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Wed, October 24, 2018 | 01:42

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

Tear down that wall

Talk about missed opportunities. Donald Trump won't be visiting Panmunjom for the chance to glower across the line at the North Korean soldiers on the other side, wave a fist and shout, "I will destroy you." That’s too bad considering just about every other American president has made the trek up there from Seoul. They all went by helicopter, not fighting the traffic as most of us have to do. I'm sure the Trumpster could summon one even if it's not on the itinerary. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be great to see and hear him sounding off on the "evil empire" as he stares right at it?

Donald Kirk | 2017-11-07 17:31

Facing the summit

Donald Trump faces obstacles when he gets to Seoul next week that have nothing to do with unruly mobs trying to shout loudly enough over mega-loudspeakers for him to hear them across rows of policemen in body armor. No doubt Trump's handlers will come up with the proper verbiage to reaffirm the historic bond between the two countries. Words and phrases like "ironclad" and "no daylight between us" come to mind. That's the American equivalent to the weird Chinese "as close as the lips to the teeth." Comforting statements gushing from the Trumpster and his entourage might remind us of another l...

Donald Kirk | 2017-11-02 17:39

Japan's militarist dreams

TOKYO - The overwhelming success of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the latest elections for members of the Japanese “Diet” - the peculiar word for Japan’s parliament or national assembly - portends hardening of tensions and priorities in Northeast Asia. Yes, Abe would dearly like to revise Japan’s post-war “peace constitution” whose Article 9 declares “land, sea and air force will never be maintained” and “belligerency of the state will not be recognized” (hence the term “self-defense forces” for Japan’s military establishment). In fact, one reason Abe called the snap election was to shore up ...

Donald Kirk | 2017-10-26 17:13

Showing off military might

The line-up of warplanes on display beside the runway at Seoul Air Base has got to be intimidating. The sight of the latest American F35s and F22s along with all those South Korean fighters may frighten anyone contemplating war on the Korean Peninsula. They’re parked near spacious exhibition halls where manufacturers from dozens of nations show off aircraft components, and entire planes and helicopters, for potential buyers from around the world.

Donald Kirk | 2017-10-19 17:22

Running with the nuclear football

Donald Trump at times engages in such flights of rhetorical fancy that a lot of people think he’s crazy or anyway unpredictable. How can you be sure of a president who talks about destroying North Korea, who holds out “the military option” - but professes to want to avoid conflict? There are two schools of thought about the Trumpster. Just about every college professor, like the columnists for the New York Times and Washington Post, thinks he’s unhinged and we’d better watch out, no telling what will happen. Then there are those who believe he’s crazy like a fox, that he may act and talk cra...

Donald Kirk | 2017-10-12 17:45

Declaring war and peace

North Korea has been crying wolf so often it's hard to get too excited by the "declaration of war" North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho made in New York this week.

Donald Kirk | 2017-09-28 17:34

Trump's war of words

It wasn’t exactly a declaration of war, but it did come close. What else to make of President Trump’s remark that the U.S. might “totally destroy North Korea”? It was one thing to belittle Kim Jong-un as “rocket man” but quite another to threaten annihilation of a country torn apart by U.S. warplanes in the first Korean War. If nothing else, Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly will be remembered as one of those classic moments at which a head of state spoke for shock effect to a more or less captive audience. His words were reminiscent of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1960 banging...

Donald Kirk | 2017-09-21 17:03

The art of compromise

President Moon Jae-in has to be a master of the art of compromise. He was all for the latest watered-down UN sanctions that cut down but don’t cut off the flow of oil from China and Russia to North Korea. The US would far prefer to see all the oil traffic ended, but the deal had to be the best anyone could hope for considering the foreign ministers of both China and Russia had told South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha they were not going to go for a deal that left North Korea with no oil. No telling exactly how the North would react to a total ban on oil imports, but it would be rec...

Donald Kirk | 2017-09-14 18:05

Hanging tough against N. Korea

Donald Trump doesn't get it. He warns South Korea about "appeasement," but who’s appeasing whom? Yes, President Moon Jae-in, hero of the candlelight protests that lofted him as the liberal darling into the presidency after the ouster of the conservative Park Geun-hye, would love to go down in history as the one who brought about reconciliation on this conflicted peninsula. No, that's not going to happen any time soon, much to the chagrin of some of the ideologues and idealists who were counting on him to say yes to just about anything North Korea wants. The North's sixth nuclear test shows M...

Donald Kirk | 2017-09-07 17:47

Advocating for 'peace'

One demand you don't hear South Korean leaders making whenever North Korea pops off another missile is, “Oh, let's sign a peace treaty, and everything will be okay.” That's partly because, if there's one party with whom North Korean strategists don't want to include in any such treaty, it's South Korea. They see the south - they spell it with a lowercase "s" - as not just a junior partner but a "lackey" of the U.S. They want to assert their superiority if not sovereignty as the only true Korean government with which the U.S. should be dealing in any "permanent" peace in place of the armistic...

Donald Kirk | 2017-08-31 18:15

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