Progress on the peninsula
Ashaft of light shines through the dark DMZ, as two neighboring nations still in the hottest of cold wars vow now to end their hostilities.
The carefully choreographed display of brotherhood felt like history, and it was:
After generations in which the repressive, totalitarian communist nation and the dynamic, open, capitalist country with which it shares a peninsula have been locked in armed standoff come promises of an official end to the Korean War and “complete denuclearization” between North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in.
Given how progress has eluded American Presidents Democratic and Republican over many decades, it is impossible not to give some significant measure of credit here to President Trump.
His approach has often appeared haphazard, if not dangerously confrontational. But it was a clear break from past American strategy, and from where we sit today, ratcheting up sanctions has had a desired result. As has pressuring China to lean on Kim. As has engaging in direct diplomacy.
All that, plus powerful domestic politics in the Koreas, has helped nudge the countries on either side of the 38th parallel to think differently.
A caveat: We’ve been here, or roughly here, before. In both 2000 and 2007, leaders embraced and signed agreements committing to peace and progress.
Neither was realized, because it’s far easier to sign a deal than to follow through.
Another caveat: Kim Jong Un may only be making moves toward reconciliation while pledging to end nuclear tests and gesturing toward denuclearization because he’s recently achieved his most precious long-sought objective.
That is, he’s now the leader of a nuclear state, with the ability to threaten others with devastating military consequences should they endanger his regime.
That has always been the Kim calculus for selfpreservation, whether articulated by Jong Un, or his father Jong Il, or his grandfather Il Sung.
Which brings us to the final caveat: The road ahead is made of dirt. Trump, understandably, vows not to let up on his “maximum pressure” campaign until Kim actually dismantles much of his nuclear arsenal.
Kim and Moon, on the other hand, welcome the possibility of major economic investments by the south in the north, and cultural openings, and even possibly a stand-down of troops, before denuclearization happens — a profoundly different model.
Those complexities are for tomorrow. Today, a safer world is not yet in reach. But it is in sight.