The real work of implementing the agreement quickly spun up after the summit.
Welcome to the week after. President Donald Trump emerged from his history-making visit to Singapore with a declaration from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he would work towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in exchange for American security guarantees. But given the document’s complete lack of details, the real work of implementing the agreement quickly spun up after the summit.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo immediately left Singapore for a fence-mending trip with American allies in Tokyo and Seoul, who were taken aback by Trump’s announcement that he would suspend American military exercises with South Korea.
While the United States and South Korea have not confirmed that they will suspend the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise scheduled for August, reports over the weekend indicate that a pause will likely be formally announced shortly. Writing on Twitter Sunday, Trump again called the exercises “very expensive” and “provocative.”
“Can start up immediately if talks break down, which I hope will not happen!” Trump added.
On Thursday, an unnamed U. S. official told AFP that “ major military exercises have been suspended indefinitely on the Korean peninsula.” The same day, Harry Harris, the former head of Pacific Command who has been tapped as the Trump administration’s envoy to Seoul, told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing that “we should give major exercises a pause to see if Kim Jong Un is serious about his part of the negotiations.”
Meanwhile, South Korean officials continue to maintain their diplomatic initiative vis-a-vis the North, and have so far notched the most concrete post-summit achievement. On Thursday, North and South Korea reopened their lines of military communications and discussed ways to demilitarize the border village of Panmunjom, according to Yonhap.
South Korean officials may be pushing the North for more and have asked that North Korean artillery positions on the DMZ be moved further north, out of range of Seoul, Yonhap reports. The South Korean defense ministry denied the report.
Hello and welcome to this Monday-morning edition of Security Brief, in which we attempt to make sense of last week’s North Korea news and its fallout — and also cover the rest of the week’s security news.
If you didn’t watch this weekend’s World Cup action, you missed a series of incredible upsets. Mexico defeated Germany. Switzerland tied Brazil. Iceland tied Argentina. Oh, and Cristiano Ronaldo did this. As always, send your tips, comments, and questions to elias.groll@foreignpolicy.com .
Unleash the cyber hounds of war. The Pentagon has given U. S. Cyber Command additional authority to carry out offensive operations, a move that grants commanders greater authority over a type of weaponry that previous administrations have tried to keep under tight control. “In the spring, as the Pentagon elevated the command’s status, it opened the door to nearly daily raids on foreign networks, seeking to disable cyberweapons before they can be unleashed, according to strategy documents and military and intelligence officials,” the New York Times reports .
Next on the horizon. Fresh off a history-making summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, President Donald Trump wants more — a sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “ President Trump is expected to meet with [Putin] next month while he is in Europe for a NATO summit, according to a senior administration official and two diplomats familiar with his schedule,” the Washington Post reports.
The authoritarian style. Trump knows he can count on the propagandists at Fox News to go to bat on his behalf, but the time he has spent with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convinced the U. S. president that Rupert Murdoch’s television news empire could learn some things from Pyongyang.
“After watching North Korean television, which is entirely state-run, the president talked about how positive the female North Korean news anchor was toward Kim, according to two people familiar with his remarks,” the Washington Post reports “He joked that even the administration-friendly Fox News was not as lavish in its praise as the state TV anchor, one of the people added, and that maybe she should get a job on U. S. television, instead.”
Mr. President, some inspiration for you. Korean Central Television aired an extraordinary 45-minute documentary on Kim Jong Un’s trip to Singapore and the summit there. The documentary features extensive footage of Kim’s night-time journey around Singapore, which included a stop at the Port of Singapore in what appears to be an extended advertisement for economic reform.
Kushner connection. The only thing missing from Trump’s jaunt to South Korea has been a subplot featuring an extra apparently pulled from the set of “American Psycho,” and now we have it: An American businessman named Gabriel Schulze — complete with a back slick to rival Patrick Bateman — contacted Jared Kushner in an attempt to set up a back channel last summer between Washington and Pyongyang, the New York Times reports.
Full Moon rising. The summit meeting between Trump and Kim has left South Korean president riding high on historic poll numbers and victories in local elections. “ On Wednesday, Mr. Moon’s ruling progressives dominated local elections, consolidating his political position. His approval rating sits at 79%, according to Gallup Korea — the highest for any of the country’s democratically-elected leaders at this stage of their presidency,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
What about that test site? President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed on Twitter in recent days that North Korea is already implementing the agreement struck in Singapore by blowing up missile test sites, but there’s no evidence that those sites have been dismantled, 38 North reports .
Meanwhile…. The epidemic of diplomatic good feelings in East Asia haven’t quite reached Tokyo and Seoul. “On Monday, South Korea will begin two days of war games in which navy, air force, coast guard and marine units will practise defending Dokdo, a collection of tiny islets off its east coast that are controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo,” the Financial Times reports .
