![]() doesn’t unnecessarily provoke the North with talk of military action, Kim will have no reason to escalate to a point of no return. territory would result in the very thing-the destruction of the family dynasty-Kim is so desperate to avoid. Attacking South Korea or launching an ICBM towards U.S. Moreover, Kim is no suicidal maniac his prime concern is protecting his regime. Washington’s superior military capability, its ability to deploy forces quickly, and its extensive alliances and partnerships in the region all provide indefinite deterrence against an unprovoked first strike by Pyongyang. The United States can live with a nuclear North Korea in the furture just as it has for the last 13 years. and the Soviet Union could deal with one another pragmatically during the Cold War when they possessed tens of thousands of nuclear weapons apiece, there is no reason the United States and North Korea can’t do the same. Denuclearization is not a realistic option for the United States and has not been for years.įortunately, the United States doesn’t need denuclearization to fulfill our national security interests in East Asia, as 74 years of history in the atomic age amply demonstrate. There is nothing Washington can provide that would be worth abandoning the ultimate deterrent. Wedged between a far wealthier South Korea, a hostile Japan, a fickle China, and a cynically pragmatic Russia, it would be illogical for Kim to trade away this security blanket for ill-defined concessions. Pyongyang has completely rational reasons to retain a nuclear weapons arsenal as a deterrent against external attack. ![]() Related: How North Korea Soured on Donald Trump Related: On North Korea, the Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost Related: Trump Is Running Out of Time to Denuclearize North Korea The recent comment by Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N., that denuclearization is off the table is a confirmation of what many realists already know but too few in the Beltway can bring themselves to admit: North Korea will remain a nuclear weapons state for the foreseeable future whether the world likes it or not. The Yongbyon Nuclear Research Reactor is operational the centrifuges continue to spin and bomb fuel continues to be produced. Kim has treated the June 2018 Singapore statement as a glossy press release rather than a formal agreement. The Kim regime has been abundantly clear that denuclearization is-and may always be-a mirage. policy will remain stuck as long as the administration continues to convince itself that the North’s nuclear dismantlement can be achieved on Washington’s timeline. ![]() Trump can still sustain that diplomacy, but it will require him to swim against the tide of a Washington orthodoxy that remains wedded to Pyongyang’s immediate, final, and verifiable denuclearization. But since in recent months, negotiations have floundered, thanks to unrealistic, short-sighted U.S. Trump’s three face-to-face meetings with Kim were daring attempts to shock U.S.-North Korea relations out of its dormancy. Pacific Command said as much on Tuesday.) After 18 months of uneven diplomacy with Washington, Kim is disappointed at the lack of results and skeptical that the Trump administration is truly interested in establishing a more constructive relationship. The likelihood of the Kim regime launching additional ballistic missiles of greater range is quite high. If nothing changes between now and New Year’s Eve, the world will likely witness more of the military tests Kim conducted at the Tongchang-ri facility on Dec. officials are coming around to the view that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was serious last April when he spoke of embarking on a “new way of calculation” if the talks prove unproductive. envoy Stephen Biegun’s trip to Seoul this week-a trip that produced nothing more than a plea from the new deputy secretary of state to resume talks immediately-U.S. It doesn’t take an international relations genius to recognize that President Donald Trump’s diplomatic standoff with North Korea is on tenterhooks. ![]()
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