This might be a brilliant move on Kim Jong-un’s part.
Promise that you’ll have a meeting with the U.S., and get Trump and the administration to tout it as an unprecedented act. Have them make this the hallmark of their time in the White House.
Then, when it’s all but done, pull out, and issue additional demands.
If it falls through, you’ve humiliated the President. If he wants to save face, you can get additional concessions.
From the article: “Of the eight crab processing facilities on Hoopers Island, only four received the visas they requested.”.
I wonder what the difference between the facilities was? Perhaps some of the facilities paid for consulting services they thought might be essential to gain insight on how to get the visas?
The DPRK expects to be treated as equals: they have nuclear weapons. This goes along with how I interpret Mr. Kim’s sudden willingness to talk: he has nukes; he can no longer be treated as a “lesser” leader.
And as they turn 18, we can just induct them straight into the military and save all that recruiting money! Plus, nobody will care if it’s little brown kids getting killed overseas in the latest idiotic adventure. And when they get out, we’ll deport them and not have to pay their VA benefits.
Thump thought Kim liked him and was his new bestie. If Kim calls him a loser and decides to uninvite him to the Grownups Table… uh-oh. Will thump turn on his heel in a huff and walk away hurling insults over his shoulder (“Can’t trust those Orientals!”) or will he get on his knees and suck harder? I predict a big ol’ temper tantrum.
Like I said before, Kim is playing him like a fiddle.
It’s as if Charles Schultz had done a two-week series of Charlie Brown talking about how desperate he was to finally kick the football leading up to the latest iteration of the gag where Lucy pulls it away.
Of course, it wasn’t Schultz’s style to be either that mean or that lamely anticlimactic, so this example serves as yet another example of how Trump is stranger than fiction.
Once again, I’m reminded of Yudkowsky’s take on things, which seems more and more valid by the day. One key excerpt:
I once played a four-hour live simulation/game called the National Security Decision-Making Game, which was run by various people who were ex-whatevers. There were around 80 of us simulating just 3 different countries, with myself trying to play the Secretary of Defense of the US.
Thinking myself probably above-average intelligence for the room, I’d originally asked for a position that involved intrigue; I was given the title for Director of National Intelligence. But somebody who’d played the game before said he really wanted to be DNI, so I traded it for his Secretary of Defense position. Which I’m glad happened, because my ambitions rapidly went from world optimization to “Understand what is happening immediately around the Department of Defense.”
By the end of NSDM, I left with a suddenly increased respect for any administration that gets to the end of 4 years without nuclear weapons being used. We did not do that well in our NSDM session. I left with a greatly increased appreciation of the real skill and competence possessed by the high-level bureaucrats like the Secretary of Defense who keep everything from toppling over, and who understand what the sternly worded diplomatic notes mean.