All signs may point to a successful and historic summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, but the stakes are so high that the\u2026<\/b>
\nAll signs may point to a successful and historic summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, but the stakes are so high that the U. S. national security community is braced for the possibility of a rapid spiral toward nuclear brinkmanship if the talks between the two men turn sour.
With the North Korean side notorious for bizarre antics and sudden walkouts from diplomatic meetings, it remains anyone\u2019s guess how Tuesday\u2019s face-to-face will ultimately play out \u2014 even as most analysts agree that Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim are both driven by domestic political motives to make it appear as a major success.
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard for me to imagine this summit not succeeding,\u201d said Robert L. Gallucci, a former chief U. S. negotiator with the North Koreans, although he acknowledged that a sudden meltdown in Singapore could trigger a quick reversal to the threat-soaked posturing between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim just a year ago.
\u201cThe president of the United States might hop on his airplane and come home pretty unhappy,\u201d Mr. Gallucci, now a professor at Georgetown University, said Friday at a discussion hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington. \u201cWe would be in a situation in which we were once again talking preventive strikes and the South Koreans would be caught in the middle.\u201d
Others have put it more bluntly. Victor Cha, also a former U. S. negotiator and now adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has said \u201cthe danger of a failed summit is that it could actually take us a step closer to armed conflict, because there is no diplomacy left after a [failed] summit.\u201d
Mr. Cha made the comment in April to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, arguing that \u201ca preventative unilateral attack by the United States on North Korea \u201d would need congressional approval and take into \u201csober account\u201d the possibility of counterstrikes targeting the 350,000 U. S. military personnel and other Americans living in Japan and South Korea.
While Mr. Trump has upped hopes for success \u2014 tweeting just before arrival in Singapore of \u201ca feeling that this one-time opportunity will not be wasted!\u201d \u2014 his optimism comes against a backdrop in which the summit nearly fell apart just a few weeks ago.
Mr. Trump canceled the summit in late May after North Korea suddenly hurled invective at Washington \u2014 and specifically National Security Adviser John R. Bolton \u2014 for suggesting that Pyongyang\u2019s complete denuclearization must happen quickly along a \u201cLibya model.\u201d
With South Korea scrambling to mediate, the two sides worked through the hiccup and got the summit back on track. But the danger of a potential collapse felt all the more real when a Pentagon spokesperson told reporters in late May that the U. S. military was \u201cready to fight tonight\u201d should North Korea launch strikes against American interests or allies.
The comment was reminiscent of the height of brinkmanship in August, when fears of an armed clash soared amid Mr. Trump \u2019s warning that North Korea could face \u201cfire and fury like the world has never seen.\u201d He made the threat after reports that Pyongyang had succeeded in building a nuclear bomb small enough to fit inside an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The nuclear-tipped ICBM fear rose after an increase in missile and nuclear tests that Pyongyang conducted in 2016 and 2017, actions that were accompanied by state media threats toward Washington.
Mr. Bolton, who has since become the president\u2019s national security adviser, made headlines as a private analyst at the time by advocating for pre-emptive strikes that could target North Korean missile facilities.
While most analysts say the Singapore summit is likely go smoothly, many are skeptical that measurable progress will be made on the issue of denuclearization.
The Trump administration has said that in order for North Korea to get sanctions relief, Mr. Kim will have to abandon his nuclear program through \u201ccomplete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement,\u201d or CVID.
Pyongyang so far has said only that it is willing to pursue a denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and there are signs that the North\u2019s definition of denuclearization differs from what Washington demands.
In Mr. Kim \u2019s view, the notion is tied to a drawdown in nuclear capabilities across the region, including in China and Russia, said Tara O, an Asia specialist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
\u201cIt\u2019s not the same as the denuclearization of North Korea,\u201d Ms. O said during the Center for a New American Security discussion on Friday.
Patrick Cronin, who heads the center\u2019s Asia-Pacific security program, added that \u201cPresident Trump [will be] trying to really look into the eyes of Kim Jong-un and say, \u2018Are you serious about [nuclear] dismantlement? Because if you are, I\u2019m serious about letting you build your economy.\u2019\u201d
If that basic level of agreement is achieved, said Mr. Cronin, there will still be major uncertainties. \u201cPresumably,\u201d he said, \u201c Trump and Kim are looking to see whether there is the will on both sides to begin a process that could lead to a road map that could start to be very specific in the months ahead.\u201d
Mr. Gallucci, meanwhile, also raised questions about denuclearization, arguing that the whole concept of CVID, while \u201cpolitically correct,\u201d is \u201cphysically nonsense.\u201d
The amount of fissile nuclear material needed for a bomb may be about the \u201csize of a baseball,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if you think they can\u2019t find a place to hide five baseballs in North Korea, there\u2019s something wrong here.\u201d
Mr. Gallucci added that better words for Mr. Trump to push are \u201ctransparency, monitoring [and] verification.\u201d
But one former CIA official focused on North Korea said it\u2019s hard to fathom that the North Korean leader is serious about abandoning a nuclear program that his father and grandfather worked for decades to build.
\u201cNuclear weapons are a part of North Korea \u2019s national identity,\u201d said Jung H. Pak, who held senior U. S. intelligence positions prior to becoming a private analyst with the Brookings Institution. \u201cIt is the guarantor of North Korea \u2019s status, and it\u2019s the guarantor of Kim .
\u201cUnless we see a difference in the way, or any attempt at shaking down that ideological infrastructure of North Korea \u2019s nuclear identity,\u201d Ms. Pak said at the Center for a New American Security discussion. \u201cI don\u2019t see denuclearization as something that is a realistic goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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