(January 15, 2024 at 9:12 pm)neil Wrote: [...] the two sides can declare their conflict resolved, sign peace treaties with each other, and we (the US) can pack up and leave.
I wish everybody could sign peace treaties. It looks as though Kim's announcement is for more hostility, though, rather than less. He has announced that reunification is impossible because the two countries are in a hostile face-off which shows no sign of ending. He's given up (publicly) on peace because of decades-long hostility from the US. Recent research concludes that the US killed 20% of North Korea's population during the war, so there's no reason for anyone to take America's threats as idle.
In recent years the US has been making more and more belligerent moves against China. And we know that in order to weaken a major enemy, the US is perfectly willing to devastate a smaller country in a proxy war. It's clear that Ukraine has been destroyed, with millions killed, maimed, or permanently emigrated. 20% of the country has been permanently lost to the Russians and the rest is largely sold off to foreign investors. In addition, the US shows that it has no regard for human life; it is currently supporting an ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Recent history shows that if a foreign leader gives up his weapons of mass destruction the US then has him assassinated and his country is put into chaos. Viz. Libya and Iraq. So Kim has no good reason to look peaceful. If America packed up and left he could ramp it down, but as long as the US remains the main threat of war worldwide, his course of building strength is reasonable. Unfortunate, but not crazy.
The people of North and South Korea have no animosity. As with Taiwan, if the US stopped using these places as tokens in their quest for hegemony, everybody could calm down.
As the US loses credibility in the world, and as its economic clout dissolves, the real threat is that it will start new wars rather than accept diminished power. Kim's best option is probably to wave a big stick and otherwise do nothing -- as the petrodollar continues to dissolve, as Russia and China continue to gain popularity in Africa and Asia, and as the BRICS nations grow, US hegemony will fade away. Then peaceful resolutions will be more possible.
