The Korean Crisis - How Will It Play Out?

[Jacob]

Tillerson is out?

[CountDeMoney]

Tillerson is out?

Trump says no, which means yes.

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account
@realDonaldTrump

The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon - FAKE NEWS! He's not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!
12:08 PM - 1 Dec 2017

[Razgovory]

Apparently this was some sort of form of shaming Tillerson.  I wish I was making this up.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/30/politics/white-house-tillerson/index.html

Reports that the White House has a tentative plan to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that emerged Thursday were an effort to express President Donald Trump's deep displeasure and publicly shame his secretary of state, a source with direct knowledge of the White House's thinking said Thursday.

The hope from the White House, the source said, is to push out the plan to replace Tillerson and then "wait for him to punch out."
The news that the White House is seriously considering replacing Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo comes as Trump remains deeply frustrated with his secretary of state, another source familiar with the President's thinking said.

And the plan is not just being considered at the staff level, but by the President himself, the source said.

The issue could come up during a scheduled lunch between Trump, Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis at the White House Friday.

The attempt at public shaming is just the latest such instance emanating from the Trump White House, where the President has repeatedly publicly undermined his secretary of state and publicly berated his attorney general.
His public response to the reports on Thursday signaled no desire to spare his secretary of state -- who still has not denied having called the President a "moron" in private.
"He's here. Rex is here," Trump offered, noting that Tillerson was in the building -- but not in the room -- at the time.
The response was equally uninspired from the White House briefing room, where White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said simply that "when the President loses confidence in someone, they will no longer serve in the capacity that they're in."
The timing of Tillerson's expected departure remains uncertain, but multiple officials said the shake-up could come at the end of the year or early next.

"The clock is ticking," the source familiar with the White House's latest thinking said.
Mattis said Thursday that "there's nothing to" the rumors about Tillerson being forced out by the White House.
"I make nothing of it, there's nothing to it," Mattis said before a bilateral meeting with Libya's Prime Minister.
But the White House's tentative plans to replace Pompeo at the CIA with Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, could present a wrinkle in the strategy.

Cotton isn't up for reelection until 2020, and moving him to the CIA role would put another Senate seat in play in 2018 -- at a time when Republicans have a razor-thin majority. That is giving West Wing officials pause, a source close to the White House said.
If Cotton were to take the CIA job, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, would select someone to fill the vacant seat -- and Republican officials would have a tight time frame to field a candidate who can win statewide in 2018, even though Arkansas is a deep red state.
The GOP would have to field a candidate by March 1, when the filing period ends, and the primaries are currently scheduled for May 22.
But the process could hit a roadblock as the governor's Senate appointee could not run in 2018, according to a clause in the state's constitution. But the Arkansas Secretary of State's office raised questions about that clause, noting that US Constitution may offer a conflicting view that could override the state statute.

[11B4V]

Why would anyone work for that guy.

[CountDeMoney]

Interesting piece from FP. 

Argument
China Should Send 30,000 Troops Into North Korea
The only way to stand down from a nuclear confrontation is to reassure Kim Jong Un that the United States won't — and can't — invade.
By Alton Frye | November 28, 2017, 4:46 PM

In confronting North Korea's adamant pursuit of nuclear weapons, so far nothing has been effective. Pledges to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula have failed. United Nations resolutions have failed. Increasingly severe sanctions have failed. And insults not only fail but also reinforce the hard-line stance of Kim Jong Un. In the latest provocation, Pyongyang resumed its slate of ballistic missile launches, firing a test salvo eastward on Tuesday, Nov. 28.

Are there any other options left worth pursuing? Cold War experience offers insight into a basic factor — a posture of strategic reassurance — that has persuaded other countries to forgo a nuclear-weapons option.

What is the central concern driving North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons? Pyongyang claims it is a well-founded fear that the United States and South Korea plan aggression to overthrow the Kim regime. To Americans, that fear seems absurd; Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has explicitly denied any such intention. Yet it is the stated basis for the intensive, costly missile and nuclear programs that make Kim Jong Un so dangerous. It would be prudent to address it directly, demonstrating first that the threat of invasion against the North is unreal and, second, that absent the threat, continued defiance of international demands for nuclear and missile restraint has more sinister purposes.

Declarations by Washington and Seoul are insufficient, but more potent approaches are available.  Those approaches rely on policies that helped induce several potential nuclear-weapons states to forego such arsenals. Three critical examples were Germany, Japan, and South Korea — all countries with far more substantial technological bases than North Korea. Their choice of self-restraint rested on many factors, none more critical than the security afforded by military alliance with the United States, bolstered by deployment on their territory of U.S. military forces. As historian Michael Howard explained years ago, reassurance of allies is scarcely less crucial than deterrence of adversaries. Durable strategic stability depends on both.

Understandably, attempts to stop North Korea's reckless conduct have centered on coercive diplomacy and threats of military strikes. It may yet become necessary to employ some measure of force; continued overflights of Japan by North Korean missiles, for example, are powerful incentives to fire interceptors against them. There is nearly universal consensus among analysts, however, that overt military action carries grave risk of escalation to major war.

For years, a constant theme of debates and intermittent negotiations has been that Beijing holds the key to halting this disturbing trend. Although China is the Kim government's main trading partner and strongest security supporter, it downplays its leverage to compel that government to alter course. The Chinese are clear, however, that a nuclearized Korean Peninsula is not in their interest. Gradually, reluctantly, Beijing has been drawn into the multilateral campaign to pressure Pyongyang economically and politically. Recent months have seen China joining strong U.N. Security Council resolutions and stern sanctions against North Korea, particularly in pledging curtailment of trade between the two neighbors. On present evidence, it remains doubtful that even the sharpest diplomatic and economic measures will dissuade Kim from his nuclear and missile ambitions.

Perhaps it is time to explore a different initiative: Could China reassure North Korea as the United States reassures South Korea? As Beijing has grown anxious over North Korea's behavior, it has qualified its 1961 defense agreement with Pyongyang by emphasizing that it would assist against attack — but it would not support the Kim regime if it began a war. That is a constructive stance, but it may well be read by Pyongyang as a wobble that justifies the longstanding policy of self-reliance. The young Korean dictator may have little knowledge of China's tremendous sacrifices in the war of 1950 to 1953 — almost 3 million soldiers engaged, more than 380,000 were wounded, and 180,000 were killed. Their casualties far exceeded the killed and wounded suffered by the United States; they approach the estimated losses by the North Koreans themselves.

Unwelcome as China's intervention was to America and other nations defending South Korea, those numbers lend credibility to Beijing's security guarantee. That guarantee would be most credible, however, if coupled with actual deployment of Chinese forces on North Korean territory.

A symmetrical policy of reassurance could involve possibly 30,000 Chinese military personnel stationed there, a total comparable to U.S. forces south of the 38th parallel.

Yes, it seems counterintuitive to encourage China to strengthen military capabilities in the north. Some may find the notion antithetical to American interests. Shoring up a state with such vicious human rights abuses is a high price to pay for security. Yet the net effect should be to reduce the actual likelihood of war.

South Korea and the United States have always had to expect that in the event of war they would face both Chinese and North Korean forces. But the increased proximity of some Chinese soldiers would not alter the military balance. South Korea and the United States are already amply deterred from invading North Korea; a marginal Chinese military presence would not change that reality.

What it could do is shore up a policy of reassurance, removing any doubt that China would be engaged in the case of an attack against North Korea. That reassurance could relieve Pyongyang's expressed fear of American aggression and thus remove the justification for its destabilizing nuclear- and missile-test programs. Coupled with offers to relax economic sanctions and political isolation, this initiative should offer maximum incentive for Kim Jong Un to suspend such tests.

I disagree with it, not because of its premise--which has its own problems--but because it is ascribing to Chinese strategic policy some very un-Chinese presumptions:  it's not how they envision their relationship with North Korea, it's not how they envision the purpose and evolving maturity of the PLA, and it's not the established script from which they conduct foreign policy.

[Monoriu]

Contrary to internet opinion, China and North Korea no longer get along.  North Korea won't let 30k Chinese troops in, because they are the enemy.  And China won't do it, because non-interference in other people's affairs is a central premise in Chinese diplomacy (and in fact in Chinese culture as well). 

[CountDeMoney]

And China won't do it, because non-interference in other people's affairs is a central premise in Chinese diplomacy (and in fact in Chinese culture as well).

I'm glad somebody said it.

[Valmy]

Contrary to internet opinion, China and North Korea no longer get along.  North Korea won't let 30k Chinese troops in, because they are the enemy.  And China won't do it, because non-interference in other people's affairs is a central premise in Chinese diplomacy (and in fact in Chinese culture as well). 

Is the North Koreans nuking things not China's affair?

[HVC]

  non-interference in other people's affairs is a central premise in Chinese diplomacy (and in fact in Chinese culture as well). 

Tibet would disagree

[Valmy]

Tibet is China's affair. Because.

[Eddie Teach]

  non-interference in other people's affairs is a central premise in Chinese diplomacy (and in fact in Chinese culture as well). 

Tibet would disagree

Not anymore. Their resettlement program fixed that.

[Admiral Yi]

Contrary to internet opinion, China and North Korea no longer get along.  North Korea won't let 30k Chinese troops in, because they are the enemy.  And China won't do it, because non-interference in other people's affairs is a central premise in Chinese diplomacy (and in fact in Chinese culture as well).

They don't have to send in any troops.  They could cut off trade, watch North Korea wither away, and plan with Japan and South Korea and the US how to pick up the pieces.  That's the grown up play.

[Monoriu]

Contrary to internet opinion, China and North Korea no longer get along.  North Korea won't let 30k Chinese troops in, because they are the enemy.  And China won't do it, because non-interference in other people's affairs is a central premise in Chinese diplomacy (and in fact in Chinese culture as well).

They don't have to send in any troops.  They could cut off trade, watch North Korea wither away, and plan with Japan and South Korea and the US how to pick up the pieces.  That's the grown up play.

Part of "not interfering in other people's affairs" is the realisation that it goes both ways.  China doesn't believe that it can get help under any and all circumstances.  Either it is part of a deal that involves cash, or other people are there to screw them. 

[Admiral Yi]

Part of "not interfering in other people's affairs" is the realisation that it goes both ways.  China doesn't believe that it can get help under any and all circumstances.  Either it is part of a deal that involves cash, or other people are there to screw them.

Well they need to fucking figure out the prisoners' dilemma if they wanted to be treated like big boys.

[Monoriu]

Part of "not interfering in other people's affairs" is the realisation that it goes both ways.  China doesn't believe that it can get help under any and all circumstances.  Either it is part of a deal that involves cash, or other people are there to screw them.

Well they need to fucking figure out the prisoners' dilemma if they wanted to be treated like big boys.

That's not how they think.  They think having money, soldiers, factories, aircraft carriers, satellites, lots of land and people make them a huge boy.