Kim/Trump Summit Disaster

[Dill]

(03-01-2019, 10:18 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I get the nebulous concerns of some, I also find them to be abstract, and thus difficult to quantify or even prove.  ...  What I don't get is the labeling of this effort as an abject failure when it's still embryonic.  This is a marathon and not a sprint. 

Part II: on the “nebulousness” of some difficult to quantify concerns. The clouds dissipate if one compares the reach and power of NK from before the summit to after. And then the difference between a marathon and a sprint also becomes clearer.

1.       How many world leaders had Kim met with before the Singapore Summit? The answer is one—Moon of SK, on that very small peninsular stage, and motivated by the “ineffectual” policy of sanctions. How many world leaders has Kim met with since Singapore? Six and at least two more pending, plus Pope Francis is considering a visit. China, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Russia and the U.S.—some very large actors there, one of whom visited him at home. Indonesia invited him to the Asian Games in Jakarta.  Mongolia has also invited Kim. And Japan, fearful of losing its formerly secure place at the table, now wants an audience. This is not a draw power Kim had before the summit, and it is created by insecurity Trump has generated in allies.  The promises of “lasting robust peace” and “eventual de-nuclearization” are certainly nebulous, but these numbers are not. How hard is it to prove that Kim was in his box before, when he had never even left the Korean Peninsula, and now he is out?

2.       Can we not assess how our allies’ dismay at Trump’s handling of NK, including his publicly expressed desire to remove troops from SK, has increased Kim’s power? All we have to do is watch SK and Japan, who benefit most directly from the “abject failure” of previous policies which have protected them for six decades, and which Trump speaks of dismantling.  Trump’s threat of removing US troops—that makes it MORE necessary that Moon/Abe reach their own accommodations with Kim or LESS? If it is MORE, then does that give Kim more power or less? Before, Japan refused all diplomatic relations with NK. Now Abe has vowed to restore them. Why suddenly the need to SPRINT? We find the same dismay among Trump’s own foreign policy advisors, who (if Woodward is to be believed) have gone so far as to remove orders from Trump’s desk to prevent him from impulsively canceling KORUS. They TRY to articulate some semblance of coherent policy with goals, but, as with the ME policy, Trump changes his mind that afternoon and undermines them.

3.       So why don’t these allies/advisors recognize Trump’s negotiations as a marathon, not a sprint? Largely because Trump has treated them as a sprint.  He has ignored his PDBs and diplomatic groundwork and rushed to the big photo op. Compare this to the “marathon” whereby diplomatic relations were established with China or the ratification of Salt I-II or the Iran Deal and the difference from a sprint is quite apparent, with the President, the BIG KAHUNA, appearing in the final stage of a prepared process, a framework in place both sides understand, conversant with the issues and relevant diplomatic history. Days after the 1985 Fireside Summit Reagan did not express surprise that Gorbachev had not already begun removing Intermediate missiles from Poland. That was because he had a plan, understood what obstacles were still before him--that there WERE obstacles before him--worked with experts who knew more, and couldn’t care less about photo ops. He did not have to "walk away" from anything.

4.       Are the disincentives created by Trump’s non-summits really that “abstract” and/or “difficult to prove”?  We have seen how his bust up of the Iran Deal created incentives for allies to work around sanctions now (INSTEX). The disciplined network of internationally monitored and enforced control which addressed Iran, Russia and NK, and which Congress is struggling to maintain (see for example Public Law 115-44, the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act of 2017), took a serious hit. And now it is to be deployed against NK with its former effectiveness? By people who have no idea what Trump policy is from one week to the next?

5.       Can anyone in this forum identify a single substantial “accomplishment” on the US side (e.g., remains and prisoners returned) that could not have been brought about by preparatory, lower-level diplomacy, saving the summit for capstone achievement? And does anyone dispute that this traditional diplomatic tack would NOT have immediately brought Kim face-to-face with a US president to produce a “historic first”? For those who go by Trump’s actions, not his words, his unfiltered, impulsive choices do indeed reveal who he is, why he lost his first picks for Secretary of State, for Defense, and his Chief of Staff. And if YOU can see this, why cannot our allies and adversaries? Why not Kim?