Not A Beer Summit

After 8 years of “strategic patience” (Marie Harf speak for doing absolutely nothing), while North Korea tested and refined its nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities, threatened the U.S. and its allies, murdered one of our citizens, the brutal dictator of the hermit kingdom has invited Donald Trump to a summit and, through the South Koreans,  has indicated its willingness to discuss denuclearization. Donald Trump immediately accepted the invitation. 

Trump’s acceptance prompted immediate reactions from the Left and the MSM and as well as the Right.  First, they are both howling because they claim that a meeting with Kim Jung Un is a major concession, a recognition that other presidents have not been willing to grant.  Second, the meeting carries a great deal of risk since there has not been sufficient preparatory work at lower diplomatic levels to achieve real substantial agreement.  Most other “summits” are capstones after months of pre-negotiation work, not as an opening move.  Third, as the New York Times noted today, Trump accepted on the spot without really consulting with his advisors or other key players such as China and Japan.

While all there is some validity to these concerns and they should not be dismissed, meeting with Kim Jung Un is a risk worth taking.

Why the summit makes sense.

First, we are on the brink of war anyway, and the consensus among military planners is that a war on the Korean peninsula would be catastrophic, would involve millions of casualties and would likely spread beyond the peninsula and go nuclear very quickly.   We have played out other options and the North Koreans have demonstrated that they can either withstand or evade sanctions.  With each tick of the clock, the choice has devolved into a binary one--- a deal or all out war.

Unlike Islamists that are apparently willing to die for the cause, the North Korean regime does not appear to be suicidal.   Kim Jung Un knows that an attempted nuclear strike would end his regime.  A single nuclear armed submarine carries 25 or so warheads and there are two patrolling in his neighborhood.  This is in addition to our B2 bombers and other ICBM’s which are trained on Pyongyang and other targets.  We have 3 carrier groups in position and the North Koreans have little in the way of a navy or air force that can match us.  The U. S. has been war gaming this scenario for decades.  With the addition of even a small number of ICBMs able to reach the US mainland soon (if not now), our military leverage over North Korea will never be as great as it is today.   While we would be in for a difficult and costly fight (our last 3 wars in Asia have been difficult ones—1 win, 1 loss, and 1 tie), we would certainly prevail, but the calculus would change once it was certain that North Korea could hit any spot on the continental U.S. with some reliability.

The second important reason to go forward is that North Korea’s arsenal is much more than about North Korea.  It is more about Iran.  North Korea does not seem to have great regional expansionist desires.  Iran does.  The incomplete and poorly negotiated JPCOA not only permitted Iran to continue to develop its missile systems, it gave them cash to do so as well as to sow chaos in the region.  Nuclear arms capability must be viewed as a SYSTEM—a warhead and the means to deliver it.  JPCOA merely limited the warhead aspect of its system, leaving it free to move forward on with the delivery system.   There is confirmed evidence that Iran and North Korea have cooperated on missile and nuclear technology.  And North Korea has already demonstrated its willingness to be a purveyor of WMD.  It has helped the Assad regime with its chemical weapons manufacturing equipment.    A cash starved North Korea would have every incentive to sell Iran a warhead to place on an Iranian missile.  This risk that North Korea would get into the nuclear wholesale business is precisely why calls for a containment strategy (most notably, Susan Rice) must not be heeded, and its nuclear programs must either be negotiated away or stopped by force.

Third, partially as a result of pushback from liberal Democrats (starting with Ted Kennedy and continuing on to Obama), our missile defense is not reliable enough to defend against a North Korean attack.  The tests that have been successful have occurred under very controlled conditions.  And our warning systems are really designed to detect a Soviet style massive attack, not a limited nuclear attack of a single or a handful of missiles.   We already experienced an embarrassing false positive alarm this year in Hawaii.   Further, we have not yet hardened our electrical grid, so even a single warhead detonated over the continental U.S. could have devastating consequences due to the EMP (electromagnetic pulse).  Some estimates have warned that 90% of the U.S. population could perish in the months after a single detonation that fries all of the electrical systems in the U.S. 

Fourth, Trump himself is an advantage at the moment.  Trump’s presence (his action on tariffs offers immediate evidence) causes a recalibration and recalculation of the odds of military action.  His “America First” doctrine means that he will weigh America’s interests ahead of that of others.   Prior to Trump, the North Korean regime could proceed with real confidence that the U.S. would not risk heavy civilian casualties in Seoul to eliminate the North Korea threat.  Kim Jung Un may be calculating that that this may no longer be the case, and that a war with the U.S. would almost certainly end his regime and that Trump may weigh the citizens of Los Angeles more heavily than the citizens of Seoul. 

We are now out of time.   While a meeting with Kim Jung Un carries risks, I see those risks as minimal compared to the possible upside.    It is important to recall that many of President Reagan’s advisors (even the sober George Shultz) strenuously advised Reagan not to give the “Tear Down This Wall” speech at the Berlin Wall as “unnecessarily provocative” and it turned out to be as meaningful as Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech.   The recent film The Darkest Hour reminds us that there are times when it is appropriate to take a bold but risky stand.

Why you should be skeptical

Of course, I am skeptical and wary of this is a well-worn path.  We have seen this movie before, several times.   North Korea goes into bellicose mode, then launches a charm offensive to play for time and concessions, pockets the concessions and then cheats.   Seventy years of experience have told us that it is not likely that Kim Jung Un has had a sudden epiphany.  The first question you need to ask is why one would think this time might be different.  

Second, the world has learned a couple of things over the past couple of decades.  The Iraq and Libya regime changes taught North Korea that a tyrant without a nuke ends up dead.  The lesson of Qaddafi might even be a worse message than that of Hussein because Qaddafi voluntarily submitted to denuclearization and the West facilitated his demise anyway.  The second lesson that Kim Jung Un learned is that if you pretend to cooperate, at least partially, you will receive cash and goodies.  It worked for his father in 1994 and it worked for Iran under JPCOA.    Feigning compliance pays well.

Third,  while we have limited experience in Trump actually getting deals done in the public sphere,  Trump has tended to give up too much in his opening bid.  He offered the prospect of citizenship for 1.8 million illegal aliens to the Democrats (something not even Obama put on the table).  He is threatening executive action on guns and is showing a willingness to nibble away at the 2^nd Amendment (including raising the minimum age to buy a rifle).   In a highly technical world of de-nuclearization and verification procedures, it is a legitimate concern that Trump will concede too much without thinking through the technical details.

Why I have a glimmer of hope.

Trump is a disrupter.   He defies the status quo and adherence to the status quo tor decades is what got us here.   Because Trump does not follow an ideological line, there is a chance—even if small--- that he can create a combination of inducements that will both be acceptable to North Korea and to the U.S. and its allies.  The deadlock in North Korea is one situation in which only a negotiator that is willing to break with ideology might be able to come up with an acceptable outcome.   Scott Adams even thought it might be a good idea to bring Dennis Rodman along to break the ice and make introductions since he is the one person who has personal experience with Trump and Kim Jung Un. 

Also don’t underestimate the pressure that Kim Jung Un is under from inside North Korea.  The fact that he murdered his brother shows that he has little trust of anyone, even in his own family.  Beneath that chubby smiling face and brimming confidence is the knowledge that all it takes is one slip up in the security apparatus.   And Trump has been putting more pressure on the regime than the prior administration.

What to look for.

What should Trump do.

This is a go big or go home moment.   Trump need to ambush Kim Jung Un in these negotiations and not the other way around.   We have had decades of Lucy, Charlie Brown and the football negotiations, only to have the North Koreans pocket concessions and then not live up to their side of the bargain.   Therefore, these negotiations should go beyond denuclearization.  It is not simply the nuclear threat that presents a problem, although that is the threat that is most pressing.  But even if de-nuclearization is achieved (and the definition of de-nuclearization is itself a big issue), the problem doesn’t go away unless you solve for the North Korean artillery.   The North Koreans have some 12,000 artillery tubes and another 2,300 multiple rocket launchers ready to devastate Seoul.  Trump needs to go further, and press on a wind down of conventional forces as well and that may hold the key to Kim’s desire to remove U.S. troops from the peninsula. 

We will know pretty quickly what the North Koreans are up to.   Trump and his team should constantly ask themselves “what’s different” this time and if Trump gets the sense that Kim Jung Un is simply repeating the pattern—playing for time, he should not hesitate to get up and leave the room.   As we learned from Reagan’s negotiations with Gorbachev in Reykjavik, it is likely that we will only be able to get to a deal if we demonstrate that we are willing to walk from it.  If that happens, I would immediately ramp up military preparations, and perhaps contemplate a limited strike to show that we mean business.

What Trump should not do.

The liberal press, along with some other detractors are carping about Trump giving the North Koreans recognition by meeting with them.  That is a red herring.   Achieving nuclear capability that threatens the homeland means that we have to deal with them, one way or another.   Unlike the Castro regime, where there was no compelling reason to normalize relations, the North Korean situation needs to come to some climax during Trump’s first term. 

What Kim Jung Un will likely seek is money and time.   Trump needs to make very clear that there will be no more money (directly or indirectly) and no more time.   The ONLY concession Trump should make on this point is to dangle out sanctions relief at some point in the future when certain verifiable benchmarks are met.   We are maintaining our carrier groups in the area and will proceed with our annual military exercises with South Korea as planned and that is a good start.  

While North Korea and Iran have learned something from the Iraq and Libya experience with respect to WMD, we have learned a few things, too.  We have been through arms negotiations with the Soviets, Iran, and several failed rounds with North Korea.  We have learned that delegating enforcement to China or Russia is a bad move.  Within a short period of time of John Kerry and Susan Rice guaranteeing that their deal with Russia solved the chemical weapons problem in Syria, sickening videos of Syrian children gasping their last breaths emerged.   Similarly, Obama negotiated away our participation in the inspection process of JPCOA and granted long warning times, and I remain skeptical that Iran remains compliant.   And we have undoubtedly learned a number of technical things as well.  This is institutional knowledge and goes beyond the personal negotiating skill of Donald Trump.  He will certainly have extensive briefing sessions prior to the meeting.  Trump also has a unique skill of being able to mock and speak with hyperbole, then let bygones be bygones as he did with Ted Cruz.   In an odd way, I suspect that Kim Jung Un knows that and respects that because he engages in similar tactics.

Yes, this is a high risk meeting.  But the risks of continuing down this path without something to break the logjam are even greater, in my view because Iran looms large in the background, and Tehran may be the ultimate end customer for North Korean production of nuclear warheads.  If there is a chance that this meeting could turn into something positive, Trump is the guy to do it.