Seventy-two hours was all it took to rip up the rule book for international relations – or at least the chapter on Northeast Asia. In the space of just three days, a once unthinkable scenario unfolded as North Korea accepted an invitation from the South for a summit and extended its own invite to the…
I’m no fan of police states or of dictators, whether in Russia, China, North Korea or under development here in the United States, but let’s at least be honest about what’s behind the news that President Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the man he has been calling “fat” and…
Long reviled in the Western media as a pariah state with devilish ambitions, Pyongyang is showing real savvy on the political stage in an attempt to lure Trump to the negotiating table. Can Kim and Trump agree to disagree? Last week, a South Korean envoy arrived at the White House bearing a surprise invitation for…
Three months ago, I quoted approvingly Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to supporters in Atlanta that he would “absolutely” speak to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even if there were only a “10 percent or a 20 percent chance that I can talk him out of those damn nukes.” “What the hell is wrong with…
For the past year, Donald Trump and his chief advisers have responded to North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program by warning that “everything is on the table”—including war. That is not true. Missing from the table is the one option that could avoid catastrophe: the drawdown and eventual withdrawal of the US military encirclement of North Korea….
US President Trump claims to be an imaginative deal-maker. We will soon see. His announcement this week that he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for direct talks is stunningly good news. The next few weeks will be make-or-break for a historic peace settlement to the decades-old Korean conflict. Washington’s next moves…
