All right here's my idea for North Korea. You want to hear my new plan for North Korea? So we've got this little impasse where apparently we're all afraid of who goes first. So not afraid of but nobody wants to go first. So Kim doesn't want to give up all of his nukes first before the US does whatever he wants us to do to de-escalate, get rid of the sanctions and be less militarily aggressive I suppose in whatever way they're talking about now. Because we can't get past that. US is never going to go first and Kim really can't go first even if he wants to get to the end. Nobody knows how to go first.

So here's a suggestion. I'm just going to throw this out. What if the United States decided to not only declare an end to the Korean War, which would be symbolic, it wouldn't really have any impact on the ground, but suppose we suggested to North Korea that we would work with them for their mutual defense against Russia? I'll let that sink in a little bit. Suppose we made a deal with North Korea to partner with them militarily to protect them from Russia.

Now the first thing you might say is they don't need any protection from Russia. Russia is their ally. They've been working well with Russia since the beginning. But here's the thing. Don't you think North Korea is afraid of Russia? Don't you think that North Korea worries that Russia is trying to control them? Because I'm sure they are. Why wouldn't they?

Now your first reaction is this is a terrible idea and I get that. So we just talk. Let's just talk through it. The mental thing that happens if you say hey North Korea it looks like we have a common enemy so why don't we join forces, not militarily, you know I'm not talking about doing joint military action, I'm not talking about arming North Korea with any kind of weapons that would be any kind of a threat to the South or to us. I'm talking about some kind of a military support agreement, you know something that wouldn't bind us too much but would show that we're sort of on their side defending against Russia.

What makes this interesting is it redefines the whole situation and it gives Kim something to show as success. Not only did we end a war with the United States and with South Korea which would be a big accomplishment, we've actually joined forces at least in some minor military way and it could be more symbolic than actual to protect against Russia.

Now I doubt they would take that deal but here's the bigger thinking about it. How do you get past the problem that nobody will go first? And the answer is you have to shake the box again. You have to change the variables in play. If what you're thinking is you give us something and then we give you something and then we can have some kind of a peace deal, apparently that's not enough variables because if it were we would already have a deal.

And keep in mind that both sides want to get to the same place. It's not like there's an actual disagreement. There's only a disagreement on the path. There's not a disagreement on the end. The end point is North Korea would like to be secure and we would like to not be threatened. You know there's economics involved with that but basically that's it. And since we don't have any kind of an issue with North Korea not being threatened, I mean we have no national interest in threatening them and likewise we have no reason to want the other not to get what they want. So we should be able to make a deal but we need to introduce some variables.

So one of the variables might be that whatever agreement we make doesn't look like a simple agreement between North Korea and South Korea and the North to end nuclear war. Maybe you have to broaden what you're talking about. For example I've mentioned before that maybe what we would say is we'll work with North Korea to make them the nuclear power testing site for the world. You could test some generation four stuff and then they could transfer their nuclear expertise. It's about 75% useful for peaceful nuclear technology so you could transfer your resources that you built up and the public would say hey this is great. We got something valuable. We got peace out of our nuclear program and we got energy and we got an economic way forward. This is all good.

So it could be that you have to introduce something like a nuclear related positive energy thing or something to do with an international agreement that would protect them in ways that are not already protected. So thinking broader is probably the way past it. That's my suggestion.

China doesn't like the birth of an American ally next door. Well you know we take that as given but is there anything we couldn't put in South Korea that wouldn't be just as threatening? Because I don't see a world where we would ever mass troops in North Korea. So I don't see any world in which we would put military assets or boots on the ground in North Korea. And South Korea is close enough to China that if we wanted to put nukes there there would be. And I'm not even sure we need to be nearby. Are we ever would we ever contemplate a world in which we physically attack mainland China? Is China actually worried that the United States would ever be part of an actual invasion? Like I don't see them worrying about that for one minute.

Is the United States worried that China will try to physically invade the United States like pull a bunch of boats up and get out of the boats and start running toward our shores? I don't think so. I think we have zero worry about that because we have things called airplanes and missiles and stuff. If we ever got into a war with China you know it's not going to happen with bats and if it does it's going to be a skirmish not a war.

So I would test the assumption that China has a big problem with North Korea being okay with the United States. I just don't think it makes that much difference as long as there's no change in military assets. And indeed it might lead to fewer military assets in South Korea. So it could be that if the North gets friendly with the United States it would reduce the amount of military assets in the neighborhood of China because we just wouldn't need it.

All right I'll get rid of this troll. Goodbye troll.