Summit in Singapore

Or maybe the Singapore Summit. Either way, it sounds like a great movie title.

The Kim-Trump summit. The Trump-Kim summit. The way those two names rattle together, it makes me wonder why all the pundits praising or condemning the meeting between the two leaders are missing on the great punning opportunity.

The Trumpkin summit. Wait, wasn't that the name of a dwarf in Narnia?

To borrow a Trumpian phrase, it was a big nothing-burger. They met, they talked, they ate; Trump showed off 'The Beast,' his presidential limo (this phrase did not originate with him), maybe in the hope that Kim Jong-Un would swap three nukes for it on the spot?

At the end, they issued a joint statement that said they would continue to talk, at least their staffs would.

Trump canceled U.S. participation in training exercises (can we stop calling them war games?) with South Korea's military, but that was a move he was planning to make anyway with the excuse of saving money. Well, yes, he does have a need to find DOD budget to fund his military parade. So he gave nothing away; he only tried to make it look like it was a concession to North Korea.

Given the history of both men to shake hands on an agreement and disavow it soon afterward with the claim that it did not mean what everyone took it to mean, the summit would not have done much regardless of what deal was made.

The real hope for progress is that all the issues have opened for discussion and negotiation. As I think over the past failures of the 6-way talks with North Korea, the ones that included Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea, it was the limitation of the talks to telling North Korea to stop developing nuclear weapons or we would hurt them. We did, but they kept on.

None of the other issues were brought up. In March 2017, in the midst of the fire-and-fury and American-dotard exchange, when many were thinking that war would be the only way to resolve the situation, I advocated for renewing the talks. I was scorched by social media that the talks have not worked. I replied that we needed to think about what the other side needed and maybe offering an end to the war would be a good incentive.

No one thought it a good idea, but that is where we have progressed and that is a good thing. Has no one noticed that for all the threats, North Korea did not and has not fired a missile test toward the U.S. mainland, Hawaii, or even Guam?

The country is not led by a madman. He is a brutal dictator, he has murdered rivals to secure power, but he is not insane.

He has a need to secure his regime and that is what he wants. He realizes that, for him to achieve that, he needs to reduce the threat of war on the peninsula and to improve his country's economy.

If we keep those needs in mind, we have a chance to move ahead and make a huge reduction in the tension between the parties involved: both Koreas, Japan, and the U.S., which has the treaty obligations to defend both Japan and South Korea.

I am not naive and I am no Pollyanna, but I am optimistic that we could achieve a breakthrough in the coming years.

Postscript: the real wild card in this is China. North Korea depends upon China in most ways, yet resists its influence. How far can Kim Jong-Un go given China's goals in the region? They have backed him because North Korea is a useful check on American power and influence in the region. the last thing China will accept is a complete rapprochement between the U.S., its allies, and North Korea. Reunification is out of the question.

China's purpose is to use their economic power and developing military power to push the United States out of the eastern Pacific, maybe, in their most optimistic dreams, all the way across the Pacific back to our western shores.

Will China support or sabotage talks to reduce tensions, formally end the war, and relieve sanctions in a return for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula?