THE KOREA CONUNDRUM
Why peace talks between North and South may bring war.
History was made on Friday by the leaders of North and South Korea in their first summit in more than a decade. It has received massive international attention, with an estimated 3,000 journalists accredited to cover it.
But in the end, in spite of the drama, it may very well be remembered as no more than a historical footnote and dress rehearsal for the momentous meeting still to come.
It will be the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, tentatively planned for early June, if it ever happens, that truly matters. Whether it succeeds or fails may reshape the future of the Korean Peninsula — and perhaps Asia itself — for decades to come.
Incredibly, after years of stubborn impasse and bitter acrimony, the entire Korean conflict seems once again to be in play.
Will it result in a breakthrough over the issue of North Korea’s nuclear threats? Might the Korean War, halted in 1953 by an armistice rather than a negotiated agreement, finally come to a formal end? And could the two Koreas, like the two Germanys after the fall of the Berlin Wall, make the extraordinary first moves toward reunification?
That’s the hopeful — but likely naive — framing of what may be going on. A more realistic response is to answer a regretful “no” to all of the above.
What is more probable, sadly, is that this sudden flurry of diplomatic activity will create unachievable expectations — that will lead to nothing. And that, dangerously, may lead to war.
Trump has already revealed his thinking. Last weekend, he angrily rejected suggestions he has already given concessions to Kim with nothing in return. In a message on Twitter, he wrote: “Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World).”
In fact, North Korea’s Kim has done no such thing. In exchange for the prestige of meeting for the first time with a U.S. president, he has only agreed to discuss the potential elimination of nuclear weapons.
And that is actually a familiar North Korean position, always defined disingenuously as including America’s nuclear umbrella protecting South Korea.
Most observers believe this crucial disagreement over what genuine “denuclearization” on the Korean Peninsula really means is fraught with danger.
Trump himself has fostered that notion. He has told advisers he can convince Kim in person — a highly unbelievable boast — and has a simple remedy if it doesn’t work: “If the meeting when I’m there isn’t fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting.”
That possibility of a dramatic Trump walkout from such a high-stakes summit terrifies America’s allies in Asia and would be seen as a pretext for a potentially catastrophic U.S. military strike against North Korea.
No longer is this notion so far-fetched. Trump has ditched his relatively moderate foreign policy advisers and has replaced them with two hawks who have frequently talked about the need for “regime change” in North Korea.
John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser, helped orchestrate the 2001 invasion of Iraq, has called for a military strike against Iran and has supported pre-emptive military strikes against North Korea.
And Mike Pompeo, Trump’s incoming secretary of state and current CIA director, said in 2017: “If Kim Jong Un should vanish, given the history of the CIA, I’m just not going to talk about it. Someone might think there was a coincidence.”
We should keep all of this in our minds as we marvel at the expressions of camaraderie and goodwill coming out of Friday’s summit between the two Korean leaders. With Trump still to go on stage, the cliffhanger episode of this high-wire Asian reality show hasn’t even begun yet.