Peace in Korea

Depends on what China thinks they need from Korea's collapse.

Basically: Not as long as people like Tucker Carlson dominate the US media. The best we can get from that is a minor Russia - Trump continuing his role as Reagan, taking credit while fucking it up.
 
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billvon said:
There's always hope. But with our incompetent president determined to meet with the unstable leader of North Korea, those hopes are on the decline.
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My thought is should we really have any faith that this is anything more than a ploy by N. Korea? Judging from past history, a promise is kept until after they get what they want.
 
billvon said:
There's always hope. But with our incompetent president determined to meet with the unstable leader of North Korea, those hopes are on the decline.
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Ask yourself what China wants.
China can play Trump if Russia can - with even more economic leverage - and of course they basically own Korea. And that's what this looks like.
So if we can figure that out, that's the best guess for what happens, unless Trump is removed before Korea collapses.
 
Bowser said:
My thought is should we really have any faith that this is anything more than a ploy by N. Korea?
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That's what I'm thinking.
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It was never more than a ploy by Trump either, so that's always a given.
That doesn't mean there's no hope - depends on what China wants.
 
I think it interesting that a unified Korea might be reason for concern where China and Japan are concerned. An average person would think the possibility a good thing.
 
Bowser said:
I think it interesting that a unified Korea might be reason for concern where China and Japan are concerned. An average person would think the possibility a good thing.
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Unification under Kim Jong-Un? The average person might have reservations.
Devil is in the details.
 
So . . . never mind. The White House just walked back Trump's announcement of a meeting. An adult must have gotten involved.
 
A unified Korea would be the best for everyone involved, although we'll see how well the negotiations with America go.
 
The North may give up certain testing programs, but they will resist unification for as long as Kim lives.
 
North Korea has wanted to meet directly with a US president for decades, for propaganda purposes, to demand a peace treaty and end of sanctions despite being an Orwellian hellscape, chances of north korea actually giving up nuclear weapons are very VERY low as that is the only security they have. What will Trump do after meeting with them, at best they will make some agreement in which north korea keeps nukes but ends some testing (to be broken at a later date) in exchange for a peace treaty. At worse trump will get pissed off and attack. I'm not putting bets on anything, have no clue what is going to happen.
 

it would be messy if it was a ground war but north korea is no real threat and it's obvious to anyone sane. the problem is if kim jong un is certifiably insane or suicidal. north korea can easily be forced to surrender like japan in the past with a nuke or two. these countries are too small to be any serious threat to the world.

if bigger giants get involved such as china, then it would be a problem but that would make no sense. these countries do not want a war as they are trying to maintain their country.

it's usually countries that have nothing to lose that are dangerous. but today, with nuclear arsenal, the damage is too extensive to be worthwhile.
 
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/north-korea-trump-agreed-to-lift-sanctions
North Korea’s state news agency KCNA reported Wednesday (local time) that US President Donald Trump agreed to lift sanctions on North Korea, in addition to agreeing to halt military exercises and other security guarantees.
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Which follows immediately from:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/12/chi...f-for-north-korea-after-trump-kim-summit.html
Speaking in Beijing following Trump and Kim's signing of a joint statement at the end of their historic summit in Singapore, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated that China has always strictly abided by all U.N. resolutions on North Korea.

"The U.N. Security Council resolutions that have been passed say that if North Korea respects and acts in accordance with the resolutions, then sanction measures can be adjusted, including to pause or remove the relevant sanctions," Geng told a daily news briefing.

"China has consistently held that sanctions are not the goal in themselves. The Security Councils actions should support and conform to the efforts of current diplomatic talks towards denuclearising the Korean Peninsula, and promote a political solution for the peninsula."
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He fucked it up. Unless, of course, he had a somewhat different agenda than one would assume of a President:
http://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-avant-garde-art-of-deal.html#more
- - I was trying to make sense of why Kim Jong Un would want this meeting because I don't think there is any promise Trump could make that Kim could have any realistic expectation that a future Congress or President would keep.

Then the news about Kim calling China like ET phoning home about Trump's openness to ending joint military exercises and withdraw US forces from the Korean peninsula came out and it all made sense.

This was not a Trump-Kim summit. This was a Trump-China summit with Kim as Xi's proxy.
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China may yet win that horrible war, and by one the oldest of stratagems: suborning treachery in the enemy's command.
 
The whole point of US troops being stationed in South Korea is so that the US will take casualties in the event of a northern attack and will therefore be forced to participate in the conflict. The current US presence there isn't intended to be large enough to stop a full-scale attack on its own, it's just the vanguard. So if it looks like the North doesn't want to attack and start a war, then the US doesn't need to spend money or generate tensions by retaining a presence there.

Skipping an annual military exercise on a one-time basis isn't going to jeopardize South Korea's national security, and the US doesn't look like it's anywhere near to pulling its forces from the peninsula at present. Whatever deal is made with China/North Korea will be a good if not great one, as long as such a deal doesn't make it profitable for dictators to build nuclear arsenals and then extort other countries for concessions in exchange for dismantling, and South Korea retains its democratic independence.

What matters most, IMO, is that everyone appears to be interested in a deal and genuinely fearful of the consequences a war would bring. So things are looking pretty good at the moment and hopefully the positive momentum will continue.
 
CptBork said:
Whatever deal is made with China/North Korea will be a good if not great one, as long as such a deal doesn't make it profitable for dictators to build nuclear arsenals and then extort other countries for concessions in exchange for dismantling,
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The deal as described so far appears to provide large concessions to Kim in return for much less than dismantling - the mere promise of working toward dismantling was enough.
That is - on the face of it - not quite the same as discouraging the tactic.
 
iceaura said:
The deal as described so far appears to provide large concessions to Kim in return for much less than dismantling - the mere promise of working toward dismantling was enough.
That is - on the face of it - not quite the same as discouraging the tactic.
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It's not like they can't hold exercises next year if Mr. Kim backtracks on his own commitments. Other than that, Mr. Trump can say anything he wants about an eventual military pullout without it actually affecting anything on the ground, especially when he's already prone to reneging on existing deals as is. Surely by the time the sun burns out, the US will have left its bases in South Korea.
 
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