The South Korean president played Matchmaker for Trump and Kim, but will he end the war or start another?

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Moon was part of a force of more than 800 US and South Korean soldiers who accompanied the crew. When they entered the demilitarized zone, Cobra combat helicopters and B-52 bombers with a nuclear system circulated over their heads. Offshore, the USS Midway aircraft carrier is set up for possible air strikes. "We were at the forefront of the razor because of a bad perception or bad judgment" plunging the Korean peninsula into the war, said at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, Van Jackson, The Atlantic . Chainsaws, Americans and their allies reduced the tree to a stump. Outnumbered and outnumbered, North Koreans kept their distance. But for Moon, the memory of that day has never been erased. "It was then that my vision of our country and our security, as well as my patriotism, were formed," Moon told an interviewer last year, just before his victory in the presidency [19659018]. activist for the Democratic Party. He entered politics in 2003, as chief of staff of another political mentor, President Roh Moo-hyun, who also believed in a conciliatory approach to North Korea. In 2007, Pyongyang's weapons tests derailed Roh's outreach policy, once again reminding South Koreans of the threat posed by the North. But Moon never gave up hope of reconciliation

Olympic Teams from North Korea and South Korea Participate in the Opening Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang. Matthias Hangst / Getty

The Matchmaker

When Moon won the presidency in May 2017, after an unsuccessful attempt in 2012, Kim Dae-jung's words still ring in his ears. He reversed the warmongering approach of his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye, and reached out to the North.

But Moon 's approach bogged down quickly as Trump and Kim launched insults and threats of nuclear annihilation against each other. the leader ignored Moon's repeated calls for dialogue. In one of Trump's tweets, the president even scolded Moon for his "appeasement speech" with North Korea, reprimanding: "They only understand one thing!"

But in January, with the Winter Olympics in South Korea suddenly responded to Moon, offering in a speech to open a dialogue with the South. Moon seized the opportunity. Representatives from the North and South traveled the demilitarized zone to discuss North Korea's participation in the Games. At the opening ceremony in February, athletes from both countries marched through the stadium under a flag representing a unified Korean peninsula, suggesting a thaw in their geopolitical stalemate. Another promising sign was the presence on Kim Yo Jong's stand, the youngest sister of the North Korean leader. The two Koreans have even formed a unified women's hockey team to participate in the games.

After games, officials from both countries continued to exchange visits in the midst of Trump and Kim's growing rhetoric. It is unclear who proposed the Kim-Trump summit, but the idea quickly developed. Both parties agreed that Chung, one of Moon's closest associates, would send the invitation to Trump.

KIM WON-JIN / AFP / Getty

While US and North Korean officials were discussing their leaders' meeting, Moon and Kim held their own summit in the DMZ's so-called Joint Security Area, only the third time leaders of North Korea and South Korea have met since the division of the country in 1945. The two leaders shook hands and planted a tree not far from the site of the ax murder incident. According to South Korean officials, Moon persuaded Kim to commit to denuclearization during his talks with Trump, arguing that his country would never be able to evade crippling international sanctions as long as it kept its position. nuclear arsenal.

Moon also flew to Washington and urged Trump to offer Kim security guarantees and economic incentives at their summit to convince Kim that his regime would be safe without nuclear weapons, according to US and South Korean officials. covered by anonymity. discuss sensitive diplomatic issues. In subsequent discussions, these officials said, Moon pleaded with Trump to allow a gradual process of denuclearization. And he persuaded Trump to ignore the hard-liners as National Security Advisor John Bolton, who pushed to overthrow Kim unless he agreed to hand over all his nuclear weapons and his infrastructure of manufacturing. bombs at the front.

Familiar with Trump Moon's oversized ego flattered him with keeping him aboard, telling the American president that a summit with Kim would merit him a well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize – a suggestion Trump cherished so much that she became a song at her gatherings. And when Trump briefly canceled the summit after a top North Korean official called Vice President Mike Pence a "political manna" for repeating Bolton's threat of regime change, Moon returned to Washington and told persuaded Trump to stay the course.

Kim provided an extra boost to Moon's diplomacy by honoring her promise to destroy her only known nuclear test site. Critics questioned the value of the gesture, noting that its previous nuclear tests had already almost destroyed the site. They also noted that the North Korean authorities had removed all sensitive equipment before detonating explosive charges, suggesting that Pyongyang was covering its bets in the event that denuclearization talks broke down. While some US officials have described Kim as misleading to produce more nuclear fuel, he may also be positioning himself before negotiations: the more fuel he has, the more he can trade chips for economic aid. .

ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP / Getty

The end of the "war games"

Skeptics in Washington flayed Trump for his performance at the Singapore summit. "The joint statement is a decidedly disappointing document, consisting largely of generalities and platitudes that Trump quickly attempted to fly over," says Jonathan Pollack, East Asia specialist at the Brookings Institution's Washington. Even worse, according to some analysts, Trump's decision to stop military exercises with South Korea. For the United States, he refused the influence of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he began denuclearization negotiations with his North Korean counterpart. And for South Korea, he removed Seoul's strongest reminder of Allied military power against Pyongyang. South Koreans, said Terry, the former CIA analyst, "find that some of the things they need, such as the alliance and the US military presence, are not as strong as they are." they thought so. "

This view, noting Trump's ruling that it calls "provocative" military exercises, is entirely consistent with the previous calls of the South Korean leader in the United States for to prevent them from opposing the North, which has always considered them as "war games". in May, while Trump was still exercising what he calls the "maximum pressure" on North Korea, South Korea abandoned a joint training exercise involving US B-52 bombers, stating that he was likely to stir up tensions. Trump and Kim.

Despite Conservative criticism, Moon supported Trump and his decision to suspend joint exercises. "We believe that it is necessary to consider different ways of promoting dialogue as long as serious negotiations are underway between the United States and North Korea for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the United States. peace building, "said South Korean spokesman Kim Eui. Kyomeom told reporters.

JUNG YEON-JE / AFP / Getty

William McKinney, a former high-ranking Korean commander of the US Army in the Pacific, notes that Pyongyang has good reason to feel threatened by some of these joint military exercises. Described by the Pentagon as "decapitation" exercises, previous exercises involved American stealth bombers with nuclear capabilities, ballistic missile submarines and up to 350,000 US and South Korean troops. In recent years, the United States has even launched a pair of unarmed intercontinental ballistic missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, dropping them into waters off the North Korean coast. North, a website focused on North Korea, McKinney wrote that because of the "highly provocative" nature of the exercises, "[Trump’s] a surprising commitment [to suspend them] is the most strategic confidence measure that can be done. 19659002] Moon now seems to have achieved two key objectives of his engagement policy: direct talks between the United States and North Korea and a reduction of military tensions between the two adversaries. In recent local elections – widely considered a referendum on Moon's policies – his ruling party, the Democratic Party, has won 11 of the 12 parliamentary elections and 14 of the 17 major races of governors and mayors. A poll after the summit gave it a 79% popularity rating, the highest of all democratically elected presidents in South Korea after a year in power. "The South Korean government seems to be very happy," said Victor Cha, President George W. Bush's chief adviser on Korean affairs.

Trump's speech in Singapore on the money that the United States would save by bringing troops home has been echoed in Washington. Some analysts now warn that China would be the biggest winner of such a withdrawal, and that allies of East Asia – South Korea and Japan – would suffer by losing the guarantee of American protection, a central element of their respective alliances with Washington. "China would like to see a reduction of the military forces [U.S.] in Northeast Asia and a widening gap between the United States and its allies and partners," says Ryan Hass, a specialist in the military. East Asia at the Brookings Institution. "Beijing is now on track to achieve these goals at lower cost."

For Moon and his country, the risks are serious: a nuclear deal that reduces South Korean security in a region dominated by China; or no agreement at all, another war of words, and perhaps a war involving nuclear-tipped missiles. The South Korean leader considers, however, that such discussions are premature. With the denuclearization of North Korea still in its infancy, it could happen years before the peace process that it began to reach the point where it is considered safe to bring back US troops from Korea. South. For the moment, Moon is focusing on the small steps that will allow the process to go forward.

On June 22, the Pentagon announced that, in coordination with senior South Korean officials, the The US military had indefinitely suspended major military exercises. on the Korean peninsula. A few days later, North Korea canceled its "anti-US. Rally of Imperialism, "one of the most important and politically charged events on the Pyongyang calendar." North Korea also recently informed the White House that it would soon make the remains More than 200 US soldiers missing since the end of the Korean War (1950-53).

Meanwhile, North and South Korea are working to reduce their own tensions. removing weapons from an area of ​​the demilitarized zone, where, more than forty years ago, Moon saw how a feud over an overgrown tree could drive two nations to the brink of war .] The aircraft carrier USS Midway was put in position for possible air strikes against North Korea in 1976. Bettmann Archive / Getty

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