RE: What A Surprise
July 1, 2018 at 11:12 am
(This post was last modified: July 1, 2018 at 11:22 am by Anomalocaris.)
(July 1, 2018 at 11:11 am)mh.brewer Wrote:(July 1, 2018 at 10:46 am)Wololo Wrote: They're not war games, they're joint manoeuvres designed to ensure a properly coordinated joint defence between US and South Korean forces in event of a North Korean attack. By abandoning them not alone is Trump decreasing the effictiveness of a hypothetical future defence against an attack, but much worse he is signalling to US allies in East Asia that they can't depend on him if they get attacked.
Expect both South Korea and Japan to move much closer to China in the near future.
OK, war games was a poor choice. Have they been completely abandoned or only cancelled? If NK does not continue to play can't they be reinstituted?
NK saber rattles and we rattle back, what good does that do? I think the summit de-escalated the chance of attack from NK.
There was never a chance of any attack from NK. The summit merely superficially de-escalated trump’s own fire and brimstone rhetoric and threats to attack.
He claimed credit for putting out a fire he started, and in the process of doing so blindsided South Korea and the japan by unilaterally canceling schedule joint schedule exercises without prior consultation with other partners of the exercise. So the US today is in a weaker position vs North Korea than if the summit had never taken place.
Yes, the exercises can be resumed. But so long as trump is president they will never again reassure South Korea and japan as they once did because rather than being evidence of steady American commitment to collaborative mutural defense, it is now but a symbol of American fickleness and unpredictable willingness to pull the rug out from under them.
Yes, the summit strengthened China’s Hand and weakened that of the US. Trump’a idiocy in starting a trade war with China is made further manifest by China playing that hand now.
