The Trump/Kim Summit - USA v No. Korea - General Discussion

Delvo said:
Presidents routinely travel to lots of other countries. Other countries' leaders routinely travel to the USA and to each other's countries. Why does that become "getting summoned" in this case?
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When you're friends it's just visiting. When you're engaged in brinksmanship diplomacy, you're being summoned.
 
mgidm86 said:
And now they have nukes, that's what inattention has given the world. There it is in black and white - "having nukes makes a nation more significant"

North Korea is now significant and that's hardly due to any action or inaction taken by Trump.
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I'm afraid I didn't express myself very well there. Where I say "tends to confirm" I mean seems to confirm the notion that having nuclear weapons makes a nation more significant, not that they actually do. It's a notion that has served the nuclear powers well since WW2, as countries have poured resources into nuclear programs that could have been more effectively spent on conventional weapons or economic development.

To get down to cases : Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, but anyone in Iran who argues that it should has just been handed a gift by Trump. Sad.
 
Horatius said:
But that's been true for decades now. Why else is Pakistan handled with kid gloves, while Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded?
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You say that as if the only distinguishing characteristic is posession of nuclear weapons, not geography, size, or history. Israel had nuclear weapons in 1973 but that didn't stop Egypt and Syria launching the Yom Kippur War.
 
Why do we need a negotiator of our own?
Just let the North and South Koreans work something out, and Trump will show up for the press conference and maybe won't forget to sign whatever they put before him.
 
Craig4 said:
When you're friends it's just visiting. When you're engaged in brinksmanship diplomacy, you're being summoned.
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That's Xmas with my family in a nutshell. :cool:

Now I'm off to follow a conflict that really matters - Wales v Italy in the Six Nations. And to any of our French friends reading this, Allez France! Love you guys. Until next weekend, anyway.

(For the uninformed, France beat England 22-16 yesterday.)
 
Craig4 said:
When you're friends it's just visiting. When you're engaged in brinksmanship diplomacy, you're being summoned.
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Oh, nonsense. Let it pass.

Trump has not been "summoned" in any meaningful sense of the word. You are devoted to that interpretation because it makes Trump look weak, not for any other reason.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
The US has, as yet, had absolutely no direct communication with North Korea about this proposed meeting
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It wouldn't surprise me if the N. Koreans are as nonplussed as many Americans are right now ("You mean the SOB agreed to meet!?!?!). They are getting something no other President (Republican or Democrat) has provided; International recognition and 'status' in their own right but now that they have had the 'invitation' accepted, they have to come up with a plan on either holding it or (IMHO, NOT holding it) that will work to their advantage. So I suspect we'll hear something in the next few days.


phiwum said:
Trump has not been "summoned" in any meaningful sense of the word. You are devoted to that interpretation because it makes Trump look weak, not for any other reason.
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Call it what you will, the optics are that a President of the United States has accepted an invitation to meet with one of the worse dictators in the world and will, apparently, do so on said dictators' home ground. The leading power in the world either makes the invitations or accepts meetings after careful pre-negotiations and if the President goes somewhere it is because the President decides to do so, not because an International pariah invites him. Nixon went to China; Ike went to Korea. Trump is going to Korea.

So yeah, summoned is perhaps a bad term; but it is still not a good look for the President of the United States.

IMHO as always. YMMV.
 
William Parcher said:
I believe he said that she is in the book. I never implied that the affair is written about in the book.
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So we were talking past each other, which can happen. For instance when Trebuchet brought up "Fire and Fury" he was explicitly referring to Trump's threat and you went off on the book which adopted the phrase as its title.

Getting back to the more consequential world, Wales beat Italy by a comfortable margin so we can all sleep easy in our beds now. Until the France game, that is ...
 
Hutch said:
It wouldn't surprise me if the N. Koreans are as nonplussed as many Americans are right now ("You mean the SOB agreed to meet!?!?!). They are getting something no other President (Republican or Democrat) has provided; International recognition and 'status' in their own right but now that they have had the 'invitation' accepted, they have to come up with a plan on either holding it or (IMHO, NOT holding it) that will work to their advantage. So I suspect we'll hear something in the next few days.
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IMO the North Koreans won't cancel - Kim has too much to gain from it happening. I believe there are joint US-South Korean manoeuvres coming up, so they could use those a reason should they choose to.
 
Arcade22 said:
Trump is being played by the North Koreans. They want the prestige, status and validation of being seen as an equal to the US which has been it's main enemy. With nuclear arms at least theoretically threatening continental US, having meetings with an American President will allow them to claim that they brought the Americans to the negotiation table.

If a meeting happens it would be a huge propaganda coup for North Korea.
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Bingo.

The meeting doesn't have to accomplish anything more than taking place for NK to get a 'win' out of it. Nothing coming of it might be a positive outcome in and of itself, too. Kim can then credibly say "we conceded nothing to them!"

This is where the tapatalk signature that annoys people used to be
 
Craig4 said:
When you're friends it's just visiting. When you're engaged in brinksmanship diplomacy, you're being summoned.
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I'm trying to find a way to make sense out of that, and failing. Can you give some examples to illustrate this general principle?

Until this thread, I would have thought that most people here, including me, would normally say that talking to adversarial countries is a good thing because talking is the only thing that can end a conflict peacefully.

Hutch said:
They are getting something no other President (Republican or Democrat) has provided; International recognition and 'status' in their own right
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What reason was there to withhold that all along?

Hutch said:
Call it what you will, the optics are that a President of the United States has accepted an invitation to meet with one of the worse dictators in the world and will, apparently, do so on said dictators' home ground.
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Why does the location matter?

Hutch said:
if the President goes somewhere it is because the President decides to do so, not because an International pariah invites him. Nixon went to China; Ike went to Korea. Trump is going to Korea.

So yeah, summoned is perhaps a bad term; but it is still not a good look for the President of the United States.
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Wait... in one sentence you make a hypothetical Tump-Kim meeting look about the same as Nixon in China and Eisenhower in Korea, and then in the next you're saying Trump in North Korea would be bad... so does that mean the other two examples were also bad?
 
Hutch said:
... The leading power in the world either makes the invitations or accepts meetings after careful pre-negotiations and if the President goes somewhere it is because the President decides to do so, not because an International pariah invites him. Nixon went to China; Ike went to Korea. Trump is going to Korea.
...
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You do realize that "went" is the past tense of "go", and going is its gerund, or don't you?

So what is the difference between Ike and Nixon on one hand, Trump on the other? Other than that their visits took place in the past, and Trump's may take place in the near future - which is why different tense forms of the verb "to go" come into play?
 
Here's the win-win trade.

For Trump: NK releases all US prisoners (3 seems to be the number).

For Kim: he gets a temporary lifting of sanctions until it becomes obvious he really hasn't stopped developing nukes and missiles.

For Xi: he gets a retreat of US military presence in the S China Sea. (Degree of retreat to be determined.)

For Putin: he gets a small respite from US attention. (Not sure of the value there.)
 
Kim's big fear is that things will get so bad that he will be driven out of power, and/or killed. He would of course welcome the propaganda victory that comes with just meeting with Trump, but more importantly he needs to loosen the tightening noose of the sanctions, without giving up the nukes, that is his ace in the hole.

At this point he won't mind giving up testing, since in his mind he has sufficiently demonstrated nuclear capability. Anything to avoid the fate of other dictators who sadly had no nukes.
 
Marcus said:
Kim's big fear is that things will get so bad that he will be driven out of power, and/or killed. He would of course welcome the propaganda victory that comes with just meeting with Trump, but more importantly he needs to loosen the tightening noose of the sanctions, without giving up the nukes, that is his ace in the hole.

At this point he won't mind giving up testing, since in his mind he has sufficiently demonstrated nuclear capability. Anything to avoid the fate of other dictators who sadly had no nukes.
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Who is going to drive him out of power?

Is there anybody in that regime who thinks, "All I need to do is drive Kim out of power, reform the country and get some democracy going!"?

From what I can see, Kim Jong-un is completely in control in North Korea, and if there were such things as genuine polls, he would riding pretty high in the favourability ratings.

Then, out of the blue, the president of the United States suddenly starts suggesting that he might do something they have demanded for decades. I think Kim Jong un can't believe his luck. He probably thinks, at this point, there is a chance they could win the Korean War (1950-present).
 
the amount of murdering of potential rivals Un has done and keeps on doing suggests that his rule isn't very secure.
I believe that China could execute a regime change if it really wanted to, conjuring up a fake heir to the line to maintain the fiction.
But the risk of total collapse is too great for now.
 
Marcus said:
nukes, that is his ace in the hole.
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It really isn't. It's the only thing that puts him in any danger of an American attack. He knows perfectly well that there has been no such attack for all these years while NK hasn't had nuclear weapons, and that the only reason Americans ever mention bothering to swat him down is to prevent him from getting them.

Marcus said:
Anything to avoid the fate of other dictators who sadly had no nukes.
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I think it's safe to presume that whatever ideas influence him are probably not preposterously kooky American left-wingnut conspiracy memes... maybe no better connected to reality than those, but at least not exactly the same ones.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
the amount of murdering of potential rivals Un has done and keeps on doing suggests that his rule isn't very secure.
I believe that China could execute a regime change if it really wanted to, conjuring up a fake heir to the line to maintain the fiction.
But the risk of total collapse is too great for now.
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I don't believe China could do that.

I mean, I believe they could invade and take over the country if they were mad enough to do that, but the idea of installing a fake heir from the outside is harebrained, in my humble opinion.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
Bingo.

The meeting doesn't have to accomplish anything more than taking place for NK to get a 'win' out of it. Nothing coming of it might be a positive outcome in and of itself, too. Kim can then credibly say "we conceded nothing to them!"

This is where the tapatalk signature that annoys people used to be
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What I hate about these debates is it is a bunch of us debating what people who have feelings about where it takes place think. And we discuss the implications of that.

It would be nice to actually talk with one of those people.
 
Craig4 said:
If this happens it will only be a win for Lunchbox unless it happens in a neutral third country and it won't. This will be Kim summoning the US president to the Korean Peninsula to acknowledge that the DPRK is a nuclear power. The loser goes to the victor. There's a reason why most US Soviet summits were in third countries or reciprocal visits. If The Hair goes to Korea he's lost the moment he gets off the plane.
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He already has, the nuclear program forced the US president to the negotiating table at last. Total win for North Korea.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
the amount of murdering of potential rivals Un has done and keeps on doing suggests that his rule isn't very secure.
I believe that China could execute a regime change if it really wanted to, conjuring up a fake heir to the line to maintain the fiction.
But the risk of total collapse is too great for now.
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Hussein and Stalin did a lot of that and had pretty secure ruler ship with respect to internal stresses. I mean does Jun Un even have any brother left to usurp him?
 
he has a sister...

But yeah, with that poison attack on Kim Jong-nam, he probably took away Chinas last ace for replacing him with someone more controllable.
But it might be enough to get all the generals on their side.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
he has a sister...

But yeah, with that poison attack on Kim Jong-nam, he probably took away Chinas last ace for replacing him with someone more controllable.
But it might be enough to get all the generals on their side.
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Even after the unfortunate accident his uncle had with the anti aircraft cannon?

I find it unlikely that anyone could build a sufficient power base to unseat him
 
angrysoba said:
Who is going to drive him out of power?

Is there anybody in that regime who thinks, "All I need to do is drive Kim out of power, reform the country and get some democracy going!"?

From what I can see, Kim Jong-un is completely in control in North Korea, and if there were such things as genuine polls, he would riding pretty high in the favourability ratings.

Then, out of the blue, the president of the United States suddenly starts suggesting that he might do something they have demanded for decades. I think Kim Jong un can't believe his luck. He probably thinks, at this point, there is a chance they could win the Korean War (1950-present).
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Kim is in control, but there are limits to what even his people will put up with. If even China joins in the sanctions, the squeeze will really be on. He is already afraid of attack by the US, that is what the whole nuclear thing is all about, and he is afraid of assassination.

The meeting with Trump is Kims golden opportunity to negotiate his way out of the sanctions without giving up his nukes.
 
Delvo said:
It really isn't. It's the only thing that puts him in any danger of an American attack. He knows perfectly well that there has been no such attack for all these years while NK hasn't had nuclear weapons, and that the only reason Americans ever mention bothering to swat him down is to prevent him from getting them.

I think it's safe to presume that whatever ideas influence him are probably not preposterously kooky American left-wingnut conspiracy memes... maybe no better connected to reality than those, but at least not exactly the same ones.
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It's a fine line, he knows he is pissing us off with his blustering, but he also knows what happens to dictators we don't like who we are not afraid of.

First establish that you are a threat, then offer to negotiate. A dangerous strategy with someone as inexperienced and uninformed as Trump.

Kim is smarter than he looks though, I won't be surprised if he is successful in the end.
 
ponderingturtle said:
He already has, the nuclear program forced the US president to the negotiating table at last. Total win for North Korea.
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The fact adults have to address dangerous situations is part of life. A child, wishing attention, may attempt to run and jump into a canal. Yes, an adult may need to stop the kid, thus fulfilling the desire for attention. Adults shouldn't waste their energy contemplating the self satisfaction of the dangerous.
 
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