High stakes: National security community braces for nuclear brinkmanship if summit fails
Nuclear,Denuclearization,Nuclear Weapons,North Korea,Defense And Security
All signs may point to a successful and historic summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, but the stakes are so high that the U.S. national security community is braced for the possibility of a rapid spiral toward nuclear brinkmanship if the talks between the two men turn sour.
With the North Korean side notorious for bizarre antics and sudden walkouts from diplomatic meetings, it remains anyone’s guess how Tuesday’s face-to-face will ultimately play out — even as most analysts agree that Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim are both driven by domestic political motives to make it appear as a major success.
“It’s very hard for me to imagine this summit not succeeding,” said Robert L. Gallucci, a former chief U.S. negotiator with the North Koreans, although he acknowledged that a sudden meltdown in Singapore could trigger a quick reversal to the threat-soaked posturing between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim just a year ago.
“The president of the United States might hop on his airplane and come home pretty unhappy,” Mr. Gallucci, now a professor at Georgetown University, said Friday at a discussion hosted by the Center for a New American Security in Washington. “We would be in a situation in which we were once again talking preventive strikes and the South Koreans would be caught in the middle.”
