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> Under Trump, they have good reason to be concerned about the possibility of military force and are taking a more cautious and reconciliatory approach. I think

> Under Trump, they have good reason to be concerned about the possibility of military force and are taking a more cautious and reconciliatory approach. I think the North Koreans are well aware that militaristic posturing won't get them very far with Trump the way it did with past presidents. If they did fear Trump, why did they launch rocket after rocket while he threatened them with hell's fury? Trump role in the story appears more to be as an easily antagonalizable president against whom it is easy to show how "strong" you are. It's easier to negotiate from a position of strength than in one which you are thought of as to be inferior.

jessaustin 9y ago
Kim and Trump are similar enough psychologically that they can have a comfortable dialogue. Kim looked at Obama and saw someone entirely alien. Vice versa, of course. That sort of disconnect existed between past administrations as well. The bluster and insult that is the native tongue of blessed creatures like K and T is a foreign language to most urbane cosmopolitan educated politicians. They recoiled at "Rocket Man". Kim thought to himself, "What an asshole! Finally someone is speaking my language!"
- bjourne 9y ago
  A more plausible explanation would be the that South Korea's Conservative hawkish president Park Geun-hye was replaced by Moon Jae-in who is more open to negotiations with North Korea.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    It's early in the process, and it's possible to write off Moon's direct crediting of Trump as a diplomatic nicety. Certainly Moon is doing his part as well. Park was no ogre, however, and she was preceded by a number of other non-ogre SK leaders. Somehow they couldn't do what Moon has, while USA had its finger on the scale of conflict. One suspects that historians in decades to come will enjoy studying the contrasts between Trump and his predecessors, both the real contrasts and those reported in popular media.

jessaustin 9y ago

Kim and Trump are similar enough psychologically that they can have a comfortable dialogue. Kim looked at Obama and saw someone entirely alien. Vice versa, of course. That sort of disconnect existed between past administrations as well. The bluster and insult that is the native tongue of blessed creatures like K and T is a foreign language to most urbane cosmopolitan educated politicians. They recoiled at "Rocket Man". Kim thought to himself, "What an asshole! Finally someone is speaking my language!"

bjourne 9y ago
A more plausible explanation would be the that South Korea's Conservative hawkish president Park Geun-hye was replaced by Moon Jae-in who is more open to negotiations with North Korea.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  It's early in the process, and it's possible to write off Moon's direct crediting of Trump as a diplomatic nicety. Certainly Moon is doing his part as well. Park was no ogre, however, and she was preceded by a number of other non-ogre SK leaders. Somehow they couldn't do what Moon has, while USA had its finger on the scale of conflict. One suspects that historians in decades to come will enjoy studying the contrasts between Trump and his predecessors, both the real contrasts and those reported in popular media.