StarProg Blog:  North Korea-US. Talks on Korean Peninsula Denuclearization.

The political events surrounding the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, which are still evolving, might appear as the beginning of the end to the rancorous relationship between North Korea and its adversaries, especially the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Through intense diplomatic efforts, headed by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President, Donald Trump, had a summit meeting on June 12 in Singapore with North Korean Party Chairman Kim Jung Un in what hopefully will be the first step in a bid to achieve “denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula and a possible end to the official stance of a continuing war between the parties.

After the devastating effects of the nuclear bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II, nuclear weapons have become political weapons rather than military weapons when held in the control of responsible government leaders.  In that aspect they have become weapons of deterrence since it is assumed that any nation that crossed the nuclear threshold and launched a nuclear attack against an adversary would face nuclear retribution and suicidal annihilation.  North Korea has leveraged that capability to the maximum.

Media and political expectations on the results of the  summit range all over the map and almost all fail to take into account the political-social structure of North Korean history wrapped in the last seven decades of autocratic and tyrannical rule by the Kim family dynasty.  To evolve into the neo-enlightened leader that the transformational optimists believe that Kim Jong Un will become, he will have to denounce the legacy of both his grandfather, Kim Il Sung and his father Kim Jong-il as well as his own actions since taking the reins of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) government.  He will, in the course of that momentous challenge, have to completely reorganize or dismantle almost every agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).  In so doing, he will have to dramatically orchestrate entirely new objectives and a new future for North Korea.   (More to follow in additional blogs on North Korea after the Summit)

This post was authored by Major General (Ret.) David E.B. (DEB) Ward, founder and CEO of StarProg, and reflect his views and do not represent the views of the United States Air Force, the Air National Guard or StarProg LLC.

The General served 36 plus years in the United States Air Force and the Air National Guard.  His assignments included a tour in South Korea (1966-1967) as a Forward Air Controller,  Commander of an F-15 ANG Fighter Group (1987-1989), State Commander of the Oregon ANG (1989-1993), and as the Air National Guard Special Assistant to the Commander, U.S. Air Forces, Europe (1993-1996).  He is a graduate of the USAF Air War College.