While the recent US/North Korean summit in Hanoi ended abruptly with no agreement, Donald Trump was sufficiently strong in his self-belief to ignore the setback. It simply wasn’t in his nature to accept that Kim Jong-Un was a more efficient deal-maker, and that at least avoided an immediate crisis.
This volatile relationship may be out of the headlines at the moment, but none of the partners is passively waiting for the other to move. North Korea and the US are each making themselves ready for war, while the South Korean president struggles to keep negotiation alive.
The Hanoi summit on 28 February followed last year’s 12 June meeting in Singapore, which Trump declared a success and promptly followed by cancelling the annual military exercises that the US held with South Korea. Many people around the world were glad that tension had reduced compared with the rhetoric of a year earlier. Many in the US and South Korean military, however, were far from happy at Trump’s action, and their concern has deepened with reports that, while North Korea has refrained from testing missiles or nuclear warheads, it is quietly building more missiles and is not dismantling its key nuclear production facilities.
