May 1, 2018—North Korea Do-Over?

For the first time since I was a high school junior, the leaders of North and South Korea met last week in the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) where the armistice was signed ending the Korean War, but not the conflict and associated hostility that continues to this day. Is this really good news or will it just set the stage of a replay of past North Korean duplicity and U.S. accommodation?

Over 30,000 American troops remain in South Korea 65 years after that armistice brought home some of my wounded upperclassmen. They have been defending against the regime in Pyongyang that now has nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that threaten not only the nearby region, but also Americans in every state of the union and our allies throughout most of the world.

Almost a year ago, our intelligence community acknowledged North Korea then could have 60 nuclear weapons — and it had recently tested ballistic missiles that could reach Guam (a U.S. territory), Hawaii, Alaska, and the entire continental United States.

And remember that, as I have repeatedly warned in my past messages, North Korea’s military doctrine includes electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack as a “strategic goal”—which, I for one, believe it has already achieved and can execute by simply detonating one of its nuclear weapons on a satellite as it passes over the United States, to shut down our electric power grid for an extended period. The extended loss of electricity could lead to the death of most Americans within months because of starvation, disease and societal collapse.

Remember that Russian Generals over a dozen years ago warned members of the Congressional EMP Commission that Russia had “accidentally” passed to North Korea how to build low-yield “Super EMP” weapons, and that they would probably have that capability within a few years. This is the proper context for viewing North Korea’s numerous low yield nuclear tests — not failures as some have claimed. Click here for a discussion of these threats.

Thus, whatever President Trump considers as he plans his historic meeting with the “Great Leader,” I hope he remembers that these satellites are launched southward unlike North Korea’s ballistic missiles launches — and that he should insist on inspecting any future satellite payload that North Korea launches to assure it does not include one of its nuclear weapons. This would be entirely consistent with President Reagan’s often stated “trust but verify” policy, on which he insisted when negotiating with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

There is good reason to be skeptical of a possibly good historic outcome, because North Korea has so well played us for over a quarter century. In 1992, we then gave significant funding to a starving North Korea when Kim Jong Un’s grandfather agreed to cease North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Didn’t happen.

Since then we have engaged in numerous failed attempts to deal with North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, not unlike Charlie Brown relying on Lucy’s help in kicking the football.

Every President since George H.W. Bush has been fooled into making similar bad deals that now leave North Korea with the ability actually to pose an existential threat to all Americans — not unlike the conditions we faced during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its allies, especially the Warsaw Pact in East Europe. Hopefully, President Trump will not be the fifth U.S. president to be treated by North Korea like Lucy did Charlie Brown.

Click here for National Security Advisor John Bolton’s appropriately sober assessment of the current situation, from his interview on Sunday’s Fox News Sunday. I expect that former CIA Director and now Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will also give sound advice to President Trump.

I certainly hope President Trump listens to such advice, but as Ambassador Bolton said, President Trump is the “Decider.”

And by all accounts, President Trump is impressed that Kim Jong Un is taking very appealing public steps, leading to substantial hopeful agreement around the world that President Trump’s confrontational “Peace Through Strength” agenda has provided this opportunity for a possible reunification of North and South Korea, ending this longstanding hostility and paving the way to “bring our troops home,” as would surely delight President Trump.

And he has also insisted that North Korea get rid of its nuclear weapons to enable an agreement — and indicated that he would “respectfully leave the talks” until these preconditions are met.

And euphoria is among those hyping that this development could and should lead to a Nobel Peace Prize for President Trump, who has been joined by a number of other leaders, e.g, from France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and others — and even help from North Korea’s historic allies, especially China. (Another kudo for President Trump’s meetings with China’s leader Xi Jinping — a longtime ally of North Korea.)

The most euphoric happy talk points to the 1990 reunification of Germany as showing that this aspiration is possible, thanks to President Ronald Reagan’s “Peace through Strength” agenda, his firm policy — especially as illustrated at the 1986 Reykjavik Summit. Moreover, the stage had been set by years of strong support from our NATO allies by standing together to block Soviet aggression, especially throughout the Reagan-years and our deployment of Pershing ballistic missiles and Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCMs) in five NATO nations to counter Soviet SS-20s and the Red Army threatening attack through the Fulda Gap.

Indeed, that historic rejoining of East and West Germany is most often associated with the historic events leading to when in 1990 East and West German citizens tore down the Berlin Wall while the Soviet guards only watched. Previously, any East German trying to cross into West Germany was shot on sight (just as North Koreans seeking to enter South Korea have been shot by North Korean soldiers). And thanks to the wealth of “then West Germany” and the support of the Western alliance, that historic set of events freeing millions went off like clockwork.

But that precedent seems to me to be a bit misplaced for North Korea for many reasons, including the difficulties of achieving a truly verifiable agreement. President Trump should insist upon “anytime, anyplace” inspections to assure North Korea abides by any agreement Kim Jong Un makes.

Moreover, President Trump should move rapidly to assure we have truly effective ballistic missile defenses to counter possible breakout scenarios from any agreement from his negotiations with Kim Jong Un. As noted last week, we have several opportunities for such supplements that deserve high priority.

Click here for my August 28, 2017 Newsmax article, which argued that we should quickly adapt U.S. aircraft to intercept ballistic missiles shortly after they are launched to counter this then existing threat, as I again argued last week. Click here for my April 19, 2108 Newsmax article again emphasizing these vulnerabilities, our urgent need to counter them — and that we could quickly employ “boost-phase interceptor” on existing aircraft to counter that threat. This article was before the flurry of activities following Kim Jong Un’s initiative.

Then click here to review my last Friday’s, April 20 Newsmax article noting that our negotiations with North Korea also could be quickly supported by enabling our (and Japan’s) Aegis BMD cruisers and destroyers near North Korea to provide such needed defenses. And as I observed:

“Such a capability would be most helpful to back up President Trump’s “Peace through Strength” approach to national security, especially as he plans his negotiation to denuclearize North Korea. Just as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) gave enormous leverage to President Reagan’s negotiations with the Soviet Union, advancing our missile defense capabilities can advance our negotiations with North Korea.”

President Reagan’s vision of building truly cost-effective space-based BMD systems — and his insistence that SDI was not negotiable gave our overall negotiations considerable leverage. In conjunction with his Strategic Modernization Program that repaired the impact of many years of neglect of our strategic systems, his conditions led to the first arms control treaties ever to reduce significantly the nuclear weapons in the world. But many still abound.

Such as initiative could work again for President Trump. He — like President Reagan — should include and demonstrate his commitment to building truly effective ballistic missile defenses in his negotiations toward any significant agreement with North Korea.

I hope he holds firmly to these very important conditions, and that he will “respectfully leave the meeting” if it is not fruitful. Otherwise he risks becoming the fifth president to have been snookered by North Korean leaders who took our concessions and kept going on their persistent path to nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to threaten us with an existential nuclear attack.

That said, I like everyone else hope the President is successful in closing this important opportunity that his previous efforts have made possible. It would give new meaning to the “Art of the Deal!”

By the way, how President Trump deals with North Korea will be very important in dealing effectively with North Korea’s longtime ally, Iran. More for another day — as he considers whether to abandon on May 12^th the Joint Cooperative Plan of Action (JCPOA) that he has repeatedly called a terrible deal, a view with which I strongly agree.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday stated that Iran has been “brazenly lying” since agreeing to this Nuclear deal while hiding the evidence. Click here for Travis Fedschun’s Fox News article (including a link to a 15 minute video of his important speech) reporting that Netanyahu briefed President Trump about the intelligence on Saturday and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday. European counterparts were made aware Monday prior to Netanyahu’s speech.

Click here for Adam Kredo’s Washington Free Beacon article this morning, reporting that U.S. officials have confirmed these claims that make it most likely that President Trump will leave the JCPOA.

More to come . . . Stay tuned!!!!

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