The Korean Caper

Foreign policy from the American perspective, in the era of Trump, requires the merging of two often incongruous points: what we see and what we know. It begs the question, how reliable are our eyes and ears?

Yesterday we saw a form of détente being exercised between North and South Korea. Today we will hear about a significant role the US (and more specifically D. Trump) played in putting together what is being billed as the end of the 70 year old Korean War. Such an accomplishment, with additional overtones of reducing future armed conflict on the Korean peninsula is of a level that starts Nobel Peace Prize speculation.

We also saw Mike Pompeo pictured with Kim Jong-un last month. What was going on there? It all looks so…well, progressive. This is made especially true following the reintroduction into the American fear machine of nuclear holocaust, made particularly vivid by videos of Hawaiian citizens running amuck in paradise.

Okay then…so what do we know?

We know that North Korea has survived for three generations as a fully authoritarian regime. Kim is viewed by the majority of North Koreans essentially as a deity, as was his father and grandfather.  We know that even with a compromised economy it has been able to successfully develop both nuclear weapons and delivery systems. 

We know that since the end of military conflict in the early 1950s the US has been the target of national hostility, loathing, and a useful tool for North Korean national unity. America is to Kim what the Jews were to Hitler.

We know that Kim is 35 years old (or 34 or 36 depending on the source) and it is reasonable to believe that he has every intention of keeping his job until death, as has been the family tradition.  He could easily have 50 years left to his term, so whatever game he may be playing you can assume it’s the long game.

We also know he is ruthless, given the public assassinations and known political gulags. Benevolence is not in his wheelhouse. Just ask the Warmbier family. It is meaningless that he likes to listen to electropop or watch basketball.

We know that the Trump administration has demonstrated a type of political pragmatism that more resembles pinball ambiguity than pinpoint precision.  The haphazard turnover in Administration leadership is nowhere more evident than in the State Department with the Tillerson efforts to completely dismantle it like an unprofitable corporate acquisition.

We know that child-like rhetoric has been Trump’s response to North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic successes. We also know that Trump is playing a short game (a fact that’s essentially true for most in American politics), and given his erratic behavior toward the legal woes he faces, it’s likely his preference is a very short game.

So if what we see doesn’t mesh with what we know, where does that take us?

Here should be the givens: Kim Jong-un is not going to denuclearize his regime. It is a carrot that will never get within a yard of the donkey’s nose. It makes absolutely no sense for an authoritarian government to give up the only ace in its hand.

What Kim wants is the US out of South Korea, expand his relationship with China, Russia, and, probably, Vietnam to keep the US out of the Yellow Sea and much of the Sea of Japan. He wants reduced influence by the US over South Korea and he can wait years, maybe decades to make it happen.

 By normalizing relations (trade, exchange etc.) with South Korea and dangling unification along with denuclearization he is hoping to get South Korea to be the landlord to evict the Americans.  Trump, with his game limited to a couple of years at best (maybe far less…go Mueller), will jump on any bandwagon which he thinks will make him a candidate for Nobel status.

As incongruous as it might appear, it may end up being the right course of action.

The only weapon I believe to be useful in undermining Kim Jong-un’s iron hold over the North Korean people (& policy) is prosperity.  Perhaps in post-Trump America we can figure a way to be a leading force in advancing North Korea’s economy instead of the continual militarily adversarial position we have taken for 70 years.  

It is obvious Korean unification will never happen until the two Koreas look essentially alike. Let’s work toward making them both look like South Korea.

Letting Flicka Rest in Peace?

The phrase Beating a Dead Horse is 150 years old, and for good reason. Despite the brutal image it creates by current standards, its relevance (and resilience) lies with the reality that everyone has engaged in the futility of pursuing something that cannot come to be. 

For those challenged by obvious similes, its origin comes from the pointlessness of vigorously attempting to make a horse move after it has expired. Anyone not pleading guilty to occasionally engaging in this human foible I believe your UFO is double parked.

The problem clearly is due to the beater not being able to recognize that the horse is dead. So is the case with my fixation on something that appears so perceptible to me yet seems to gain no traction in the court of public opinion. 

Once again, for the fourth time over the past two years, I am writing about Donald Trump’s mental illness.  Will it be just another sweet nothing sent across desert air or worse, the flogging of a poor animal who only wants to graze in the great beyond?

For anyone who has experienced, first hand, the behavior of someone with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and possibly researched that disorder in order to deal with the relationship, they should be able to see that Trump is so inflicted. Furthermore, they should understand, with reasonable ease, the actions he has taken and confidently predict those actions yet to be inflicted on a weary nation. It explains everything Trump.

Anti-Trump pundits and supporters alike run an entire gamut of explanations on why this man has done what he has, why he acts the way he does, and what motivates has actions.  “He’s a liar”, “he’s a tell-it-like-it-is businessman”, “he’s immoral”, “he’s a counter-puncher”, “he’s a racist”, “he’s a Conservative patriot”, “he’s an authoritarian”, “he’s a family man”, “he’s a womanizer”, “he’s a deal maker”, “he’s ignorant”, and so on.

The commentators we hear daily are like doctors who reflect confidently on the symptoms that are causing distress but never touch on the underlying disease.

NPD is not new, and although Narcissistic behavior is common, a Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not. The disorder creates in the inflicted individual behaviors they can’t control.

NPD is as much defined by the impairment created by the behavior as it is the characteristics.

Here is a common list of characteristics of NPD which you can retrieve from multiple sources. This list comes from Mayo Clinic’s website:

Has an exaggerated sense of self-importance

Has a sense of entitlement and requires constant, excessive admiration

Expects to be recognized as superior even without achievements to warrant it

Exaggerates achievements and talents

Is preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance

Believes they are superior and can only associate with equally special people

Belittles or looks down on people they perceive as inferior

Expects unquestioning compliance with their expectations

Takes advantage of others to get what they want

Has an inability to empathize or recognize the needs and feelings of others

Is envious of others and believe others envy them

Behaves in an arrogant manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious

These characteristics (which all need not apply to be considered having a NPD) are not the most important aspect of the disorder. The real problem is that reality for the NPD patient is almost entirely subjectively resourced.  A person such as Donald Trump does not view the world external to himself as having objective truth.

More telling than the countless untruths and inane actions are the many small absurdities such as denying the crowd size of his predecessor’s inauguration or saying he created the phrase prime the pump. It is the reason a person with an NPD cannot admit that they are wrong, because to do so would contradict their subjective understanding of truth.

This I believe makes Trump a far more sympathetic individual than the Progressive pundits like to describe him. However, I also believe it makes him far more dangerous and heightens the necessity to remove him from office.

Because the objective world is constantly contradicting the subjective world Donald sees as truth it is inevitable that he will become increasingly paranoid. We have already seen this evolution taking place. He will perceive conspiracies everywhere affecting him directly, instead of those he frequently observed in his past from a distance. 

As I predicted a year and a half ago, those closest to him would be targeted first. So it has been unceasingly. Worse than that is the likelihood that those wanting to keep their positions will give him no counsel. It is a tragedy that Republican lawmakers are unwilling to address the lunacy that parades before them in their desire to retain power. Such neutralizes the effectiveness of our Constitution.

There is no good outcome from his remaining in office, as someone with a NPD simply cannot accept an objective reality and therefore cannot accept his own dysfunction.

It is imperative that Congress is flipped from Republican control at the end of this year, that Mueller presents his case sooner than later, and then, perhaps, I will see Flicka rise to her feet and take another run around the track.