I'm no dax supporter, but it is genuinely weird to see people rooting against a Korean peace deal/de-escalation so they can make the already obvious to everyone who cares point that Trump is an incompetent moron.
i'm not rooting against a korean peace deal. i'm rooting for other people to understand that there is no possibility of a peace deal to exist within the framework announced.
as i've already mentioned, i think there is a chance that trump can work his magic on 'pub minds and spin them into accepting then north korea is going to have nukes and there is nothing we can do about it. i won't give him any credit for that, because process matters and if he does achieve that, he will have done so using a fundamentally dishonest process that is damaging to our democracy - but it will still be a slightly positive outcome.
Well, North Korea is definitely going to have nukes and it is definitely in our interest to forge an agreement that both provides peace and security to the Korean peninsula that doesn't involve us having an enormous military presence on hair trigger there and de-escalating the rhetoric (that, yes, Trump himself recklessly escalated) and avoiding a war.
Ok, the longheld belief was engaging with North Korea without them making concessions beforehand was not worth doing. Let's say we're beyond that stage and that we should work to improve relations to deter a nuclear attack. Why not just come out and say that as opposed to coming out and saying they are denuclearizing in a year which appears to be another bald faced lie. Does saying they're going to denuclearize when they have no intention to do so help with the original belief that improving relations will deter an attack? I don't believe anyone is rooting against a peace deal. Instead, much of the criticism has to do with the fact that they have no intention to denuclearize despite the fact that the current administration says otherwise.
The longstanding IR/Nat Sec realm conventional wisdom about how we were somehow going to isolate and "delegitimize" North Korea in to giving up their nuclear program was always a fantasy. Bolton and the neocon's hard power theories are horrifying, but saying you are going to invade to stop proliferation at least has a logic to it. The alternative is negotiating a deal with a country before they have a nuclear deterrent like in Iran.
Fast forward to-- now that North Korea has nuclear deterrence, why would they ever give it up?
We are now, of course, playing a stupid PR game on the surface level because Trump's brain is made out of tapioca pudding. But South Korea has a lot of interest in pursuing a more meaningful peace with the North and pursuing a new strategy. So far, they seem to be appreciative of the engagement by the US and seem to believe that progress is possible.
The path forward is figuring out what price North Korea can extract and what South Korea and the US can live with. An official end to the Korean War, normalization of relations between the North and South in exchange for some trust building timeline of actions by each party (easing of sanctions by the US, fewer troops on the peninsula, North Korea allows some sort of oversight of their arsenal or a more permanent testing halt) is the best case scenario in my mind. There are obviously lots of other bad options, but that is the best hope and not something that should be taken lightly.
