Was United States President Donald Trump unwittingly tricked into concessions by a “smart cookie” dictator half his age? Or, did America’s usually bumbling showman president grab a sudden opportunity offered by geo-political circumstance last Tuesday to move US-North Korea relations away from nuclear confrontation?
Whatever history finally decides on that issue, the outcome of last week’s breathlessly awaited Kim-Trump Summit, was positive all round except for those old-fashioned technocrats and politicians stuck in old Cold War and Western imperialist mentalities.
Tellingly, most news visuals the world over focussed on the conventional ‘summit’ poses: North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump facing each other all smiles, or, shaking hands, or, amiably side by side. But just a few news media picked up a different visual, one rare in old-fashioned diplomacy and, certainly ‘radical’ for any body language that bows to geo-political power hierarchies. This was a photograph of the two leaders from behind showing the young, diminutive, Kim – long vilified as upstart and rogue dictator – with his hand on Trump’s lower back (he could not have reached higher), patronisingly ushering the aged leader of the world’s most powerful and admired democracy.
Americans, big power Europeans and, of course, those neighbouring countries currently fearful of North Korea’s intentions in East Asia, already grappling with the sudden changes in geo-political power dynamics due to Trump’s wild, amateurish, diplomatic ploys, certainly would consider Kim’s guiding hand an effrontery. Already, America’s news platforms are hotly debating whether their President had unwittingly down-graded their country’s global pre-eminence by firstly, even agreeing to a summit without the long-held pre-conditions and, secondly, giving the puny and decrepit Asian ‘rogue state’ fully equal treatment during the summit that is usually granted to America’s best friends and allies.
American media commentators are arguing over things like the equal prominence given to both the American and North Korean flags at the summit meeting on Sentosa Island (a must visit for those who like fully artificial, over-crowded, beach resorts). Also debated is whether the head of the world’s sole superpower should have saluted back a North Korean general in Kim’s delegation (representative of that country’s highly repressive military-backed dictatorship).
For some, however, America’s imperial nobility was somewhat appeased by young Kim’s desire to peek into the US President’s official (and highly armoured) car. Of course, simpleton Trump loved the gesture. We may never know whether the car inspection request was a smart, spontaneous, move by Kim or whether it was part of his prepared repertoire of ploys to seduce the famously narcissistic American leader. Kim, scion of a family dictatorship and a highly disciplined communist one at that, is certainly far more politically mature and educated than the superpower leader (despite Trump’s Wharton business schooling).
In fact the usually bumbling Trump, seemingly bumbled on even in this Summit which, he knew was the greatest reality TV event of his life so far. The Summit produced a joint statement so brief and so vague that it did not surprise anyone – anything more detailed and specific would have been revolutionary given the vast gap between the negotiating positions of the two countries. For most people, the very act of US sitting down to talk with North Korea minus conditions was a huge step forward for reducing tensions in East Asia.
Not so. Donald Trump, having bumbled and virtually destroyed the Group of Seven summit in Canada at the weekend before, did put his foot in his mouth in Singapore as well. In his solo news conference after the summit statement signing ceremony, the US President suddenly declared that America intended to end what he called ‘war games’ on the Korean Peninsula – something not even hinted at in the formal joint statement!
In fact, his announcement was so categorical that the American and South military commands currently preparing for scheduled joint defence exercises in August both felt compelled to issue public statements that so far they had not been informed of such a decision by Washington. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-In, who probably did more than anyone else in bringing Kim and Trump together, could only make some weak noises that covered up the fact that Seoul had not been consulted on this but, also welcomed the move as an idea to be taken forward. Japan, the other neighbour state in the region that depended on the US military umbrella against possible threats from the neighbouring big powers, China and Russia, as well as a hostile North Korea, was also taken aback. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could only announce that Tokyo would henceforth begin relying more on bilateral dealings with Pyongyang to look after its interests.
The military exercises held jointly between South Korea and the US have been conducted several times a year in various forms for the past seventy years. It has been a crucial element in the combined South Korean-US military defence posture against North Korea in the current state of suspended military hostilities on the Korean Peninsula since the cessation of fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea has always reacted angrily whenever these exercises - in effect, practice invasions – were held and this has been a major stumbling block for any peace negotiations that would finally end the enmity between the two sides.
America, it must be remembered is not only the world’s most powerful and richest nuclear military power, but, more importantly, it is the state that is the most likely to use nuclear arms in war. Why would one see such a possibility? Because, America is the only country to have deliberately resorted to nuclear warfare already and, most significantly, continues to morally and legally justify those horrific atomic strikes that devastated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of the Second World War.
Avoidance of direct and all-out war between big powers and superpowers have, to date, been possible only on the basis of mutual nuclear threat – termed (poetically) as ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ (MAD).
Any study of wars and aggression by states since World War 2 shows up well the tendency of states to either politically impose on or militarily attack only those other states that do not have an equal military capability. Hence, the nuclear armed states – big or small – have always avoided direct confrontation with any other nuclear armed states. Hence, the possibility of ‘deterrence’. In fact, the primary reason why the nuclear powers strive hard to avoid further expansion of nuclear armed states – i.e. ‘non-proliferation’ – is to prevent an equalising of states with such a deterrent thereby altering the current distribution of geo-political power in the world.
For example, Israel and its Western allies are adamantly against Iran’s arms build-up (not just its nuclearisation) precisely because Israel does not wish to end its sway as the sole (if unacknowledged) nuclear power in West Asia. This is why Israel is ever ready to carry out military strikes or subversion against any West Asia state that moves towards such military build-up – such as Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Pyongyang has long argued that, until there is a fully fledged and guaranteed peace on the Korean Peninsula, it must have its own nuclear to avoid what has happened to Libya and Iraq and what could happen (and Israel and Washington do threaten) to Iran. As this writer had noted previously, Donald Trump accepted Kims offer for unconditional talks primarily (if not purely) in order to gain domestic political kudos as mid-term congressional elections approach.
A victory for his Republican Party is crucial if he to try to avoid criminal prosecution himself. North Korea seized this opportunistic readiness by the normally intransigent Washington to get legitimacy and also to ease the pressures on his country. Trump’s delight in grandstanding has brought an unexpected bonus, something which Washington has refused even to consider all these decades: an end to aggressive military exercise that targeted North Korea and kept East Asia in military suspense.
The Singapore Summit, then, is truly historic – even if its momentous nature is probably accidental. While the declining imperial powers are now arguing over how to save face, Asia, especially East Asia is breathing easier, somewhat. Of course, the opportunistic and amateurish US leader may yet change course and the possibility of nuclear holocaust may re-emerge.
The underlying truth is the necessity to end nuclear armaments in ALL countries.