What do you think will be the outcome of the summit between Kim Jong-in and Donald Trump? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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What do you think will be the outcome of the summit between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump?
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has arrived in Singapore for his scheduled summit meeting with US President Donald Trump.
The historic meeting between the two leaders will take place at the island resort of Sentosa on Tuesday.
It is the first time a North Korean leader has met a sitting US president.
Before setting off, Mr Trump described the summit as a "one-time shot" at peace and said the two were in "unknown territory in the truest sense".
The US president will arrive later on Sunday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44429240
#14923123
How about WWIII?
What comes to mind is the Cuban Missile Crisis and how close we were to WWIII kicking off.
With or Donald Trump’s help, Kim Jong-un could easily plunge the planet into its third world war inside a century. Of course this one would be vastly more destructive than the Great War, where even the use of aircraft was in its infancy – though sadly not chemical weapons – or World War II, which ended with the first and so far only use of nuclear weapons in war.

To date Donald Trump has played a strong hand. He has installed anti-missile defences against the North inside South Korea. He is doing, more or less, what President Kennedy did in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and what President Reagan did in the Cold War in the 1980s: practising brinkmanship, demonstrating strength, displaying resolve. The South Koreans are having elections now, and their new government, after 9 May, may not be as resolute as its predecessor and the Trump administration. Yet while Pyongyang has the capacity to raze Seoul to the ground – even without nuclear weaponry – they may not protest too loudly.

Like Kennedy and Reagan, Trump could prevail. Yet it is not tricky to see how things could spin out of control. Feeling abandoned and exposed, Kim could loose off a few missiles of his own, maybe towards Japan – always a popular target. True to recent form in Afghanistan (the MOAB job) and Syria, President Trump could retaliate with a “surgical” and “proportionate” strike on some North Korean facility. Then what? North Korea sinks a South Korean war ship. There are skirmishes on the ground. Some North Koreans manage to get themselves shot to ribbons. He chucks another missile over the border and it kills American troops. Trump escalates to bombing – conventionally – government buildings and those absurd statues of Kim’s dad and granddad. Kim sees his regime lethally threatened. He now sees no alternative, nothing to lose. A rat cornered, he unleashes his huge conventional forces, supported by Chinese and Russian diplomacy, hoping to get the Americans to back off and leave him in power.Tanks overwhelm the DMZ, American troops are massacred. The US is drawn in. China is faced with gigantic floods of refugees and refuses to permit American troops beyond a certain point near its border. What happens if Japanese, Australian, Nato and other troops fight to defend South Korea? What would Vladimir Putin do?

Donald Trump warns ‘major, major conflict’ with North Korea is ‘absolutely’ possible
The Second Korean War will have begun, with the Third World War not far behind; the long-delayed playing out of the last legacies of the Second World War and the Cold War.


There’s no shortage of ammo. In that corner of the world meet the planet’s biggest and most powerful military forces. The US, pre-eminently, but also Russia, so far content to be more of an observer than a player for now, but another nuclear power. It has long since dropped away from being the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s ideological mentor and economic support (dating from when Khrushchev denounced Stalinism, when Mao did not; Pyongyang never looked back). Still, it has a land border with North Korea.

The third nuclear power and the DPRK’s more recent “Communist” friend, China, is more intimately concerned. Taking Donald Trump at his word, it is worried enough to publicly chastise North Korea and push for harsher sanctions. There is South Korea too, rapidly growing its armed forces, and of course North Korea, with a vast army and whatever nuclear and missile technology it has been able to develop. Japan too, though technically limited to “self-defence” has substantial armed forces. It would not take this advanced rich power long to develop nuclear technology if the need arose. In the whole of human history there has never been a bigger powder keg. Nor men so strange playing with a box of matches near to it.

Kim Jong-un is not “crazy”. He, like his dad, is not a nutty despot portrayed so amusingly in Team America or The Interview. He is ruthless though, and paranoid, as we have seen with the elimination of his rivals and critics. If he thinks he has nothing to lose; if America is set on deposing him just the same as Saddam or Gaddafi, and he thinks he will end up being publicly hanged or dismembered anyway, then what is there to stop him taking a few million Koreans and Japanese, plus a few thousand Yankee soldiers, with him?

That is where the danger for President Trump lies. Trump has cleverly made some noises about America not wanting “regime change” in Pyongyang. But what use are words to Kim? The reason Kim wants his nukes and enjoys playing with them so much, like a cunning kid with matches or fireworks, is precisely to freak out the grown-ups all around him, leaders who actually do care about human life and the future of their nations. What Kim sees is a world where America – plus cronies such as South Korea, Japan, the EU and even China or Russia in this case – will get rid of you if you are dumb enough to disarm yourself, or let them interfere with your weapons programmes. So that is why Gaddafi and Saddam are no longer with us; but why Kim and the Iranians are still sitting pretty.

The danger is not so much Trump personally, but what any American president must do if they feel the vital security of the US is at stake, and past policies have failed. And that is to get involved in a gigantic game of “chicken”.I hope that is not trivialising it. Basically, though, what we are talking about here is the sacrifice of South Korea and Japan in order to eliminate some threat of a North Korean missile murdering Americans sometime in the next five years or so. That threat can be assessed as possible, probable or certain, and will shift over time, but seems unlikely to disappear of its own volition, e.g. through massive economic collapse (which is perhaps what the policy of “strategic patience” pursued under Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama was secretly all about). It is not a prospect that any president can feel comfortable with however. No president can allow a hostile state to be in a position to hit San Francisco with a nuclear-tipped ICBM if it can stop it from happening.


https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/no ... 10191.html
#14923125
Godstud wrote:In one word: NOTHING.


Lack of desire for peace on the Korean peninsula, even if it incidentally makes US President Trump look good, duly noted.

I think a lot of you folks are going to become totally unhinged in a rather short time, overcome by the prospect of either having to modify your opinion of Trump somewhat or launch off into total cloud cukoo land. Not only will the Korean War officially end, I predict, but there will be a draw down of military forces in the area, as Kim and North Korea go the route of the PRC and North Korea's mineral wealth is exploited in partnership with foreign Capitalist countries.
#14923135
Annatar1914 wrote:Lack of desire for peace on the Korean peninsula, even if it incidentally makes US President Trump look good, duly noted.
:roll: Don't be an obtuse fool and mistake my lack of faith in that asshole Trump, for apathy. I am very pessimistic that the most undiplomatic person to ever be President of the USA, has what it takes to broker any kind of peace in the region.
#14923140
I don't think many people on this forum understand the situation between North and South Korea. The North has enough conventional (and unblockable) artillery aimed as Seoul to almost completely destroy one of the world's largest metropolitan areas. They have nuclear weapons that, while unlikely to do much damage to America, could surely fuck South Korea up pretty badly. When I was in Seoul there were lockers in the subways full of gas masks and other military supplies. Trump will almost surely take whatever he will get and pretty much anything would be progress.
#14923148
Godstud wrote::roll: Don't be an obtuse fool and mistake my lack of faith in that asshole Trump, for apathy.




Godstud wrote:@Hong Wu I think you underestimate the people on this forum, greatly. Most are well aware of DPRK's capability.



Feeling a little Star Wars-ish today Godstud?
#14923149
Godstud wrote::roll: Don't be an obtuse fool and mistake my lack of faith in that asshole Trump, for apathy. I am very pessimistic that the most undiplomatic person to ever be President of the USA, has what it takes to broker any kind of peace in the region.


I'm not being obtuse or a fool, when I can see people's anger clouding their judgement. Instilling fear is possibly the best diplomacy, at times, that a ruler can possibly have in their toolkit for the management of people. You don't think that President Trump doesn't possess the best intelligence possible on Kim Jong Un and concerning the nature of the North Korean regime? What do you think they understand?
#14923150
Are you feeling a bit retarded today, @blackjack21 ?

Anger clouding my judgement? :roll: You're making some really childish assumptions.

I shall repeat what I said, just for you: I am very pessimistic that the most undiplomatic person to ever be President of the USA, has what it takes to broker any kind of peace in the region.

Trump is hardly able to deal with his allies in a resasonable way, let alone potential enemies.
#14923156
Godstud wrote:Are you feeling a bit retarded today, @blackjack21 ?

Anger clouding my judgement? :roll: You're making some really childish assumptions.

I shall repeat what I said, just for you: I am very pessimistic that the most undiplomatic person to ever be President of the USA, has what it takes to broker any kind of peace in the region.

Trump is hardly able to deal with his allies in a resasonable way, let alone potential enemies.


Well for starters i'm not blackjack21. But let's judge by results, shall we? I'm sure you were one of the many who didn't think he'd win the GOP Primaries... Then the general Presidential election.... And on and on, misjudging and not understanding.
#14923159
My comment for Blackjack21 was the first line. The rest was aimed at you, but I guess you're a bit slow, tonight.

I am judging by his current and past diplomatic ventures. He's terrible at diplomacy.
#14923173
Godstud wrote:I am judging by his current and past diplomatic ventures. He's terrible at diplomacy.

Trump is the only president in the last 50 years to have a summit with North Korea. Nobody knows what will come of it, but he has already achieved Reaganesque stature. I'm sure the Bushes and Clintons are feeling pretty aggrieved.
#14923174
I have a feeling Godstud will be eating crow over this one, for a variety of reasons. One I'd reiterate is that literally any progress with North Korea is genuinely worth celebrating so unless Kim is intending to meet in person and then do nothing, and he normally doesn't meet with people at all, then it's practically a done deal that this ends in some kind of win for Trump.
#14923178
Trump has had no summit with KJU, as of yet. Your yapping is that of a little dog, @Hong Wu.

An interesting read:

Why Trump's Predecessors Did Not Meet With North Korea
http://time.com/5192579/trump-meets-kim ... rth-korea/

Also...
Trump isn't the first US President to get a North Korean invite. But he's the first to accept.
No US president has agreed to sit down with a North Korean leader -- until now.

Just by showing up to see Kim Jong Un, Donald Trump would give his murderous dynasty what it has always craved -- the prestige and propaganda coup of a meeting of equals with the President of the United States.

That is why the talks represent such a massive gamble for Trump and will subject him to intense pressure to deliver a significant breakthrough in return toward the US goal of dismantling North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

The difficulty of that assignment is why Trump's predecessors balked a breakthrough encounter the President has now agreed to.

Because a meeting with the US President is so valuable to the North Koreans, it's always been the American position that it should be reserved for the moment a deal is on the table -- and deliver a significant return.

The White House is convinced that the pain inflicted by its "maximum pressure" sanctions campaign has so weakened North Korea that it is desperate to negotiate.

But Trump's inexperience and willingness to risk one of his best cards -- the prestige of a presidential visit -- is one reason some analysts caution he may be walking into a trap.

The stunning developments on North Korea underline one thing: Trump is not like any of his predecessors and cares little for foreign policy orthodoxy.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/09/poli ... index.html
#14923189
My comment for Blackjack21 was the first line. The rest was aimed at you, but I guess you're a bit slow, tonight.


No, not really slow, just amused at your usual lack of dignified composure when you get flustered by the truth. Not but to also briefly mention the usual liberal attacks on one's intellect if one disagrees with them.

I am judging by his current and past diplomatic ventures. He's terrible at diplomacy.


Historically speaking, toothless diplomacy not backed by credible force is not good diplomacy nor particularly intelligent. So, it remains to be seen whether Trump's diplomacy is terrible.

I might add too the Clauswitzian dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means, and this is true. One might even agree with the Leninist insight that politics (including diplomacy) is the continuation of war by other means.

Sometimes peaceful diplomacy just doesn't work out either, and war becomes the answer. But I suspect Kim is in no mood for war, so something will be negotiated.

Work on that Trump hatred, because he's counting on that, for one thing.
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