Running North Korea freakout thread

You gotta admit, Trump has thus far crushed it on NK. I never thought he would. But returning Americans, destroying nuclear facilities, getting the summit, getting China to pressure. Every president for 50 years has been dealing with this and none of them have done what's been done the last year. If he said he's going to wing it, then that's what he should do. Its worked this far.

 

You understand, right, that any American President in the last 18 years could have gotten the summit, too, right? That all the other guys have said, "denuclearize first, and then summit" .... right?

 

Dude, that's where Elvis, Hitler, Walt Disney and Dorothy Parker are busy playing pinochle.

 

So the President and Kim signed a "comprehensive" document, but nobody is saying what it is. The hotel bills?

 

Almost sounds like they agreed to keep talking. Not as substantive as Trump will make it out to be.

 

Leaked copy of the agreement.

I (the undersigned) representing (my country) agree to sign this agreement in front of video and still cameras and agree with the other the party to allow both entities to declare it says whatever they want to say it says and not to contradict the other party of the agreement.

 

Full text of Trump-Kim signed statement - CNNPolitics

 

And look how effective that strategy has been, NK has nukes & missiles with absolutely NO progress in decades. So lets keep going with that?

 

A quick summary of arms control experts and international relations scholars and reporters on twitter. 1. Agreement is eerily similar to previous US-NK agreements going back to 1992 except maybe more vague. 2. Trump's later statement he'll end joint US-South Korea military exercises a big concession given away for zip without consulting our ally. 3. Still, it all beats nuclear war in Asia. 4. This is why China should be happiest of all, this takes a lot of pressure off their chief worry, a war ending with the collapse of North Korea's current state.

 

Committing to something and following through on it are vastly different things. Odds are this just prolongs the status quo.

 

Agreed. But we've had almost 75 years of the nuclear age, and one thing is clear. Whenever a country takes the time and expense to create nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, they don't give 'em up. No one has used one since August 9,1945, but they don't just surrender them. The one exception were the former Soviet Republics that had nukes on their territory. They couldn't get rid of them fast enough, figuring eventually they would be grounds for Russian invasion. But North Korea, with many enemies and no friends, is not gonna give 'em up.

 

I have a weird theory:

North Korea is the one situation he hasn’t fucked up in this godforsaken presidency. He’s dealing with a country that displays a 19th century outlook. So oddly Trump’s bombast actually works with them.

It is literally the only time Trump’s weird early 20th century notions of power and politics play. He’s perfect to deal a lunatic like Kim. Trump speaks his language.