Re: CIA Director Pompeo makes secret trip to North Korea: Meets with Kim Jong Un
I started reading this and then I realized that you dont know that Trump listens too and makes sure that he understands Kissinger very well.
He puts on a show of admiring Kissinger, but what has he actually done that demonstrates he approaches foreign policy in the same way that Kissinger does? I think Kissinger wouldn't have bothered striking Syria, for example, and he would be recalcitrant about staying in Afghanistan to nation-build. I don't even
like Kissinger but he undoubtedly has a coherent, strategic view of the world that Trump lacks. And to be fair, I don't think anyone would be able to make a breakthrough with the North Koreans, even if they are as smart as Kissinger.
This is feeling a lot like the diplomatic efforts with China in the 1970s.
There are some superficial similarities (an unrepentant Stalinist dictator meeting with high-level American diplomats, a more liberalized second Communist state with ambivalent feelings about said dictator) but the circumstances really are entirely different. Not only was China already a nuclear power by the time Kissinger and Nixon met with Mao, it was also the most populated country in the world with a massive and capable army that could go toe-to-toe with the Soviets. Nixon going to China aligned this juggernaut more closely with the US in the Cold War and ended Beijing's support for Marxist-Leninist rebel groups around the world. North Korea is a weak and tiny state with virtually no soft power or projection capability beyond its own borders that would be crushed in any conflict with China. A reduction in tensions on the Korean peninsula is definitely nice, but other than that all we'd be doing is prying the impotent pariah of North Korea from its already questionable alliance with China.
A better comparison might be Willy Brandt and Ostpolitik, where the German chancellor improved relations with the Eastern Bloc as a whole and East Germany in particular. North Korea has invested a lot more resources and internal propaganda into reunification with the South, though, and the example of East Germany is not one Pyongyang would want to follow.
China hasn't been "capitalist", it is still a command economy. The Chinese Communists just try and mimic the functions of a capitalist economy in how they direct their production.
What makes you say this? I'm no economist, but it seems to me that even though they definitely aren't free market capitalists, their international trade, allowance of private enterprise, and relentless pursuit of not only development but
profit is incredibly capitalist. It definitely is capitalist in the Marxist sense at the very least, and the CCP barely even bothers denying that at this point.
Don't get me wrong, this is largely a good thing - the massive improvement in the average Chinese person's living standards since market reforms speaks for itself - but it also means that the CCP has little reason to fear Korea reuniting under the South's government.
When you say, "we don't fully understand...", you should realize you are only speaking for yourself. Others don't have your deficiencies.
So you are fully aware of the internal state of North Korea: how sanctions have impacted its economy, what potential individuals or factions in the Pyongyang regime want and how KJU might be dealing with them, what exactly made them show interest in these talks and what they expect to get out of them? You know why KJU met with Xi Jinping and what they talked about? If the answer is "no" to any of this, then no, you don't fully understand the situation. If you answer "yes," you still don't fully understand because this information is completely inaccessible to almost everyone and you're in over your head if you think you know why the most opaque and secretive government on the planet has suddenly agreed to talks after nearly a year of aggressive saber-rattling.
So go listen to South Korean leaders. Just this morning they are out in the media thanking president Trump and crediting him with jump starting all these peace talks. Are they just stupid "trumpers" you can also ignore? Seems like they would be the ones to know, wouldn't they?
Do you think the South Koreans would
denigrate Trump in a situation like this? Putting on a front of admiring allied leaders happens all the time in public diplomacy. It's the same reason our government will praise Turkey's contributions in the fight against terrorism or other nonsense like that.
