Superficial Summitry

Diplomatic summits contain dualities common in politics and life. They express the divergence between presentation and reality, hope and expectation.

The Fascination and the Fear

Review – See You Again in Pyongyang by Travis Jeppesen

Global interest in North Korea is prompted by fascination and fear. Both are overdone.

The Singapore Summit Has Trivialised a Brutal Dictatorship

The world’s attention is fixated on Singapore, the venue for a summit that not long ago looked like it wouldn’t happen.

Discussion between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump was imperilled by the former’s intransigence and the latter’s rashness. Trump dictated an intemperate letter to Kim on May 24 cancelling the thing. It looked as though that was that.

Trump Won’t Win the Nobel Peace Prize – Whether or Not He Deserves It

There we have it. The date and time for Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un are set.

It was announced when Trump’s newly appointed secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, returned from Pyongyang with three Americans who had been imprisoned in North Korea. The summit – an outbreak of diplomacy after the two countries traded threats last summer – will occur on June 12, in Singapore.

Meeting with the Enemy

For all his capacity to surprise politicians and commentators, Donald Trump has done little in office which could be called truly original.

Since his ascent to the presidency, Trump has shepherded little significant domestic legislation through Congress, and his foreign policy could hardly be considered revelatory.

North Korea and Literature

North Korea is in part fascinating because it is mysterious. Cut off from viewing eyes not by geographical remoteness but by political design, the state and the lives within it seem strange and bizarre to observers. The mystery of the hermit state is part of its myth, which is cultivated by North Korea’s leadership, as well as a by-product of its peculiar circumstances. Outsiders can enter only irregularly. Western journalists cannot report on North Korea as they might any other country. Outside analysts can only guess at the bare facts of its economy, its politics and its culture.

As His Syria Strike Shows, Trump Is the Man to Solve the North Korea Problem

In the West, North Korea used to be a punchline. The hermit state was known to be repressive and its leaders were seen to be deeply cruel. But amid stories of man-made famines and mass starvation, prison systems and summary executions, Western journalists found something else to write about.