It’s easy enough to write-off President Trump’s occasional focus on North Korea as anomalous, but Kyung Suk Lee on 38 North went into it a little further two months ago. Their summary:
Trump’s continued push for a summit with Kim, despite North Korea’s continued dismissals, appears to lie less in strategy and more in Trump’s personal worldview, which shapes how he sees Kim Jong Un. This article makes three claims that follow from that view. First, Trump seeks the meeting as an end in itself for the affirmation it gives him, not as a means to disarm the North. Second, because the meeting is the prize, the substance bends to secure it. Denuclearization gives way to quasi-arms control that freezes the missiles aimed at the American homeland while leaving the rest of the arsenal in place. Third, that bargain may likely protect the United States while leaving South Korea, whose cities remain within range, exposed, which is why close alliance coordination and a continued push for denuclearization matter now more than ever.
It’s useful to add this to the analysis of American interactions with North Korea, 2024-2026, but it’s also a little alarming.
- North Korean puzzlement. They have to be wondering why such a failure of a President has been reelected, a failure of democracy which affirms their own brutal form of government. Worse yet, he toddles forth as if he’s trying to join a world community of dictators who secretly control the globe.
- Satisfying a pathological narcissism. When he toddles forth, he’s not doing this for strategic or tactical reasons. All he’s doing is caring for an ego with strange, possibly religious motivations that have nothing to do with taking proper care of the United States. Seem unlikely? I think Kyung Suk Lee agrees:
Trump’s own words gathered over years point to a consistent explanation. Five impulses appear again and again. Each one points to the meeting as a prize rather than a tool.
A fundamental immaturity.
- It’s unprofessional. North Korea mistreats its citizens, keeping them ignorant so the Kims may retain absolute power. As a democracy that thrives on knowledge and recognizes knowledge generally make the world safer – although I sometimes have doubts – supporting Kim is hypocritical and dangerous.
All in all, if & when President Trump is put away in a facility for failed government leaders, he’ll be wailing about his position in the community of dictators – never realizing that Kim’d rather put a knife in him than sup with him. But Kim understands something Trump does not – statecraft, diplomacy, whatever you want to call it, requires actions that may seem repellent to the person on the spot. Kim gets it and carries it through. What is Trump looking for?
Direct and immediate satiation of egotistical needs.
The president courting a meeting with a reluctant Kim Jong Un is not chasing a strategy. He is chasing a reflection of himself, and the ally most likely to pay for that reflection is the one standing just outside the frame.
An interesting article.
