North Korea Talks

Generally, I agree. Still a chance of a Korea deal, and quite possibly, in the background of what is going on in middle east, which will climb to the top of the news. but not abandoned. A short delay, but this will be due to Trump, and his tactless manner....but something wstill be announced.....the deal is on the table...the Chinese have made it clear that the situation is intolerable, and they have invested much prestige in the talks.....so will be very annoyed with Trump...if there is no ultimate success. Trump will get severely talked to by other world leaders. who are getting increasingly angry at his behavior.....

This may be enough to get it across the finishing line.....but about a week before the talks, we will get clear indications....

As I said on my first post, the timelines were very wobbly on this one. What caught me completely blindsided was that it would be Trump cancelling the talks. I always assumed it would be Kim Jong Un doing it, so I didn't look for the other option. Lesson learned: when timelines are very wobbly, try to think what is it you didn't think about before.

I'll focus on this one and I'll post something when I get some clear impressions. My initial gut feeling is that nothing is going to happen about North Korea soon, but this is very much a preliminary thing.

Any thoughts about the real reason Trump canceled the talks?  My thoughts are that Trump realizes he will be made a fool of by the North Koreans. He also has his hawks (like Bolton) chomping at the bit to make zero concessions.

My intuition has said all along that Trump never had ANY intention of going completely through with this meeting. He absolutely loathes KJU and would blow him off the map in a New York minute if he could. He has no reality of nuclear consequences. But, fortunately, my feeling is that our generals will never let him have access to the nuke codes. It's all been a game between these two toddlers to see how far they could push one another and who will be the one to triumph over the other.  I knew the closer we got to the actual date of the summit that we would start to see Trump back-pedal and make excuses to get out of it. I sense he was uneasy and unhappy with this entire deal. He doesn't trust KJU and didn't want to take a chance that he would fail at the summit and as you said...be made a fool of by the North Koreans. But, he sure rode that magic carpet up until the end for ratings that he "might" succeed. But, that is how he operates in most of his deals. Talks a big game and then blunders and walks away. I also sense that the leaders that truly put this meeting together are not too happy about it.  He gave them no heads up about his move today with the letter. He'll likely hear from them "behind the scenes".  And, yes, we did have coins made (paid for by taxpayers), but I respectfully believe that this entire summit was a FACADE for something bigger. Planned and organized by CHINA. Their ultimate aim is to take over NK and eventually more.

I think Trump had every intention of going thru with it because 1. he had the coins made 2. He thought he would get a Nobel Peace Prize from it.

Trump just doesn't understand how these things work. Kim would have held the meeting but likes to play games first. Trump was so afraid that Kim would cancel before he could and he would look stupid so he Thinks he beat Kim to the punch. His minds works in the mindset of I will get you before you get me.

I wonder how those 20 Republicans that nominated him for the Nobel Prize feel now.

I have some clear impressions now. I must warn that I get a small but significant chance of surprises, though. And surprises in this case can go all the way to military confrontation between US and North Korea. But that's definitely not the dominant timeline.

What I get for the dominant is that things go quiet for the next six months around North Korea. China and South Korea have been in talks with North Korea, and those talks will continue, but quietly and without making much public noise, if any noise at all. A broad agreement has been reached, leading to the eventual reunification of Korea, and baby steps will be taken towards it. North Korea won't be making any more nuclear tests during this time, because they've proven the points they wanted to prove already.

The main chance for surprises here comes from the relationship between South Korea and the US. South Korea is already economically in the sphere of influence of China, and is comfortable with that. But militarily, it's in the sphere of influence of the US. This is something that bothers China a lot, because it puts American missiles too close to Chinese territory for their comfort. Part of the agreement is that South Korea will endeavor to reduce American military presence in their soil, which will please both China and North Korea. It's from the current White House reactions to those attempts that surprises may come.

Bear in mind that even though North Korea is likely to go quiet, the Middle East is still very likely to become a major war zone. And that the possibility of WWIII triggered by events in the Middle East hasn't gone away. I got a strong confirmation of this. And in a WWIII scenario, Korea would be one of the battlefields. But it wouldn't enter the fray until a confrontation between US and Russia is well under way.

I just got this feeling. Not a high-probability event, but dangerous enough to say. I see a limited nuclear exchange between North Korea and the United States, specifically Hawaii, happening while the summit is going on. I'm unclear about who starts it or why, but the impression I get is that the decision doesn't come from the top, but somebody goes rogue while the leaders are at the summit. Again, this probably won't happen, but I'm saying just in case.

My base case scenario at this point in time is the one I wrote on the first post of this thread.

Maria it is good to know that the possibility of nuclear exchange is low even though you can pick up on it as a possible future.  The thing that popped into my head was that maybe the possibility is higher because this is sort of uncharted territory, a US president hasn't met with a North Korean leader in a long time.  I imagine tensions are higher than normal in this situation.  Everyone is tense and maybe someone thinks they should be some sort of hero or some kind of protector of their leader or their country.  Trump and his people have said inflammatory things already and they don't act the way a normal US president or administration normally would so that may make the North Koreans more nervous than say when Bill Clinton visited in 2009 with Kim Jong Il.  The mentioning of the Libya model for treatment of NK by Bolton is an example of extremely aggressive talk by this administration.  All the talk of who has the bigger nuclear button and "little rocket man" stuff hasn't helped either.  I hope cooler heads prevail!!!

I've seen some people on the Internet making comments as if it's all over and the North Korean talks have been a great success. Just to clarify, this was just the beginning. USA and North Korea have simply agreed to start a new round of negotiations. Trump and Kim got a photo op and signed a document that binds them to nothing except things they have already said. Most of the negotiations have yet to come.

"Success"?? What the what?? Trump suspended joint US/South Korean military exercises - you know, the things that allied militaries do to make sure they can work together and coordinate with each other. This caught both the US defense establishment and our South Korean allies totally off guard. Trump gave up an important piece of the US/S Korean alliance for NOTHING. Meeting was a disaster.

What I feel about this is more common sense than trying to be psychic.  

Kim will not give up his nukes.  And he knows that Trump almost always starts with warm and cuddly then switches to the exact opposite. Then there's the fact that Trump loves totalitarian dictators and is in Putin's pocket and has turned against U.S. allies.

End result?  Due to incompetence and greed, Trump's presidency will cede U.S. power to China and Russia. By the time he realizes he's been duped, it will be too late to reverse the power balance he's inadvertently created.  He's a novice who doesn't know he's a novice and refuses to listen to anyone.

Our predictions have always shown that the U.S. global supremacy will suffer from Trump and the GOP.  Perhaps this situation is part of that slide. 

Trump is a great example of the Dunning Kruger effect. Too ignorant to know just how ignorant he is.

Maria, your predictions on this subject have been really helpful and have felt correct to me from the beginning. 

I thought that it couldn't get any more surreal than watching DT completely betray our allies while at the G7.

And then we see him with Kim Jong Un in Singapore praise this hideous dictator, spew nonsense, and try to sell him real estate! This

has to be a new low. And yet crickets from our senators and congressmen...honestly I feel so sad for our country.

 How will we ever recover? 

What troubles me to a terrible extent are his supporters.

And I wonder...would they truly follow him over a cliff? It sickens me to how they treated President Obama. If Obama did this with our allies and enemies, he'd be impeached, hanged, and buried by now.

I once thought I had a handle on this world, but it's truly upside down. And I know watching the news is unhealthy for me, but I can't stop watching. I'm terrified.

Pacosurfer - forewarned is forearmed, but I'm the opposite of you. I can only watch news through a comedy filter, like Stephen Colbert, or the Daily Show. 

I'm terrified as well, because I think the Maganuts would follow their leadership off a cliff. They don't care for this world, and only worry about the "next" one. Their cult is one of destruction and ultimately death. The more anyone tries to convince them that their way of thinking is wrong, the more they dig their heels in.

I believe civil war 2.0 will happen. It wouldn't be like last time - states vs. states. It would be more modern (and horrible). I keep seeing a war on US soil, but it's fought day-to-day and everywhere at the same time. There is no battle front or battle lines. It's neighbor against neighbor, small faction against small faction. It's worse in the cities. It's endless strings of domestic terrorism attacks. I see the government killing refugees/detainees en masse because everyone is so busy fighting each other that they barely notice and/or are too busy trying to survive themselves. I see that ultimately the believers in the old ways lose, but it takes years and a lot of loss.

Sorry to diverge from the lead topic, everyone, and sorry Pacosurfer if what I say is upsetting. Take consolation in the fact that my future-reading skills are not as sharp as many others on here.

Believe me, there is nothing you or anyone on these forums can say that will cause me more pain than what is happening to our country.
I really feel like we're in a twilight zone. In fact, seeing everyone here is actually helping me acclimate and validate what I'm experiencing. 

And you're right...it will be friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor. I can't follow some of my family on Facebook, as they believe 45 is the greatest President since George Washington, if not greater. I can't maintain that level of relationship anymore. My tolerance is not there. 

It's one thing if it's a matter of debating if the weather is partly sunny/mostly cloudy; but there is a typhoon coming, and these people only see sunshine.

So I need to break from the news, and focus again on books. Books keep me sane. And cartoons.

When Trump left the G7 summit, I got a vision that when he was in the airplane he got a transmission from the Kremlin.  The transmission told him to split from the G7 and align with North Korea.  Perhaps those orders from the kremlin came earlier.  But I felt that as he sat on the tarmac about to take off to Singapore, he was wholly in Putin's pocket.  He would do what Putin wanted him to do.  

Trump is a Russian agent.   He would never think of himself that way but then people who’ve been co-opted by the Russians don’t think of themselves as agents. It started a few years ago.  He sold his soul to Putin and now Putin will continue to collect on the debt.   When he follows Putin’s orders, can tell when Trump is following Putin's orders he acts suddenly and unilaterally without explanation or  discussion.  His staff is not involved at this point.  He would just say that he has to act unilaterally because it is how he can use his incredible intuitive gift (his opinion, not mine). But I think he needs to please putin to be safe from exposure. 

I mentioned this issue yesterday in the 2020 topic of this Forum.  Today I saw Rachel Maddow talking about how Trump's dropping of military exercises with South Korea for no reason that anyone can understand. He didn't discuss this giveaway of U.S. security with his advisors or the U.S. military, nor with South Korea.  Maddow suspects  he’s a Russian agent but she never quite says it.  

The U.S. has been doing military exercises with South Korea as a national security measure for 70 years. Trump suddenly stopped it and for no reason. It wasn't part of a bargaining tool.  

The bargain he struck with NK is worse than the one that was already in place from the Clinton years. But as Rachel Maddow points out, Russia has been asking the U.S. to stop those military exercises.  

So Trump did it for Putin and without telling anyone in advance, not the U.S. Military or South Korea or anyone! Except I bet  Putin knew it was coming. 

Now it is logical that there is no back channel wire communication going on between them. How would trump avoid getting caught?  It is possible that Trump just knows he has to do favors for Putin to save himself from exposure. And The exposure wouldn’t have to be sex tapes. It could be proof of trumps collusion.

And there are agents with ties to the kremlin in Washington. So it would not be inconceivable that they are communicating. 

Malcolm Nance keeps saying that there is a, "Benedict Arnold moment coming". I hope to God this all comes out at some point soon.