What Trump should do to end the Korean war

The prospects of ending the Korean War, among the longest in the history of warfare, appear very bright. The war has lasted more than 67 years since North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950 in an effort to unify the two Koreas created by the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II.

This is largely because of the effort to bring three natural “rebels” together. These are US President Donald Trump, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and South Korean President Moon Jae-In. While Trump and Kim have publicly exchanged insults, Moon leads them into dialogue.

Moon, the man behind the effort to reduce tension, seemingly has a “grand strategy” to end the Korean War in unorthodox ways. Arrested twice as a student trouble maker, his rebel mind-frame convinced him that he could get along with Kim, the rebel in the north.

Kim was receptive to the idea of the two ending the “war” and the two symbolically visited each other’s zone. It then remained for Moon to convince Trump, the rebel in Washington, that it made geopolitical sense to talk to Kim to end the “war”. He did, and Trump agreed only to later equivocate.

Euro allies

Trump likes causing uncertainty, giving the impression he is erratic, and achieves things by being unconventional. He is in trouble partly because he even ignores his Euro allies and has problems fending off allegations that Russia’s Vladmir Putin helped to make him president. He angered the Euro mainstream media, which has responded by repeatedly portraying him as a persistent liar unfit to hold office.

Although Trump tries to use global issues to divert attention from various challenges, he is not credible. Given that a previous president, George W. Bush, deliberately misled the world on Iraq in order to have a war, Trump’s attempts to justify his treaty violations by painting Iran as a nuclear devil sound hollow. His own intelligence and allies disagree with his claims that Iran was violating the terms of the nuclear treaty.

The “allies” reject his demands that they too withdraw, which puts him in a quandary and so they will continue upholding their end of the bargain with Iran. Trump’s Iran foray looks like an anti-Obama vendetta, because it is one of Obama’s clear defense and foreign policy successes.

Trump’s move on Iran is a policy disaster and affects his possible positive engagement with Kim. He should not be the first to make an about turn when, as president, he is confronted with new realities. Thomas Jefferson, the third US president made a doctrinal U-turn when Napoleon Bonaparte offered Louisiana territory. Nixon, a bitter critic of Communist China in the initial stages of the Cold War, derived political capital from his opening the door to China. He created a “Nixon Moment”, ability to reverse cause drastically. To a smaller scale than Nixon, Barrack Obama had his “Nixon Moment” when he opened the Cuban door.

Korean Peninsula

Similarly, Trump is seemingly in search of his “Nixon moment” that would completely alter US relations with a supposed pariah state. He would like to open the North Korean door, cut deals with Kim about a possible moratorium on nuclear production because it would be in his interest, and thus secure his only positive legacy.

The effect would be to help reduce security tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the East Asia zone.

Trump’s problem, however, is that the threat to his ‘Nixon Moment” is not in North Korea, it is in Washington DC, the White House included. He surrounds himself with people who believe in perpetual confrontation or humiliating perceived rivals rather than reaching respectable mutual understanding.

Probably with intent to scuttle Trump’s “Nixon Moment”, they talk of the Libyan option for North Korea, knowing that it is not acceptable to Kim. This made Trump to vacillate on his North Korean move and to appear like a “prisoner” in need of internal geopolitical liberation.

In theory, the country most threatened by North Korea’s arsenal is South Korea, but Seoul, apparently liberated from the fear of Pyongyang, pushes for ending the tensions in the Peninsula. With a thriving economy, reportedly ranked number 11 in the world, South Korea asserts itself in subtle ways. It has a huge maritime industry and its brand names, Samsung and LG, globally dominate mobile phones and household electronics.

It would want to find its power niche by reducing tensions in its neighborhood. Moon is the man doing it. After Washington mandarins mounted scuttling campaigns, he tries to rescue the Trump-Kim dialogue and has the support of other concerned leaders. In seeking to reduce tension in the Peninsula and end the “war”, he emerges as a serious new power player.

Prof Munene teaches history and international relations at USIU; [email protected]