George Rebane
There’s more to be said about President Trump’s anticipated meeting with NK’s Ugly Fat Kid (aka Kim Jong Un), the murderous dictator who today runs the world’s largest forced labor camp in the world. That Trump got the UFK off the dime and issue an invitation is laudable in itself, and has really miffed all the professional diplomats who for over more than half century have gotten nowhere with that workers’ paradise. Actually, it’s been even less of an accomplishment than that; the pros have gotten us into a situation where today the UFK’s about to get a deliverable nuclear weapon that can reach the continental US.
The big deal now in preparing for the meeting is how do we make sure that Trump doesn’t wind up circling that Bamboozle Barn one more time. Trump’s unorthodox and straightforward approach should work for him in this regard. The conduct of the meeting should be on an announced no-bullshit basis. Everyone knows that America (and others?) want to have the UFK give up his nukes program, and that should be as a precondition for whatever else we are willing to give in return. Rebane Doctrine calls for such negotiations to be done on an open declaration of interests basis (cf the Harvard Negotiation Project).
Our interests are known to the world, but the UFK’s not so much – in fact, he really can’t openly declare them for fear of getting a bullet through the back of his head or worse. (Recall he fed an entire family of a feared high-level muktimuck to hungry dogs in an arena where the rest of the NK leadership was forced to watch.) The UFK knows that he is the most despised human being on earth today, and he’s got a tiger by the tail. He’s finally run into a US leader who may actually launch an attack of black helicopters preceded by a massive fleet of stealthies taking out his SAM installations, followed by a squadron of C-17s dropping MOABs on the artillery positions overlooking Seoul. In any event, he won’t survive such a scenario because then he will more than likely fall in a quick coup led by his generals who will have nothing to lose and everything to gain with his sudden departure. And that kind of thinking defines the UFK’s interests – his own and his family’s survival.
But the real quid pro quo, one that President Trump will offer when the two of them meet with only trusted translators, is the UFK’s personal survival. Trump will offer to extract the UFK, along with a limited entourage and stuff, and take the whole caboodle to a safe country willing to accept him. Such a scenario has been successfully executed in the past with various bad actors. The one that comes to mind is the extraction of Idi Amin Dada from Uganda in 1979. We recall that as president Amin was a ruthless killer of his own people, gratuitously murdering somewhere in the range of 100K-500K Ugandans during his reign. He and family were extracted with Libyan aid, and exiled there for a bit before being accepted and sinecured by Saudi Arabia where he eventually died. Pol Pot, then the concurrent killer of 1M-3M fellow Cambodians, wasn’t able to negotiate an extraction and died or was murdered in the captivity of his successors.
The outlined deal of ‘guaranteed survival’ under the guise of lifted sanctions and food aid would appear to be the most effective approach given the UFK’s youth, his existential situation, and his extremely limited alternatives for a long life.
In the interval, the publicized desiderata from NK should be immediate denuclearization with a feasible path to the potential reunification of the Koreas achieved through peaceful negotiations with a sufficiently demilitarized NK that no longer has the avowed objective or means to invade the south and unify Korea under one communist regime that replicates the fortunes of Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, (soon) South Africa, … . The openly sought target form of governance and economy for a unified Korea should then be that of present-day South Korea.
Pretty certain than quan jue has not been performed under Jong Un. The "source" of this information was in a single edition of China's version of The Onion. It was briefly carried, then repudiated by the international wires. He is still an unpredictable prick.
Posted by: joe smith | 11 March 2018 at 01:44 PM
A seasoned diplomats views on Trump and the Little Rocket Man:
North Korea's "Little Rocket Man"--Surprise!--has realized that he has come up against somebody, Donald Trump, quite different from what he and his reprehensible family have faced in the past. President Trump and Secretary Mattis made clear that Kim Jong-Un was heading for the most terrifying 20 minutes of his existence. He is today making noises that well, maybe, he and Trump should talk and work something out, because, he might be thinking, that, maybe, having a little nuclear force is not worth the cost of getting his country, regime, and himself (above all) vaporized and turned into radioactive dust. It seems (remember that word) Trump has gotten the measure of Kim. We'll see how this turns out, but there is, just maybe, a possibility for a happy ending. I am sure the progressives will be heaping praise on Trump . . . right.
Posted by: Russ | 11 March 2018 at 01:50 PM
I wonder sometimes how many 'crazy' dictators could be nudged out of the way simply by giving them a nice chateau in Switzerland, a dozen cute girls, and a regular allowance. I can't say that there was any point in Hillary Clinton having The Colonel sodomized to death with a broomstick. She might have gotten some sort of short term thrill out of the situation, but a midnight extraction probably would have worked out better. Monday morning quarterbacking is always tempting, but I can't say that our own crazy elite strikes me as being highly skilled.
The problem is that these dictators are all riding the whirlwind. The minute that you let up with the craziness, the second in command wanders in with a revolver.
Posted by: Scenes | 11 March 2018 at 02:08 PM
Scenes-
Does Pence have a revolver?
Posted by: joe smith | 11 March 2018 at 05:39 PM
Joe, if you had asked if Biden had a revolver you would have been sent to the pc gulag.
Posted by: Bob Hobert | 11 March 2018 at 06:51 PM
Could anyone imagine grandpa Joe being able to scare lil' fat rocket man to the table? Biden Faucahauntas 2020!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/photograph-joe-biden-talking-homeless-213000657.html
;-)
Posted by: Don Bessee | 11 March 2018 at 07:53 PM
Ugly Fat Kid is to Kimmy as Fat Old Man is to Trump.
Posted by: Xeno | 11 March 2018 at 08:26 PM
Xeno 826pm - I believe that equivalency is dear only to you and yours Mr Xeno, and therefore gives basis to your words in these conversations. Me and mine see no similarities between President Trump and the UFK. Thank you for being open and forthright.
Posted by: George Rebane | 11 March 2018 at 08:35 PM
Have to agree with Ambassador Bolton’s approach. Tell us exactly when and where we can pick up all his nuclear devices and equipment. No need to talk about much else.
Since something like 1984 we have already negotiated the denuclearization of North Korea with The Ugly Fat Kid’s daddy, the Middle Aged Woman look alike. Done deal, signed. We removed 100 nukes from the peninsula, they were to dismantle their program.
This happens every time the UFK needs rice for his soldiers or feel he is not getting attention. The NK regime have already taken all the crops from the farmers, even the handful of rice that was the farmers and their families’ wage for growing crops for the State. That’s low. Taking peasant’s food.
Keep the sanctions in place and implement the tough new sanctions. Otherwise, it’s just another Paris Peace Talks, another Chamberlean moment...all over again.
Hard to conceive that the life long desire, goal, and work of the UFK’s daddy and of Ugly Un himself to develop and bring to fruition a bad ass nuclear weapon system....only to have the UFK just walk away from it. In fact, I find it inconceivable, no matter how many peasants (and now soldiers) starve to death. What will the UFK get in return? Oil and rice? They already get that from China.
If there is a silver lining, it is there already has been some signals of good will between Trump and the FU-K. With all the saber rattling and threats of massive all out thermal nuclear destruction over the joint US-S. Korea military exercises with Japan, the USA actually withheld 6 fighter jets and a couple of smaller Naval vessels from the joint exercise from last year’s forces. Just a smidgen smaller. In return, the North Korean military exercises and displays of force was also a wee bit smaller than last year’s. These are things that matter, things that the hyped up MSM always overlook....and always fail to uncover.
Put me in the pessimist category, all things considered.
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 12 March 2018 at 01:43 AM
re: Joe Smith@5:39PM
"Scenes-
Does Pence have a revolver?"
*rimshot*
No need, those are (usually, not always) saved for systems of government that don't have clear rules for succession. There's a reason that monarchy works, and pretty well at that.
I admit that the goalposts have moved for the definition of 'dictator' though. We all used to think it meant one thing, now it means 'somebody who makes an attempt to enforce immigration law'...that is to say 'Hitler'.
It would be interesting to get a few drinks into a Green Libertarian and find out if they were always so religious about open borders. You don't have to go back very many years and even Bill Clinton and Obama were all about deportation, improved security and the like. One explanation you might have for the hatred for national borders (and nationalism generally, unless it's to saber rattle at the Russians) could be that we've hit a tipping point in Mexican/Central American mass movement of people, and voters are simply looking out for people who look like themselves, but that doesn't explain old NC hippies. An odd thing.
Posted by: Scenes | 12 March 2018 at 07:56 AM