Is Trump Going To Nuke North Korea

Pompeo Went Into Talks A Skeptic

It’s unclear whether new intelligence about North Korea’s continued nuclear activity played a role in Trump’s last-minute decision to pull Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from making a scheduled visit to Pyongyang for talks. Two people familiar with the matter said Pompeo, who’d become deeply familiar with the intelligence on Pyongyang as CIA director, went into talks with North Korea deeply skeptical that the effort would work, and the process has since only solidified his belief that it won’t. Officials said he’s far more optimistic that the U.S. could cut a deal with Iran.

A former senior administration official briefed on the negotiation process said of Pompeo pulling back his trip to Pyongyang: “They’re confronted with mounting evidence on all fronts that the North Koreans aren’t cooperating.”

North Korea Reminds Trump Its Nuclear Weapons Won’t Come Cheap

David Tweed, Bloomberg News

— U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Pyongyang to get Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons. He left with a harsh reminder that the North Korean leader expects something in return.

While President Donald Trumps point man for nuclear talks summed up his 27 hours in the North Korean capital as productive, the regime called the visit regretful. No sooner had Pompeo left when Kims media published a statement saying the U.S.s unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization risked upending ties less than a month after Trump and Kim shook hands in Singapore.

The next line of the more than 1,200-word statement may have captured the central complaint: The U.S. side never mentioned the issue of establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, which is essential for defusing tension and preventing a war, an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman said.

The statement shows that Kim is willing to test Trumps patience and not bargain away his arsenal without sufficient security guarantees. The regimes belief that the weapons are needed to deter a U.S. attack dates back nearly 70 years to the still-unresolved Korean War, and will take more than a handshake to dispel.

Better Relationship

Good Faith

The statement included a personal appeal to the U.S. president: We still cherish our good faith in President Trump, it said.

Working Group

–With assistance from Nick Wadhams.

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.

Yes The United States Did Draw Up A Plan To Drop 80 Nuclear Weapons On North Korea

In 2017, a war between North Korea and the United States was much closer than anyone would know, President Trump claims.

Current nuclear war plans are among any nuclear-armed militarys most closely guarded secrets. Details of one such attack plan recently became available, however, revealing that the United States envisaged using 80 nuclear weapons in case of war with North Korea. The way this particular detail emerged is also pretty unusual the associated passage appeared in U.S. journalist Bob Woodwards book Rage, detailing President Trumps administration, which was published this week.

• Posted in The War Zone

In fact, the particular quote from the book was not entirely clear:

“The Strategic Command in Omaha had carefully reviewed and studied OPLAN 5027 for regime change in North Korea the U.S. response to an attack that could include the use of 80 nuclear weapons.”

This can be read two ways: a potential attack from the North could involve the use of 80 nuclear weapons, or the same number of weapons can be envisaged as a possible U.S. response to a first strike ordered by Pyongyang.

OhioNebraskaU.S. NAVY/MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 1ST CLASS RONALD GUTRIDGE

In an interview with NPR, Woodward cleared up any confusion, noting that the 80 nuclear weapons were part of a U.S. attack plan OPLAN 5027, which would include decapitating the North Korean regime of dictator Kim Jong-un.

DoDNorth Korean State MediaSTRATCOM

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Us Threat Assessment Singles Out China Climate Change Ahead Of Terror Groups

After two failed presidential summits with Trump, North Korea has greeted the incoming Biden team with a series of provocations, including harsh rhetoric and a short-range missile test. But so far, the regime has not taken the far more provocative steps of testing a long-range missile or a nuclear weapon, both of which it has done previously.

There is always a chance, however, that Biden’s bid for negotiations fails, and North Korea falls back on its pattern of aggressive and attention-seeking behavior, including threatening its neighbors and testing dangerous weapons. If that happens, the only real option short of war covert CIA operations aside is more economic sanctions, experts say.

Critics point out that years of sanctions of various kinds have failed to convince the North to denuclearize. But in fact, observers say, the U.S. has never mounted the sort of sustained and biting sanctions campaign against North Korea that the Obama administration used to push Iran to bargain, resulting in a 2015 nuclear agreement from which Trump withdrew, but which Biden is seeking to restore.

Sanctions On North Korea Trade With China

Since North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, the UN Security Council had passed a number of resolutions that imposed various sanctions on the DPRK, including restrictions on economic activity. Nevertheless, North Korea’s gross domestic product grew by an estimated 3.9 percent in 2016, to about $28.5 billion, the fastest pace in 17 years the progress was largely attributed to continued trade with China, which accounted for more than 90% of North Korea’s international trade.

In late February 2017, following North Korea’s February 12 test of the Pukkuksong-2 medium-range ballistic missile, China, which regards its trade with North Korea and the putative missile threat to the U.S. as separate issues, said it would comply with UN Resolution 2321 and halt all coal imports from North Korea. The halt notwithstanding, in April 2017, China said that its trade with North Korean had expanded. In July 2017, China’s trade with North Korea, while the ban on North Korean coal was said to have slowed imports from the DPRK, was worth $456 million, up from $426 million in July 2016, the year-to-date trade being up 10.2 percent at $3.01 billion.

China has been opposed to secondary sanctions that may be imposed on Chinese firms that do business with North Korea.

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Trump Threatens Fire And Fury Against North Korea If It Endangers Us

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BRIDGEWATER, N.J. President Trump threatened on Tuesday to unleash fire and fury against North Korea if it endangered the United States, as tensions with the isolated and impoverished nuclear-armed state escalated into perhaps the most serious foreign policy challenge yet of his administration.

In chilling language that evoked the horror of a nuclear exchange, Mr. Trump sought to deter North Korea from any actions that would put Americans at risk. But it was not clear what specifically would cross his line. Administration officials have said that a pre-emptive military strike, while a last resort, is among the options they have made available to the president.

North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States, Mr. Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he is spending much of the month on a working vacation. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.

Referring to North Koreas volatile leader, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Trump said, He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met with fire and fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.

On Twitter Trump Declares That The North Korea Nuclear Threat Is Over

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump declared on Twitter Wednesday that there was no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea, a bold and questionable claim following his summit with leader Kim Jong Un that produced few guarantees on how and when Pyongyang would disarm.

Just landed a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office, he tweeted. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!

Trump and Kim were returning to their respective strongholds following the talks but to far different receptions.

In Pyongyang, North Korean state media heralded claims of a victorious meeting with the U.S. president photos of him standing side-by-side with Trump on the world stage were splashed across newspapers. Trump, meanwhile, faced questions about whether he gave away too much in return for far too little when he bestowed a new legitimacy on Kims rule and agreed, at Pyongyangs request, to end war games with Seoul that the allies had long portrayed as crucial to Asian safety.

The United States is our ally, so the joint military drills are still necessary to maintain our relationship with the U.S., said Lee Jae Sung, from Incheon. I think they will be continued for a while.

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Is It Time To Accept North Korea Is A Nuclear Power

As a statement of intent, it was about as blunt as they get.

North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and will never give them up, its leader, Kim Jong Un, told the world last month.

The move was irreversible, he said the weapons represent the dignity, body, and absolute power of the state and Pyongyang will continue to develop them as long as nuclear weapons exist on Earth.

Kim may be no stranger to colorful language, but it is worth taking his vow which he signed into law seriously. Bear in mind that this is a dictator who cannot be voted out of power and who generally does what he says he will do.

Bear in mind too that North Korea has staged a record number of missile launches this year more than 20 claims it is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to field units, something CNN cannot independently confirm and is also believed to be ready for a seventh underground nuclear test.

All this has prompted a growing number of experts to question whether now is the time to call a spade a spade and accept that North Korea is in fact a nuclear state. Doing so would entail giving up once and for all the optimistic some might say delusional hopes that Pyongyangs program is somehow incomplete or that it might yet be persuaded to give it up voluntarily.

Trump’s Delusions About North Korea May Incriminate Him

Trump told Real America’s Voice over the weekend that if it wasn’t for him, the US would’ve been involved in a nuclear war with… drum roll please… North Korea. He seems to have some information about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities that the rest of us do not.

Trump renewed his love affair with the North Korean dictator, saying “I have a very good relationship with them.”

We know, we know.

Speaking in his Trumpanzee English dialect he continued.

“That was going to be a nuclear war. That would’ve happened if I didn’t go in then, I’m telling you if Obama had another year, a lot less than that, you would have ended up in a nuclear war with them and I got along with them great,” he bragged.

North Korea does not possess nuclear weapons of any kind, according to publicly available intelligence. Perhaps we now know whose Top Secret nuclear weapon information he stole now?

Trump says the US wouldve had a nuclear war with N. Korea if Obama remained in office another year: If Obama had been in another year .. you wouldve had a nuclear war with them, and I got along with them great.

Ron Filipkowski

Lying is Trump’s forte.

Playing the “whataboutyou” game, the cockwobbler is wigging out over the FBI search looking for all the top secret and classified documents he illegally kept, by attacking past presidents George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama.

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Rhetorical Escalation In August 2017

On August 8, 2017, President Donald Trump warned that North Korean nuclear threats would “be met with fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before,” after the mass media reported that a US intelligence assessment had found that the country had successfully produced a miniaturised nuclear warhead capable of fitting inside its missiles. President Trump also remarked of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un: “He has been very threatening beyond a normal state.” Within hours, North Korea responded by announcing that it was considering attacking U.S. military bases in the US territory of Guam.

On August 11, Trump : “Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!” Former U.S. Ambassador to the United NationsJohn Bolton and former U.S. Secretary of DefenseLeon Panetta stated that the standoff between the U.S. and North Korea over Pyongyang‘s nuclear weapons program was comparable to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Bob Woodward, in his 2020 book Rage, quoted Mike Pompeo as saying the national security team “never knew whether it was real, or whether it was a bluff”, and reported that Jim Mattis slept fully dressed due to concerns about a North Korean attack.

On August 15, the North Korean leader said he was delaying a decision on firing missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam while he waits to see what Trump does next.

Missile test over Japan on 29 August

Beginning Of Peace Efforts

On April 27, the two leaders met at the Joint Security Area, with Kim Jong-un crossing the MDL in South Korean territory, the first time a North Korean leader has done so. President Moon also briefly crossed into the North’s territory. Both Moon and Kim signed the Panmunjom Declaration, declaring the Korean conflict over and to sign a proper peace treaty by the end of the year. With that, Moon agreed to visit Pyongyang in the fall.

2018 Singapore summit

On March 8, in a surprise departure from the hostile dialogue during 2017, Trump announced that he would meet with leader Kim Jong-un, and the two would meet likely by May. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “in the meantime, all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain.”North Korea accepts South Korea’s proposal to hold the high-level inter-Korean talks, which took place on March 29. On May 24, President Trump cancelled the planned meeting with Chairman Kim over “tremendous anger and open hostility” displayed by Kim. On June 1, President Trump reversed the cancellation and confirmed that the summit would take place on June 12 as planned.

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Trump The Paradoxical Peacemaker In The Nuclear

As is often the case with Trump, there is a measure of truth to his claims. He has been able to position himself advantageously as a peacemaker, and even dream of receiving a Nobel peace prize, like Obama before him. In 2019, he said that he had been nominated by Japans then Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, and endorsed for the prize by South Korean President Moon Jae-in. They praised Trumps initiative to enter into direct dialogue and hold summits with Kim, which was undeniably daring and unexpected. The June 2018 meeting in Singapore between the two leaders did certainly make an impact, seeming to be a remarkable and promising event, inasmuch as it put an end to the escalating verbal conflict that was set off in summer 2017. That was when Trump threatened to unleash fire and fury, stating that his general staff did not rule out taking military action against North Korea.

Looming North Korea Nuclear Test Leaves Us South Korea Waiting For Bad News

Watching coverage of a 2017 North Korean missile launch from a Seoul train station. Photo: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

SEOUL, South Korea Officials and experts in Washington and Seoul agree that North Korea is set to conduct its seventh nuclear test and its first since 2017 likely quite soon.

The big picture: Kim Jong-un’s regime continues to develop its nuclear arsenal and rebuff offers from both the U.S. and South Korea for dialogue or COVID aid.

• Neither ally is prepared to offer unilateral concessions to break the deadlock. That’s effectively rendered them bystanders, waiting for bad news.

In response to the rising threat, South Korea’s hawkish new President Yoon Suk-yeol is focusing on strengthening Seoul’s defenses and its alliance with the U.S.

• “The seventh nuclear test is most likely. Our response will be very tough and hard, and that will heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” says Moon Chung-in, chair of the Sejong Institute think tank.
• Moon says the U.S. and South Korea have little leverage to prevent a test and almost nothing left to sanction in response, leaving steps like joint military exercises and the deployment of additional U.S. military assets in the region.
• “North Korea will respond in kind,” says Moon, who served as a top adviser to Yoon’s predecessor. The test for leaders in Washington and Seoul will be to break out of that cycle, he says, but that won’t be easy.

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