It is Friday afternoon and as we’ve learned, big news often drops sometime in the evening.   There will probably be something that should have been addressed in the update, but was intentionally kept until the evening for whatever strategic reason. That may be the case, but there’s no shortage of matters that deserve attention.   Sometimes we wish there were. We’ll probably hear that they’ve REALLY got Trump, for sure this time.   That’ll probably be it.

You may remember the information relayed a couple of weeks ago, about the man behind the curtain in EU leadership.   His name is Martin Selmayer, as was relayed in our last monthly letter.   An article this week suggests that the Brexit “formula,” rejected by the British Parliament, was written in Berlin!   No wonder the thing left all manner of European rules in place.   No wonder that Prime Minister Theresa May was unable to renegotiate, even around the margins, with European leaders.   They couldn’t change the terms of the agreement anyway.   The terms were apparently laid out behind the scenes by someone with authority.

There’s no way we can tell you how this comes out.   The possibility of a “hard Brexit” at the end of this month still exists.   If Britain pulls the plug with no agreements in place, chances are the EU will make it as difficult as possible.   That’s the concern, that Britain will suffer in trade, travel and that English citizens living and working in Europe will find things they took for granted impossible. The British Parliament is due to hold another vote on the Brexit plan it already shot down, apparently with minor changes that do nothing to address the big problems that led to its demise last time.  There’s also the possibility of another delay.   We’ll see.

 Phony “hate crimes” are still being manufactured regularly.   Nobody seems to learn their lesson.   There are at least TWO more this week alone.   Mainstream outlets report these incidents (or false reports) soberly, even when they’re wildly suspicious. It just goes to show you the media can no longer be relied upon for accurate reporting, and will undoubtedly mislead the public with their analysis.   The most irritating aspect of this is that there apparently is a sizable audience for Fake News. While we turn it off in disgust, there are at least a couple million who hang on every word.   They probably even stay put for the commercials!

You’re doubtless aware that recent records are being shattered for the sheer numbers walking into the United States.   Since the vast majority are now “other than Mexicans,” they can’t be deported back across the border thanks to laws that congress thinks are just fine. Detention centers are bursting at the seams and thousands of people are being released into society. There’s no hope for the situation unless it’s made nearly impossible by some kind of barrier.   Meanwhile, the United States is an economic playground for whoever is willing to cough up enough cash for the smugglers.

The good news this week, if it actually sticks, is that the President is going to require universities to allow FREE SPEECH on their campuses if they expect to continue receiving Federal funding.   It’s unbelievable that universities were the one’s that went to wild extremes to claim their right to free speech.   Apparently it was only socialist/communist/anti-American speech they wanted to promote. Since radical socialist dogma has taken hold, they’ve allowed conservative speakers to be verbally and physically threatened.   They’ve promoted “safe-places” and declared themselves “sanctuaries” from everything that might “offend” socialist snow-flakes.

The other thing that will undoubtedly bring a wave of lawsuits and feigned outrage on your favorite mainstream outlet, is that the President says Planned Parenthood is going to have to physically separate facilities that render all those benign tests and treatments from those that provide the “services” for which they are best known.

Not to reiterate so much that has come before, but have you noticed that famous people and politicians swap positions and arguments at the drop of a hat?   It used to be that the anti-American contingent was anti-war at all costs, and you’ve heard the arguments that began in the 60’s.   Lately everyone’s hair catches fire at any hint of bringing our troops home from Syria.   Or Afghanistan. They say in all seriousness that it’s proof the President has lost his mind.   Question the continued necessity of NATO, now some 23 nations that predominantly rely on the U. S. for their defense?   Many have not lived up to their financial obligations.   Maybe that never occurred to anybody who’s called upon to call the President crazy, but it might be that he’s playing to another audience for strategic reasons.   Same goes for statements regarding North Korea and Kim Jong-un.   And for that matter, Russia! These wretched TV panels, sometimes eight or more at a time, want to diagram every sentence so they can claim, “He lied again!”   They’re not on the up and up, and we know it.

One more thing. The Royal Palace has denied in the strongest terms the report last week that Prince Harry and Meghan intend to raise their baby as “gender-neutral.”   Hard to know what’s gone on behind the scenes.   We hope it was more of the disinformation to which we’ve become accustomed.

Mark

PS: We just received copies of the new TCW.   It’s being mailed out directly from the (out of state) printer and should be in your mailbox presently.   Our thanks go out to all who make it possible for us to publish that magazine and all the other material that we continue to supply to a public that rarely encounters truth.

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 8 March 2019 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

President Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ended earlier than expected without an agreement due to North Korean demands to lift U.S.-led sanctions.

Earlier, both Trump and Kim had expressed hope for progress on improving relations and on the key issue of denuclearization, in their talks in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi.

“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that … we had to walk away from it,” Trump told reporters after summit talks were cut short.

Both leaders left the venue of their talks without attending a planned lunch together.

The United Nations and the United States ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea when the reclusive state undertook a series of nuclear and missile tests in 2017, cutting off a cash supply.

Failure to reach an agreement marks a setback for Trump, a self-styled deal-maker under pressure at home over his ties to Russia and testimony from Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, accusing him of breaking the law while in office.

Trump said Cohen “lied a lot” during Congressional testimony in Washington on Wednesday.

While Trump had said he was in “no rush” to strike a deal with North Korea, and wanted to do the right deal with Kim.

The White House had been confident enough to schedule a now canceled “joint agreement signing ceremony” at the conclusion of talks.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/trump-kim-summit-ends-abruptly-with-no-deal-id-rather-do-it-right-than-do-it-fast

The post US-N. Korea summit ends abruptly with no deal first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Denuclearization is the key word as President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un met face-to-face Wednesday for the second summit in Vietnam.

Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass told FOX Business’ Liz Claman Opens a New Window.that there is “zero chance, not .001, but zero chance that Kim will bend to denuclearize.”

According to Haass, North Korea will not denuclearize because such weapons guarantees the Hermit Kingdom’s security and it’s their calling card.

He also added that the president should work towards dismantling a few facilities by demanding a full accounting of what the North Koreans have in its weaponry production facilities. Haass noted that it is vital to create a time schedule where North Korea would gradually get rid of their weapons in exchange for the United States relaxing sanctions.

Talks between Trump and Kim Jong-Un are scheduled to continue until Thursday.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/zero-chance-kim-jong-un-will-denuclearize-cfrs-richard-haass

The post Zero chance Kim Jong Un will denuclearize: CFR’s Richard Haass first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

HANOI, Vietnam — President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will get a second chance to make a deal when they meet for the second time Wednesday in the Vietnamese capital.

But the two-day summit will take place against a backdrop of warnings from intelligence officials and experts that the North is unwilling to relinquish its nuclear weapons, which it sees as key to regime survival.

That leaves little chance for a breakthrough. Even the Trump administration has sought to manage expectations, with the president saying he won’t lift sanctions and is in no rush to reach a deal.

China’s Foreign Ministry urged the two sides to “meet each other halfway.”

The third-generation North Korean leader rode into Hanoi on Tuesday in an armored limousine surrounded by motorcycle police as crowds lined up behind barricades and cheered.

He transferred to the limo after a nearly three-day, 2,500-mile train journey from Pyongyang through China to the Vietnamese border town of Dong Dang.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves from a car after arriving by train in Dong Dang in Vietnamese border town Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019, ahead of his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.  MINH HOANG/AP

His entourage included North Korean lead nuclear negotiator Kim Yong Chol, his powerful sister Kim Yo Jong and other high-ranking officials, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Trump was to arrive by plane later Tuesday. The summit was expected to begin Wednesday evening with a private dinner, followed by a series of official meetings on Thursday.

The pomp surrounding the summit also provides Trump an escape from Washington as his former attorney and confidant Michael Cohen is scheduled to testify at a closed-door hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday in Washington.

Cohen will answer questions about his involvement in plans to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow as well as whether the president directed him to lie to Congress.

In Hanoi, Trump faces pressure to wrest concrete commitments from Kim after their first summit on June 12 ended with a vaguely worded agreement to work toward the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Here’s a look at what may be on the table:

Nuclear facilities

North Korea argues that it already has taken steps by suspending nuclear and missile tests and blowing up its main nuclear-testing facility. Kim also offered to dismantle the nuclear material production facility of Yongbyon if the United States takes “corresponding measures.”

The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, said earlier this month that Pyongyang pledged to destroy all its plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities in exchange for reciprocal moves. Biegun also said that Pyongyang must provide a complete list of its nuclear assets before any deal can be reached. Any such deal would raise questions about verification. Past talks have collapsed over the issue of inspections.

End-of-war declaration

The 1950-53 Korean War, which pitted the U.S. and South Korea against the Chinese-backed North, ended in an armistice instead of a peace treaty. The North wants an end-of-war declaration, which would be the first step toward a formal peace treaty. The actual treaty would have to be signed by China, the U.S.-led United Nations Command and North Korea. But Washington has long said it wouldn’t begin the process until final, irreversible denuclearization is achieved. The U.S. concern is that a move toward a peace agreement would undercut the justification for maintaining some 28,500 American troops on the divided peninsula.

International sanctions

The United States and the U.N. Security Council have imposed punishing economic sanctions against the North for banned nuclear weapons development. Nobody expects Trump to agree to lift the measures, but experts say the U.S. could allow more exemptions for humanitarian needs and inter-Korean economic projects. The Trump administration, however, has insisted it will maintain its “maximum pressure campaign” until denuclearization is achieved.

Military exercises

Trump surprised the international community and many of his aides when he announced he was suspending joint military exercises with South Korea, which have long been a lynchpin of the alliance. The next major drills are reportedly expected to begin Monday on a smaller scale, but officials have declined to confirm that until after the summit. North Korea hates the drills, which it considers rehearsals for an invasion. Experts say Kim may also push for Washington to agree to ease up on the deployment of so-called strategic assets such as aircraft carriers and supersonic bombers to the divided peninsula.

gamel.kim@stripes.com
Twitter: @kimgamel

Source: https://www.stripes.com/news/trump-kim-get-second-chance-to-make-deal-but-expectations-low-amid-doubts-n-korea-will-surrender-nukes-1.570437

The post Trump, Kim get second chance to make deal, but expectations low amid doubts N. Korea will surrender nukes first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Nine months after they first met in Singapore, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, the US president, will come together again this week for a high-stakes summit.

They hope to overcome an impasse on how to deal with North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. But what is really driving the two leaders to a level of rapprochement unthinkable just two years ago?

Trump staking political capital on a win

Donald Trump’s trip to Vietnam reflects a growing reality in the last two years of his first term that foreign policy, not domestic legislation, offers him the best chance of ‘wins’ he can sell at the 2020 election.

The US president delivered on a string of campaign promises at home in his first two years – a $1.5 trillion tax cut, tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, two Supreme Court judges and surge in military spending.

But the early weeks of a newly divided Congress, with the Democrats holding the House of Representatives, have seen his demand for border wall cash fall on deaf ears and underlined the new political reality on Capitol Hill.

Mr Trump’s national emergency may be stuck in the courts for months and there is little sign his call for bipartisan legislation to reduce drug prices or approve new infrastructure spending will be taken up any time soon.

Easing sanctions without hard commitments towards denuclearisation would likely be seen as a win for North Korea back home. Declaring peace could undermine the position of US troops stationed in South Korea.

Much of the debate boils down to this: which is most driving Mr Trump’s behaviour? The desire to secure long-lasting peace on the Korean peninsula? Or the wish to produce tangible ‘wins’ that can be touted on the re-election campaign trail?

Critics say the latter is too prominent in the president’s mind and this colours his decision-making during the summit. Mr Trump insists he is in no rush to see North Korea denuclearise and still holds all the cards.

Hanoi will provide clues as to which side is winning.

Kim playing to a domestic audience

On the streets of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, government posters extolling the virtues of a strong economy are a constant reminder that Kim Jong-un’s priority has firmly shifted towards economic development after declaring last year that his nuclear weapons programme is complete. 

His frustration with ongoing US-led sanctions that are dampening his regime’s economic progress caused talks with Washington to stall last year, and Kim has already cautioned that America’s refusal to make any concessions would be a deal-breaker.

In a New Year’s speech that focused largely on the domestic economy and technological advancement, he issued a blunt warning that Pyongyang would simply choose a “new path” if Washington tried to corner North Korea into unilateral nuclear disarmament without taking “corresponding” measures.

A shift in the US position would allow talks to proceed at “an excellent and fast pace” he promised. The messaging from Pyongyang, putting the onus on Washington to act, has remained consistent since the Singapore summit last June.

Kim not only wants to be treated by Mr Trump as an equal on the global stage, but he knows that the stakes are high domestically if he fails to modernize his impoverished pariah regime.

In North Korea the Kim family are treated like deities CREDIT: EDDIE MULHOLLAND/THE TELEGRAPH

In a Telegraph interview last November, Ri Gi Song, one of the country’s leading economists candidly admitted that without harsh sanctions “our development pace would be much faster than now”.

Reports last week of the recent purging of 50-70 of the Pyongyang elite, through assets seizure, exile, imprisonment or execution, reveal the regime’s ongoing capacity for cruelty to keep its citizens in check.

In his isolated nation, Kim and his forefathers are still revered as deities, but the young leader cannot hold back the reach of the global internet and modernization indefinitely.

He must also win the loyalty of his subjects through improving their standard of living. Basic food shortages that are expected to lead to ration cuts this year are adding to the pressure. 

Kim’s ambitious plans to develop a massive tourism complex in the eastern city of Wonsan, a long-term urban development plan in Simuijin, a city on the border with China, or to enter joint business ventures with the South at the Kaesong industrial park, are all contingent on the removal of sanctions.

Mr Trump may have already raised Kim’s expectations of easing the economic squeeze on his regime, suggesting on Wednesday that sanctions could be scaled back if Pyongyang does “something meaningful” in return.

The president’s declaration that he now has “no pressing time schedule” for North Korea to relinquish its nuclear arsenal is a remarkable shift in tone from White House demands pre-Singapore for a rapid commitment to “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation”.

It may also be an indication that Kim’s gamble to develop his nuclear weapons programme as leverage to secure his regime has paid off, and that his nukes are here to stay.

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Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/26/analysis-inside-heads-kim-jong-un-donald-trump-hanoi-summit/

[Disclaimer]

The post Analysis: Inside the heads of Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump at the Hanoi summit first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Pentagon announced Tuesday that Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, an intensive military readiness exercise involving tens of thousands of U.S. and South Korean troops, would not take place this August. This confirmed one of the most remarkable outcomes of the June 12 Trump-Kim summit — when President Trump announced at a news conference that the United States would suspend military exercises with South Korea.

Calling these exercises “provocative” and “expensive,” Trump also suggested that he was willing to consider removing all 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea in exchange for North Korean advances toward its denuclearization pledge.

Skipping a single military exercise is unlikely to dramatically change the status quo

Missing or postponing one exercise won’t transform the U.S. force posture, relations with allies or adversaries’ security policies. The United States and South Korea have suspended joint military exercises before, in the 1990s. This year, the two allies agreed to delay by several weeks a different set of military exercises during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

But military exercises serve multiple functions and aren’t just a bargaining chip. There are multiple audiences carefully observing — and calculating — what Trump’s statement might mean.

In the front row are South Korea, Japan and China. The abrupt cancellation — and the possibility of reducing or removing U.S. troops from Korea altogether — could have deeper consequences. Here are some key issues that may be at stake.

[Abe is back to talk to Trump — with a list of Japan’s concerns about North Korea]

Surprise policy reversals don’t sit well with U.S. allies

Neither U.S. allies nor the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK), it seems, received advance notification of the U.S. intent to suspend large-scale military exercises. So it’s not surprising to see the alarm evident in statements from Seoul and Tokyo.

The South Korean military, apparently caught off guard, issued a brief statement on June 12 that “there is a need to discern the exact meaning and intent of President Trump’s comments.”

Speaking to reporters a few days later, Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera stated that the joint military exercises are “important pillars in maintaining regional peace and stability.”

[Making sense of the canceled North Korea summit]

The concerns of U.S. allies may be justified, given historical precedents of Washington’s key policy reversals without advance notice — from Trump’s announcement in May that the summit was canceled all the way back to the Nixon administration’s quest to normalize relations with the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s and perceived “abandonment” of Taiwan in the process.

This “Nixon shock” was compounded by the fact that more than 40,000 South Korean troops were fighting alongside their U.S. allies in Vietnam at the time. Fears of a weakened alliance helped spur a five-year military modernization plan, including secret plans for a nuclear development program in South Korea and increased support for Japan’s defense buildup plan — the National Defense Program Outline — launched in 1972.

Here’s the big issue: Whether intended or not, the cancellation of military exercises and mention of U.S. military retrenchment can signal a decline in U.S. commitment to the defense of Korea — and Asia.

Governments rely on a mix of both verbal intent and demonstrative behaviors to signal credibility, which is why North Korea conducted six nuclear tests even after declaring its nuclear status. In a similar vein, military exercises can be a type of costly signal — to reassure allies and to deter aggression from adversaries.

And what about China?

China ends up one of the immediate beneficiaries of the summit. On North Korea, the Xi Jinping government has consistently pushed two main agendas. The first is a policy of “double suspension” — North Korea halts its nuclear and missile tests in exchange for the U.S. suspension of military exercises. The second is a “dual-track approach” of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula while building a permanent peace system in East Asia — one that may see a reduced role for U.S. troops in the region.

[Three takeaways from Kim Jong Un’s trip to China]

The Trump administration rejected the double-suspension proposal last year, and a State Department spokesman suggested that the United States and China had agreed that they would not endorse this type of “freeze-for-freeze” deal. Beijing, however, quickly rebutted this by maintaining that the double-suspension policy remained the “best option.”

China has also been a vocal critic of South Korea’s decision to deploy the U.S.-designed Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system. While the United States and South Korea maintain that THAAD is a legitimate means to counter a threat from North Korea, Beijing sees the deployment as the latest symbol of a strengthened U.S. military presence, potentially undermining China’s nuclear deterrence. Recent events could embolden China to demand the removal of THAAD from South Korea. 

Avoiding costly long-term consequences

Trump rationalized the suspension of these military drills as a cost-saving measure and negotiation tactic. Former and current military officials, though, argue that such exercises help maintain combat readiness, tactical and operational coordination, and strong alliance relations.

While welcoming the peace-building momentum, the South Korean public has concerns about the future of the alliance. A recent survey shows that 93 percent of respondents oppose the reduction or withdrawal of U.S. forces in return for North Korea’s stated intent to denuclearize.

Governments adjust the frequency and intensity of military exercises as needed. And we have seen escalation — and de-escalation — of these exercises in the past, but in conjunction with other negotiation tools, such as sanctions, and in service of broader strategic goals.

Here’s an example — Max Thunder was introduced in 2009 as a new, force-projecting form of joint U.S.-South Korea military exercise, partly in response to North Korean nuclear activities. Conversely, in 1992, the United States and South Korea skipped the annual Team Spirit military exercise, a quid pro quo for Pyongyang allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its nuclear reactor site. When North Korea resumed nuclear activities after this apparent breakthrough, the United States and South Korea promptly restarted joint drills.

Such a coordinated action-for-action mechanism can be a prudent guide — not only for future negotiations with North Korea but also to sustain healthy alliance relations.

Seo-Hyun Park is associate professor of government and law at Lafayette College. She is the author of “Sovereignty and Status in East Asian International Relations” (Cambridge University Press, 2017). 

Il Hyun Cho is assistant professor of government and law and Asian studies at Lafayette College. He is the author of “Global Rogues and Regional Orders: The Multidimensional Challenge of North Korea and Iran” (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/06/21/the-pentagon-has-now-officially-canceled-military-exercises-with-south-korea-heres-what-comes-next/?noredirect=on

The post The Pentagon has officially canceled military exercises with South Korea. Here’s what comes next first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

China has sounded out Japan and South Korea to hold a trilateral summit again in December in Beijing, hoping to further ramp up cooperation to denuclearise North Korea, diplomatic sources said Sunday.

With the leaders of Japan, China and South Korea having met for a summit in Tokyo just last month, it would be unusual for a trilateral meeting at this level to be held again in the same year.

China, a key economic benefactor of North Korea, appears to be pushing for a successive summit with its neighbours to ensure that it has the lead in the North Korean nuclear issue, following the recent historic US-North Korea summit, some political commentators say.

The post China sounds out Japan and South Korea for another summit about North Korea this year, sources say first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Why the US-China ‘Trade War’ remains a war of words first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is greeted by his supporters in Goyang, May 4, 2017. (AP Photo / Lee Jin-man)

On May 7, 2017, two days before Moon Jae-in’s historic election as South Korea’s president, I interviewed the former human-rights lawyer after he spoke to a campaign rally in Gwangju, the industrial city in Korea’s southwest famous for its 1980 citizens’ uprising against a US-backed military government.

Moon had just pledged to 2,000 cheering supporters gathered in front of the city’s high-speed rail station to “raise my voice loudly” to ensure that Seoul was in the lead in any dealings with North Korea. This was a reference to President Donald Trump, whose escalating rhetoric against North Korea was frightening Korean voters and had raised tensions in Asia to a boiling point.

As we sat down to talk in the stationmaster’s office, I asked Moon about the pundits and officials in Washington who were complaining about his pledge to continue the “Sunshine Policy” of his progressive predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. Was Moon concerned about predictions that his laser focus on engagement and dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un would create fissures with the Trump administration and shake up the US-South Korean alliance?

His answer was an emphatic no. “I don’t agree,” Moon said, his face breaking into a wide smile. “To solve the North Korea nuclear problem is in both our common interests. If South Korea takes an active role, that would be helpful to the United States and would relieve the US burden.” Trump, he said, “would also sympathize with my idea and understand me on this issue.”

What I witnessed in that interview was the beginning of Moon’s months-long effort to seize control over the Korea crisis and turn it into a peace process that would ensure that the Korean people were protected from the outbreak of a second destructive war. Today, it’s clear that his gamble has paid off—big time—with one of the biggest political reversals in the history of US foreign policy: Trump’s momentous decision—after months of hair-raising confrontation—to meet face to face with the leader of North Korea, an unprecedented step for a sitting US president.

Moon’s words that day last spring were “prophetic and right on the mark, and he’s done exactly what he said,” says Joseph DeTrani, a former CIA analyst who was a US envoy for the “Six-Party Talks” during the Bush administration. Looking back, in an interview with The Nation, at the events that led up to Trump’s decision to meet with Kim, DeTrani said that “Moon Jae-in has not only taken the lead, he’s taken the lead and run with it in a very impressive way. He has handled this brilliantly.”

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, of course, claim that Moon’s success is due to the US “maximum pressure” campaign of military threats and sanctions. But that alone would not have brought Kim to the table, says Suzanne DiMaggio, a skilled negotiator with the New America Foundation who has been meeting with North Korean diplomats regularly in what’s called the “Track II” process. “The other major factor is the diplomatic heavy lifting and finessing done by President Moon and his colleagues to get us to this point,” she said.

The contours of Moon’s triumph became clear on March 8, when Chung Eui-yong, his national security adviser, announced on live television at the White House that Trump had accepted an invitation—conveyed by North Korea through Moon’s representatives during two days of meetings in Pyongyang—to meet with Kim sometime in May.

As recounted by Chung to the gathered reporters, Kim Jong-un told South Korea that “he is committed to denuclearization. He pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests. He understands that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue. And he expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible.” Both South and North Korea were surprised by how quickly Trump accepted the invitation, according to people who have talked to both governments.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha affirmed Kim’s promises during a visit to Washington this week. Kim Jong-un “has given his word” on discussing denuclearization, she told Face the Nation last Sunday. “This is the first time that the words came directly from the North Korean supreme leader himself, and that has never been done before.”

In the end, the deal is very much along the lines of the “freeze for freeze” proposals—outlined in these pages last fall—in which the North would establish the atmosphere for talks by suspending its nuclear and missile tests in exchange for a moratorium or scaling down of the US-South Korea military exercises that Kim Jong-un had denounced as a threat to North Korea’s sovereignty and had used to justify his nuclear program.

The Trump administration, however, rejects any notion that it has accepted such a swap. Just after the summit was announced, CIA director Mike Pompeo said that Washington had made no concessions to get the meeting, pointing to the fact Kim has “allowed us to continue our exercises on the peninsula, something that’s been fought over for decades.”

That’s true, as Kim’s guarantees confirmed. But South Korean officials have been saying for weeks that the exercises will be scaled down this year and won’t include most of the strategic weapons deployed in the past, such as B-1B bombers or nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and his South Korean counterpart, Song Young-moo, announced that the first exercises, called Foal Eagle, will begin April 1, but they didn’t release any details about timing or how many troops will be mobilized.

Instead, Korean officials, speaking on background in South Korea, confirmed that the exercises will be low-key: According to AP, there are “no immediate plans to bring in American strategic assets.” This is clearly a concession, despite Pompeo’s denial and the strange decisions by US media not to report the Korean caveats (the contrast between US and South Korean coverage of the exercises is striking).

 On Wednesday, meanwhile, North Korea finally acknowledged what it called “a sign of change” in US-North Korean relations, attributing it to “the dramatic atmosphere for reconciliation [that] has been created in relations between the north and the south of Korea,” according to official statements quoted in NK News. The US press, in contrast, has moved on from the Trump-Kim summit, with even the usual hawkish voices staying quiet. That’s left the South Korean media to cover the results of the extraordinary process unfolding in Northeast Asia.

There were several turning points in Moon’s quest to place South Korea, as he has said, “in the driver’s seat.” One came last August, when he bluntly warned Trump against embarking on a unilateral military strike against North Korea, which he and most Koreans know would immediately wreak havoc on the south and throughout the peninsula. “No one shall take a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean consent,” he said in an emotional statement.

The other came last December, after North Korea tested its second hydrogen bomb and successfully launched a Hwasong-15 rocket, its most powerful so far, an ICBM capable of hitting targets in the United States. That month, Kim declared that North Korea had completed its “state nuclear force.” He then passed word through his diplomats that this meant that North Korea was ready to stop its testing altogether, even before it had succeeded in fitting a nuclear warhead to a missile capable of re-entry into the atmosphere and hitting a target.

“The interesting thing is, they stopped short of completing an ICBM and a reliable thermo-nuclear warhead,” says Leon Sigal, a former State Department official and editorial writer for The New York Times who wrote a history of the 1994 nuclear crisis called Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea. In the deal they’ve agreed to, he said in an interview, “they’ve given us a suspension of their nuclear and missile programs, which is not trivial because they were on the cusp of having” a reliable nuclear weapon system, he says. “We got something, and they got something.”

Kim’s declaration “was a significant achievement in their eyes,” DiMaggio told me. “Now they can come to the table with maximum negotiating strength, so the timing for engagement now makes complete sense.”

The final step came when the Trump administration dropped its preconditions for talks, which had included a cessation of testing and a prior commitment to denuclearize. That was communicated privately and then publicly shortly before Moon’s Olympic diplomacy, said Sigal, who, like DiMaggio, has been a key player in Track II talks with North Korea.  “They were ready [to talk] when we dropped our preconditions,” he said.

The deal for a summit was supposed to be sealed by a meeting in Seoul between Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers with Kim Yo-jong, Kim’s sister, during the Olympics. But Pence’s boorish and arrogant behavior convinced the North to cancel two hours before it was to begin. Later, Ivanka Trump was accompanied in a trip to Seoul by Allison Hooker, the director of Korean affairs at the National Security Council, but a scheduled meeting between Hooker and a North Korean deputy never materialized. “That was a missed opportunity on both fronts,” said Sigal.

After this, of course, came Moon Jae-in’s spectacular diplomacy with Kim Jong-un’s representatives in Seoul, and the agreement in Pyongyang for Moon and Kim to hold the third intra-Korean summit in April at the truce village of Panmunjom, to be followed by the unprecedented summit between Kim and Trump. Moon’s approval rating among South Koreans is now hovering at 74 percent, “thanks to positive views of his handling of relations with North Korea,” the Yonhap News Agency reports.

To be sure, the outcome of any Trump-Kim summit is far from certain and will require an unprecedented system of verification if North Korea does in fact agree to eventually give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for a normal, and peaceful, relationship with the United States. “That’s a steep mountain to climb,” former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who led US negotiations with North Korea in the 1990s, told a Washington conference last week.

But DeTrani, who was a nonproliferation expert for the CIA and was involved in verification procedures during the Six-Party Talks, believes such a system is entirely possible if the United States and North Korea can agree that monitors would have access to nuclear facilities, including the scientists and technologists working in them, as well as weapons sites that have not been officially declared. “I really believe that if you could get all those pieces together for North Korea, given what’s going on with overhead reconnaissance capabilities and so on, I would think we would probably be able to do a good job,” he told me.

Last week, President Trump appeared to throw a monkey wrench into the negotiating process when he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had been in charge of the administration’s diplomatic approach to North Korea, and replaced him with the more hawkish Pompeo. On March 11, even before the switch was announced, Pompeo confirmed that Trump “has indicated he’s prepared to go have an initial discussion on this incredibly important topic and we’re preparing for that time.”

But the CIA chief’s assurances were not enough for the media, which reacted to the initial news of a Trump-Kim summit with horror and disbelief. After finally getting used to the idea that Trump was committed and was going, reporters became obsessed about the fact that, a week after Chung’s momentous announcement at the White House, North Korea had yet to respond publicly to the offer.

The “silence,” the Times speculated, citing Jung Park, a former CIA analyst at the Brookings Institution, has “raised suspicions” among experts as to whether Kim “really made the offer.” That meme was soon repeated on MSNBC, where North Korea missile analyst Jeffrey Lewis told news-host Chris Hayes that he was suspicious about South Korea’s assurances because they were made at a  “boozy” meeting in Pyongyang between Moon’s representatives and Kim Jong-un.

Sigal, who has extensive contacts on both sides of the DMZ, attributed North Korea’s public silence in part to the closure of the “New York channel” this month when Joseph Yun, the US diplomat who has been leading low-level US talks with Pyongyang through its UN Mission in New York, abruptly resigned from his post. The North Koreans “haven’t confirmed their position because we haven’t sent a clear message to them of our intent through the working-level New York channel or any other official bilateral channel,” Sigal said. Beyond that, “the press has been utterly uninterested in the negotiating side of the story,” he added. “They love the war story.”

DiMaggio, for her part, doubted that President Moon would risk his reputation and presidency on a false promise he had not confirmed with his northern counterparts. “My sense of how the South Koreans are approaching this is they are being quite cautious and disciplined,” she told me. “I don’t think they would relay any messages that didn’t actually happen.”

On the other hand, she was concerned that Pompeo’s elevation to secretary of state could signal that Trump’s impulses will be given full rein as he prepares to meet with Kim, and could put Moon’s carefully planned diplomatic offensive at risk. “It’s clear he’s skeptical of any diplomatic approach,” she said.

“That, combined with his lack of negotiating experience, points to what I would call rough waters ahead. As the nation’s chief diplomat, she added, Pompeo will face a “steep learning curve, especially when you compare him to his counterpart in Pyongyang,” North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, “who is a very seasoned diplomat and a US expert with years of experience.”

DiMaggio, who was deeply involved as an observer at the US talks with Iran over its nuclear program, said the lack of experience could hurt as the talks proceed. “One concern I have is if the administration would move forward with talks and handle them poorly, and then announce them as a failure. That could potentially open the way to a military action after diplomacy is deemed a failed proposition. That scenario really worries me.”

Meanwhile, convinced of North Korea’s seriousness, the Moon government is quickly setting up the foreign-policy apparatus for negotiations and organizing simultaneous talks on resolving the standoff with China, Japan, and Russia. In addition, North Korea sent Foreign Minister Ri this week to Sweden, which represents US interests in Pyongyang, and a second diplomat to Finland to meet with a group of former US and South Korean officials (Finland’s government said Wednesday the talks were “constructive.”) There was speculation that Ri’s talks in Sweden could lead to North Korea’s release of three Americans still held in prison, but by mid-week that had yet to happen.

Looking back over the past year, Pompeo’s emergence as Trump’s key player in North Korean affairs seems inevitable—in part because he has already been playing that role for months.

In 2017, about a week after Moon was sworn in as president, the CIA set up a Korea Mission Center that integrates officers from across the agency to “bring their expertise and creativity to bear against the North Korea target” (intelligence contractors like CACI are busy recruiting to fill the spots). Unusually for a CIA center, it has been fairly open in its work, with Pompeo and the top deputies of the center appearing as speakers at public events, including an academic conference in Washington last October. In contrast, Tillerson spoke little in public about Korea, except in brief interviews with the press.

Pompeo also “became more active in the CIA’s Daily Briefs where he’s personally briefing the president,” said DeTrani, the former intelligence officer. “So I think it makes eminent sense that he would be the point person on what is going on with North Korea.” Moreover, when the talks get to a stage where verification of a testing moratorium and other steps is required, US intelligence assets controlled by the CIA and the National Security Agency will be crucial, he said.

I was convinced that Pompeo was in command on January 23, when he delivered a public speech at the American Enterprise Institute and spent most of his time talking—and answering questions—about North Korea. It was one of the most detailed administration speeches yet on Korea and, to a careful listener, signaled that the Trump administration had thoroughly grasped the significance of Kim Jong-un’s confirmation that he had completed development of his nuclear program and would no longer be testing.

“The logical next step [for Kim] would be to develop an arsenal of weapons” that would have “the capacity to deliver from multiple firings of these missiles simultaneously,” Pompeo said. “That’s the very mission set that President Trump has directed the government to figure out a way to make sure it never occurs.” He added: “The president is intent on delivering this solution through diplomatic means. It is the focus.”

In what had to be a carefully controlled leak, last Friday the Times confirmed that Pompeo has been in close contact with North Korea “through a channel that runs between the C.I.A. and its North Korean counterpart, the Reconnaissance General Bureau,” which combines the country’s formidable intelligence and special forces.

Pompeo, the Times said, is also working closely with Suh Hoon, the director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), who was in Pyongyang with Chung Eui-yong, the national security adviser. As a deputy NIS director earlier in the century, Suh lent important support to the Sunshine Policy and helped organize, with North Korean intelligence, the previous summits in 2000 and 2007 (Moon was in Pyongyang for the last one, as President Roh’s chief of staff).

Suh’s counterpart and primary host in Pyongyang was Kim Yong-chol, a vice chairman of the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party and the former head of the spy agency who now overseesPyongyang’s relationship with South Korea. He was also Kim Jong-un’s delegate in Pyeongchang for the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics and, most significantly, was the official who told Moon that the North was willing to have parallel negotiations with the United States.

“He’s a [Workers’] party guy, and has done some bad things in the past,” says Sigal, referring to Kim Yong-chol. According to the South Korean government, in 2010 Kim Yong-chol masterminded the attack and sinking of a South Korean naval vessel that killed 46 sailors and brought North-South relations to an all-time low (North Korea denied involvement, and some Koreans have raised doubts about Kim Yong-chol’s involvement).

Even so, says Sigal, he is one of the best-informed North Koreans on the United States. “People don’t know he was involved with the military-to-military talks with us and the South Koreans” during the Bush administration, said Sigal. “He has a long history of knowledge about the US.”

Joel Wit, a former US negotiator on the 1994 Agreed Framework, told a Monday press briefing at the US-Korea Institute that the CIA’s channel to North Korean intelligence has existed with “ongoing contacts” since 2009,  including visits to North Korea by intelligence officials in 2012 and in 2014 by James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence.

Kim Yong-chol “has been the main contact in this channel for much of the time,” he said. But Wit, who participates with DiMaggio in the Track II talks with North Korean diplomats, cautioned that intelligence channels are “not ideal” and have “serious drawbacks,” compared with diplomacy. “You can’t just send some intelligence analysts off to meet with North Koreans and think that that’s going to work well,” he warned.

Despite the dominance of the spies, the negotiators past and present I spoke to were all optimistic that Trump could develop a framework for further negotiations, leading down the road to disarmament talks that would allow North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons.

And while they worried about the short time span before the summit and the lack of preparation on the US side, they said there were plenty of past US-North Korean formulations to rely on as precedents. They include declarations about denuclearization, respect for sovereignty, and economic and political normalization made jointly in 1994 and 2000, and the broader Six-Party declaration in 2005.

Most of all, they argue that Trump has a fundamental interest in testing North Korea’s resolve. “To the extent the North Koreans want a fundamentally new relationship with the United States, they’re prepared to do things,” Sigal said. “And that’s got to be tested. And the only way to test it is, you make offers at the negotiating table, see if they take them, live up to your end of the deal, and see if they live up.”

“All these people who think they know what the North Koreans are going to do,” he concluded with a laugh, “have no clue!”

Tim ShorrockTWITTERTim Shorrock is a Washington, DC–based journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing.

Source: https://www.thenation.com/article/south-korean-president-moons-gamble-for-peace-with-north-korea-has-paid-off/

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