"For a President Biden, the reality would be that North Korea will not, under any circumstances, denuclearize, no matter what concessions the United States might offer as part of any future ‘principled diplomacy.’ Biden must work on the basis that North Korea is a nuclear weapons state in every sense of the term."
The inauguration of presumptive President-elect Biden on January 20th, 2021 will usher in another chapter in the United States’ fraught relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea.
The Trump Administration tried summit diplomacy from 2018 through to 2019, after a year of high tensions in 2017, in which threats of ‘fire and fury’, and nuclear brinkmanship rose to alarming levels. The summit diplomacy – as expected – failed to reverse Pyongyang’s continued determination to build up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: The South Koreans want Joe Biden to do this .... South Korea urging Biden to prioritize denuclearization talks with North (The Hill). But after their phone call this evening, Joe Biden is only offering reassurances to form stronger ties, regional security, and climate change .... Biden reassures U.S. allies in calls with leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia (Reuters).
My prediction.
President Obama told President Trump on inauguration day four years ago that his biggest foreign policy challenge will be North Korea. Four years later. North Korea will probably be Joe Biden's biggest foreign policy challenge during his term. But that is OK. I have said more than once that North Korea is a long term problem and must be viewed through that prism. Keep the lines of communication open, and listen to what the South Koreans are saying. They know more about North Korea than anyone else.
