Not sure if this is the start of a beautiful thing, but преЦАРдент Trump has reached out to his NK counterpart. If this actually ever happens, I sure hope Dennis joins them.
As long as they all get along, and stuff.
“Well, he’s president for life, OK? And he was able to do that. And that’s great. Maybe we’ll give it a shot someday.”
You have no idea whether that’s true or not, so I’m not sure why you state it so authoritatively. It’s entirely possible that Russia made a deal with NK. Honestly, how the fuck would you know?
I’m not claiming in happened, but it certainly could.
…because if China can’t dictate what North Korea does then how would a country with even less influence be in a position to do so? It’s kinda simple logic, really.
Are you new here? It’s what he does.
The president of China is merely president for life, but Kim is nominally president for subsequent generations. A thing that CFSG would like even more. The rest of us, well, fuck that noise.
Great! After the talks, NK can keep him. He’d probably rather be just doing another TV show anyway.
Hey, they have a GREAT weight lose program in NK.
They send it all to dear leader Kim.
As has been pointed out elsewhere on this board, Trump is a master of the negotiating tactic, “You give me what I want now and I’ll give you what you want later” then reneging on the ‘later.’ So is Kim. Going to be interesting seeing how this plays out.
Well, if we don’t know how much influence Russia has over North Korea, we don’t really know how much China has, either. China could be pulling Kim’s strings, but announcing to the world that they’re not.
Well, this is annoying. Let’s face facts: when Trump goes to Korea, anything short of actually crapping on the conference table will be hailed – mostly by Trump himself – as a diplomatic triumph. And rightly so, I guess. (It’s a sign of how fucked up this year is, that a reduction in the chance of nuclear Armageddon pisses me off).
But then I remembered that Nixon actually achieved a legitimate diplomatic breakthrough with China…and it didn’t save his sorry ass.
His lawyers are the masters of that tactic, methinks. In person, one-on-one, Trump blubbers obsequiously and tends to agree with anything presented to him, as long as he’s the one getting the attention.
As someone pointed out earlier in the thread, ‘I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.’
My take is that at this point North Korea has already tested all the nuclear/missle technology it currently has available. While they take a year or two to develop/build new designs, they might as well see if they can get some sanctions lifted in exchange for forgoing future tests they never intended to do anyway.
All Kim has to do is flatter trump.
Sure, it’s possible that Russia has some some sort of influence and is in a position to broker a behind-the-scenes deal, but it’s just not likely. Unlike in Iran and Syria, where Russia had material interests and economic and political influence, they have much less influence with the regime in Pyongyang. This is not to say that they have no interest at all, but Russia’s not in a position to tell North Korea “stop your weapons program and provocations, or else…” In fact, Putin likely empathizes with Kim Jung Un’s desire to use nuclear weapons as leverage against the United States political power in the region.
In any case, most of North Korea’s trade is with China. Russia might have stepped up in recent months but it’s not going to have nearly the kind of leverage with North Korea that China does. Any influence that Russia might have would be on Trump’s end, not North Korea’s. And regardless of what leverage Putin might have on Trump, the Donald is going to encounter stiff resistance from his generals if he agrees to some sort of detente that involves a perceived weakening of the American position.
And throw him a parade. Oh my god, imagine the extravaganza Kim could mount if he really goes all out.
I seriously doubt that they’re done with testing – they’ll probably test again sometime in the next year if they don’t like the directions that these talks are headed, but I would agree that they’re done with testing for the moment. I suspect that Kim is motivated partly out of concern for the impact of sanctions, but also because he feels he’s in a better position coming to the table with a credible nuclear threat. Ideally, he’d like to come to the table with an even more credible threat, but sanctions and diplomatic isolation might have forced him to start talking (or stalling, depending on how you look at it) sooner rather than later.
I agree 100% about the sanctions – that’s what they want to accomplish with these talks. They will (probably) agree to freeze the development of their weapons program and testing in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. Unfortunately, that’s going to be politically difficult for the White House to accept. Trump would make himself an easy target of claims that he’s an appeaser if he agrees to that. Mind you, that criticism wouldn’t be coming from me - I’d consider it a feat and he’d be surpassing my expectations if he were to achieve this. But the hawks would have little stomach for this outcome, I’m afraid.