The North Korean leader has channeled all his resources into his military. At great expense to his people. He has consistently sought nuclear development despite many UN sanctions.
Isn’t it obvious that the sanctions aren’t working?
Perhaps we need to explore another path.
I personally think that the best case scenario is for Trump and Kim sit down and resolve the issues. But, there seems to be so much distrust that this solution probably won’t happen.
Huh? Do you think Obama had a markedly different policy, aside from ill-advised tweetstorms?
Sanctions buy time, time means we don’t glass north korea. There is no sitting down and discussion towards resolving issues, been there done that, its time for kim and co to bend the knee.
Yes.
I gotta admit I’ve swallowed the kool-aid on this one so I’ve only heard “Kim is a maniac!” and no other explanations – and this has been for both the current Kim and his father!
So what ARE the issues to be resolved? With daddy-kim it seemed to just be ‘send us food and we’ll stop rattling our sabres until the food runs out’ and that seemed to work a few times. Is younger-kim actually pissed off about something he thinks we’ve done?
–G?
[Del] What would Bruce Lee do? [/Del]
You think Trump had any thought at all? He just loves to vent and this is a perfect opportunity. I can only hope that these two madmen are satisfied to trade insults.
I can’t imagine anyone thinks that sanctions will ever work. Everyone in this has publicly said that they won’t. The US (see Amd. Haley’s comments) says they won’t. Trump says they won’t. China and Russia say they won’t. N.K. says they won’t.
The purpose of sanctions is to keep N.K. and now the US from doing anything stupid and deadly until N.K. develops it’s weapons systems to the point where it feels comfortable. That is what Bannon said, that is what most of the analysts say when they aren’t recommending sanctions to buy time.
Once N.K. has effective (to whatever level they consider it important) weapons, they will do what every other nuclear power in history (except the US-but hopefully we aren’t a model for the rest of the world to follow) has done. Put them on the shelf and admire them lovingly. Whenever things get really bad, like in Russia or Pakistan, they can tell themselves they are a nuclear power and people have to take them seriously.
Eventually, once everyone feels properly respected, various officials will sit down and work out procedures to keep N.K. ticking over enough to keep Kim and his cronies in whatever necessities they feel they need. Hopefully the sanctions will be gradually relaxed such that N.K. will no longer feel the need to conduct the cyber theft, drug smuggling, foreign worker slavery, and weapons dealing that they currently do to keep the necessities flowing to the cronies.
Is Trump the only one who believes sanctions will work in getting Kim to drop nuclear development?
Not even Trump believes that. He thinks sanctions along with some slowly increasing insults via Twitter and UN speeches will do the trick. You start off dropping the devastating “Rocket Man” and let that sink in for a few days. Then, you shock-and-awe with “Little Rocket Man” and stand back at smile at your craftiness.
Now we wait on tenterhooks for the next round that will most likely bring Kim Jong-un to his knees. He’ll be screaming “UNCLE!” in no time.
Haven’t sanctions always been the US/UNSC/EU policy towards North Korea? Sanctions have been the preferred tactic by many countries well before Trump
A major serious obstacle is NK’s galactically massive horribleness on human rights, to such an extent that it’s politically hard for us to de-link that and deal with international diplomacy separately.