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Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Plan B for the PDRK

The North Koreans are upset with US-ROK military exercises:

North Korea said it was suspending high-level talks with South Korea scheduled for later in the day on Wednesday due to U.S.-South Korean military exercises that it said went against the trend of warming North-South ties.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency also cast doubt on whether next month's summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump could go ahead as planned, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

That's okay. We have a Plan B if talks collapse.


We'll see if the "trend" trumps the "Spirit" of the future.

UPDATE: More about North Korea's objections.

Honestly, since last autumn I've thought the American military has been ordered to gear up to be able to strike North Korea before it gets nuclear weapons capable of hitting American soil (which would be some time this year, if estimates are to be believed); and so North Korea getting too enthusiastic with these objections risks failing to get a real deal before we feel we must strike.

UPDATE: If this is true, getting a deal is a problem:

North Korea will never completely give up its nuclear weapons, a top defector said ahead of leader Kim Jong Un's landmark summit with US President Donald Trump next month.

Does North Korea believe we are deadly serious about a Plan B if North Korea won't provide the verification we need to avoid another bad WMD deal (after Syria 2013 and Iran 2015)?

UPDATE: A Pentagon study says North Korea relies on getting nukes to survive. Let's hope that isn't true. But we need to be prepared for the possibility that it is still all too true.