a peace treaty
3] reconciliation of the two Koreas
4] international assistance for North Korea’s economic development.
Point 4 would have to be preceded by an end of the economic sanctions.
DeleteThat begs the question "how to motivate them to give up nukes"?
I don't see it short of a Pan-Asian military alliance (Russia, China, NK and a couple CIS members).
I'm not sure that Kim's tyrant dynasty is really interested in the well-being of their people. Economic strength may be nothing but more power to them - and why give up extraordinary power for promise of common power?
I think the thing about this, mike, is that there's no real reason for KJU to go along with any of this. Indeed; if he's been watching the news he knows that it's entirely the other way; despots who let their subjects hope for better things often end up biding in a ditch. His country's misery doesn't matter to him and his inner circle or to his brute squads, and they run the country.
DeleteAnd China doesn't want to risk the DPRK imploding, so no sanctions or embargoes will bite hard enough TO reach up to the Kim dynasty.
Trump also helps kibosh this with his rabid crew of Pompeo/Bolton loons and his rando "policy" nonsense. Nobody who's watched him fuck over Iran is fool enough to trust anything he does, up to and including actual treaties.
The bottom line is a non-nuclear NORK is a KJU-gets-Ceaușescued NORK. He's an evil bastard but not a stupid one like Trump, so he won't do it. As Sven points out; he's got everything he needs right now. Why risk that just so some of his proles won't starve?
This was quite possibly, for now at least given that Trump seems to find new ways to lower the standing of the Presidency, the lowest point of the US Presidency to date.
ReplyDeleteOf course Kim was going to show up...the President of the United States on his border, begging, like a dog, to have a meeting with lil'kimmy...the photo-op was too much to pass up.
I pity future Presidents who have to deal with Kim...as the bar of expectations has been lowered to his height.