Huh:
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday he can envision the U.S. and North Korea agreeing to hold talks at some point as a precursor to formal negotiations.
"Eventually we’re going to have one of those days where we’re both going to say OK, maybe it’s a good time to have that first conversation," Tillerson told reporters on board a flight from Beijing to Danang, Vietnam. "Not to start negotiations but to have that conversation."
No talks or negotiations could last very long based on the real possibility that North Korea would agree to talk only to buy time to go nuclear and deter American-led military operations.
My hunch for a while has been that America is preparing a military campaign to wreck as much of North Korea's nuclear arsenal and infrastructure as we can (leaving North Korea's chemical warfare capabilities untouched so they have some deterrence and to encourage North Korea not to escalate lest we attack that, too).
But we are giving China a chance to solve the problem for us before we unleash the precision strike campaign.
And the payoff for China would be more control of a buffer state and better trade deals with America than they'd get otherwise.
As well as the payoff of looking like the regional power rather than having America come in to solve a problem on China's door step.
I have no idea if any of this would work whether we're speaking of the Chinese military, diplomatic or direct action option or we're speaking of the American military option. But if a nuclear-armed North Korea is truly unacceptable or just something we say until we accept it, something like the hunch I have must be taking place.
And saying talks are imaginable is probably just a way to pressure China to act and to make an effort to satisfy world opinion that we will choose military action as the "last option" available.
