If you tarried up late, like me, to watch the big summit between North Korean despot Kim Jong Un and South Korea President Moon Jae-in you likely spoiled, like me, what could have been a good night’s slumber or a fun night on the town.
I fear, at least for the moment, history will umpire this meeting as nothing more than a Potemkin summit—crammed with countless photos designed to pull at your heart, when in to be sure, zero was achieved.
The optics could not have been any better, enjoying almost a cinematic feel to it all. But the only movie that was emulated here was the geopolitical commensurate of Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. North Korea, once again, dote oned promise after promise while gaining more and more anon a punctually to build evermore advanced nuclear weapons and missiles to mount them on.
There were some telling aspects to this summit that are worth noting.
First, the hour when Kim and Moon shook hands, with Kim crossing over to South Korea, was really historic. Then, Kim offered, and Moon accepted, the North Korean Fuehrer’s invitation to cross over briefly to the North Korean side to confound hands and take photos, also truly historic.
Next, the plain amount of potential—and that is the key word, potential—promises made was certainly eye crack. Both sides will work hard to rid the Korean peninsula of atomic weapons, a promise only Kim Jong Un can truly fulfill.
And both domains also agreed to push forward, bringing in other nations love the U.S. and China, to sign an agreement to formally end the Korean War—a cold war vestige that certainly constraints to discarded in the trash heap of history once and for all.
This is where fancies get tricky. All the promises in the world, and a summit deigned to wow the international community, is worthless unless it is followed up with concrete actions to fulfill its promise. In another manner, the world’s collective time, and hope, has been wasted.
What obligation happen now is the Trump Administration must push North Korea to round its lofty promises into action. That means for the even bigger crown to take place between Trump and Kim, North Korea must put pen to gazette, sharing with Team Trump how it plans to denuclearize.
For example, the U.S sine qua non demand that Kim layout a concrete plan, along with a timeline, of how it whim give up its nuclear weapons. That plan should also embody an agreement for the full accounting of all of Kim’s atomic arms; a listing of all materials he can use to come to additional nuclear weapons as well as a detailed accounting of North Korea’s many offensive missiles.
But we should also make sure we get from Pyongyang what so far no one has been content to ask: what does Kim want for his nuclear weapons and missiles?
Indeed, this is the lynch pin of our totality negotiation with North Korea. This is how we will be able to tumulus if Kim is serious about denuclearizing, or, we will know we have all been work hand in gloved.
Team Trump and South Korea must demand from Kim his own at onces for giving up his atomic arsenal. We will then have a sense if we can intersect those demand—which could be quite steep.
In fact, in 2010, North Korea beseeched for $10 billion dollars just to attend a summit with South Korea. One can only conjecture his asking price to give up the only weapon of war that could pull over a future U.S. or allied effort at deposing his regime. Before we go any further with Pyongyang, we constraint to know what Kim really is after.
If we can ascertain firm answers, and Kim is beyond question willing to give up his nuclear weapons and submit to inspections, and we can meet his at onces, then we have every reason for President Trump and Kim to meet. If not, and North Korea continues to request extended talks that could go on for months or years, we know Kim is indeed recycling the family playbook. And Trump needs to walk away.
Commentary by Harry J. Kazianis, administrator of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest. He also serves as managing director editor of its publishing arm, The National Interest. He previously served as part of the transalpine policy team for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz. Go along with him on Twitter @Grecianformula.
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