I remember when the summit was actually going on and Trump played his little game of "Will I won't I go" before finally giving North Korea exactly what it wanted his fan base lauded the whole...
I remember when the summit was actually going on and Trump played his little game of "Will I won't I go" before finally giving North Korea exactly what it wanted his fan base lauded the whole thing as some kind of diplomatic tour de force and how he had single-handedly solved the crisis Obama could not. There are many things you can point to which definitely prove how this administration runs on either malice, incompetence, or a combination of both, but this one is the biggest one for me.
Last year De Correspondent released an interview with Remco Breuker(EDIT: in Dutch, with apologies to all non-Dutch speakers) about the North Korea situation, and he essentially summed up why North Korea "won" against Trump:
The Sanctions were hitting them hard, much harder than they were letting on to (similar to the Russia sanctions) getting more leeway with it allows them to keep solidifying their hold on the populace and to continue funding the regime
North Korea still knows it can not win against US retaliation if they ever push the button, but their fear was Trump being such an unpredictable actor he could be spurred into attacking preemptively. Now Kim has the assurance he needs that Trump isn't a threat and that he can strike first if he so desires.
Breuker goes on to lay out the hypothesis that North Korea is likely going to work on a next phase of it's plan: to pressure and badger the South until finally it can forge a merger under the North's regime, likely backed by China and Russia, to absorb the South's wealth into the North. While this may seem like a completely bonkers proposition he makes a good case for it: Seoul has to realize by now that Trump can be sidestepped and not relied on to safeguard the South's security when it comes down to it, so if they end up staring down the barrel of the North's loaded gun then maybe they'll see no other choice but concession and political reunification.
It is a bonkers proposition. We live in a world with no shortage of strongmen in power who'd relish nothing more than a just war against a clearly technologically inferior rogue state aggressing...
this may seem like a completely bonkers proposition [...]
It is a bonkers proposition.
We live in a world with no shortage of strongmen in power who'd relish nothing more than a just war against a clearly technologically inferior rogue state aggressing on its peaceful neighbor.
Especially if you can smash it in the face of American hegemony if the US doesn't take the fight. The parallels to US post-WWI isolationism and post-war-on-terror would practically write themselves.
South Korea has all the good cards on their hands.
A parallel which barely works. Because neither of those involved the potential of nuclear warfare. And this doesn't really go against the main thrust of the argument though. Nobody, not even North...
We live in a world with no shortage of strongmen in power who'd relish nothing more than a just war against a clearly technologically inferior rogue state aggressing on its peaceful neighbor.
Especially if you can smash it in the face of American hegemony if the US doesn't take the fight. The parallels to US post-WWI isolationism and post-war-on-terror would practically write themselves.
A parallel which barely works. Because neither of those involved the potential of nuclear warfare.
And this doesn't really go against the main thrust of the argument though. Nobody, not even North Korea, has any illusion who would win in a nuclear war of attrition. The question is how much blood is going to be spilled before a victor is declared? Seoul alone is home to 9 million people, and with their continued advancement the North is going to be able to strike much farther then that.
But they don't even explicitly need to do that, nuclear weapons are paradoxically built to be used as little as possible. The aim is to point a gun at South Korea's forehead, not to fire it per se.
Total aside but what do military bases use greenhouses for? I seem to recall the weird Russian owned site on a Finnish island also had a tunnel greenhouse too, just seems kinda odd?
Total aside but what do military bases use greenhouses for? I seem to recall the weird Russian owned site on a Finnish island also had a tunnel greenhouse too, just seems kinda odd?
I remember when the summit was actually going on and Trump played his little game of "Will I won't I go" before finally giving North Korea exactly what it wanted his fan base lauded the whole thing as some kind of diplomatic tour de force and how he had single-handedly solved the crisis Obama could not. There are many things you can point to which definitely prove how this administration runs on either malice, incompetence, or a combination of both, but this one is the biggest one for me.
Last year De Correspondent released an interview with Remco Breuker(EDIT: in Dutch, with apologies to all non-Dutch speakers) about the North Korea situation, and he essentially summed up why North Korea "won" against Trump:
Breuker goes on to lay out the hypothesis that North Korea is likely going to work on a next phase of it's plan: to pressure and badger the South until finally it can forge a merger under the North's regime, likely backed by China and Russia, to absorb the South's wealth into the North. While this may seem like a completely bonkers proposition he makes a good case for it: Seoul has to realize by now that Trump can be sidestepped and not relied on to safeguard the South's security when it comes down to it, so if they end up staring down the barrel of the North's loaded gun then maybe they'll see no other choice but concession and political reunification.
It is a bonkers proposition.
We live in a world with no shortage of strongmen in power who'd relish nothing more than a just war against a clearly technologically inferior rogue state aggressing on its peaceful neighbor.
Especially if you can smash it in the face of American hegemony if the US doesn't take the fight. The parallels to US post-WWI isolationism and post-war-on-terror would practically write themselves.
South Korea has all the good cards on their hands.
A parallel which barely works. Because neither of those involved the potential of nuclear warfare.
And this doesn't really go against the main thrust of the argument though. Nobody, not even North Korea, has any illusion who would win in a nuclear war of attrition. The question is how much blood is going to be spilled before a victor is declared? Seoul alone is home to 9 million people, and with their continued advancement the North is going to be able to strike much farther then that.
But they don't even explicitly need to do that, nuclear weapons are paradoxically built to be used as little as possible. The aim is to point a gun at South Korea's forehead, not to fire it per se.
Total aside but what do military bases use greenhouses for? I seem to recall the weird Russian owned site on a Finnish island also had a tunnel greenhouse too, just seems kinda odd?