Some context:
1. Kim’s New Year’s Day speech shocked the world with his not so subtle concession that Obama’s sanctions regime had changed the economic and diplomatic calculus:
My desires were burning all the time, but I spent the past year feeling anxious and remorseful for the lack of my ability. I am hardening my resolve to seek more tasks for the sake of the people this year and make redoubled, devoted efforts to this end.
www.ncnk.org/...
2. Evidently Trump’s surprise bonus promise to halt US military preparedness in South Korea was Putin’s idea. Mattis had tricked Trump into not doing this previously. What else did Trump promise next? An end to sanctions?
www.dailykos.com/…
3. Now Trump is claiming that his threats (ie not Obama’s crippling economic sanctions) are to thank for getting to the table for talks. That of course is nonsense. The North has wanted to sit with any president for decades. And they wanted it particularly bad now because their “economy” was on the edge of total collapse. Trump, Kim, and Putin created a choreographed crisis, with cheap disposable choreographed insults... so they could pretend they fixed it without announcing much new. And don’t forget, many in the intelligence community believe that Putin had been feeding North Korea their old nuke technology to speed up the timetable on arriving where we are.
And the only difference in terms of what Trump has changed since Obama left the situation where it was, is that America has evidently given up military preparedness and possibly even the sanctions, without any verification.
Ie, what Putin wanted when Obama left office.
Meanwhile, Russia is salivating over the energy sector possibilities if Trump clears the North for more open trade. The same promise of opportunities for which they forgave North Korea’s debt in 2014.
This is all choreographed… this reshuffling of the world order. More people need to understand that.
Putin’s shadow in this kabuki dance is the only story. Trump’s just giving it away and people pretend they don’t know why.
The question is whether America will fall for Putin’s attempt to resuscitate Trump’s presidency with ridiculous propaganda and a massive power grab in the Korean peninsula. If we do, Putin will have pantsed us twice in one checkmate. All it took was the right pawn.