Thread by @BonicMichael

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 US’s strategy should be to reduce tensions, promote ☮️ & address security guarantees. DPRK FM Cho Son Hui has defined the parameters of negotiations. Any premise or assumption that DPRK wants to retake the KP is faulty: DPRK wants a war-ending ☮️ Treaty.

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1478945971845304320?s=20

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 Frank Aum spells it out:

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1479590858571747329?s=20

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 Use critical thinking: IF North Korea has no intention of “reunifying the peninsula under socialism by force”, wants only to live in peace w/ ROK & the US and has nuclear weapons purely as self-defensive nuclear deterrence, THEN you are mistaking a rope

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1241225076512456705?s=20

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 in the dark of night for a snake. The analogy is simple and quite apt. The majority of those in DC, the Pentagon & ROK’s People Power Party resolutely believe Kim is intent on using nukes to retake the KP by force. Yet we can’t act on belief alone. Besides

https://twitter.com/bonicmichael/status/1475193637822930944?s=21

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 evidence suggesting the contrary - that DPRK “shall strive to achieve the complete victory of socialism in the northern half of Korea” -

https://twitter.com/bonicmichael/status/1476391842912501763?s=21

is not sound to base the US’s NK policy merely assumptions, unverified premises and weak reasoning like: “DPRK still

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 has yet to fulfill the promise it made at the onset of the Korean War.” For Washington to be guided by this kind of mindset shows it hasn’t evolved in pace w/ DPRK’s evolution. Today is light-years beyond 1950. Granted the wall of distrust has precluded

https://twitter.com/bonicmichael/status/1425963174705057792?s=21

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 DC and PY from seeing eye to eye. There are indications DPRK has made this fundamental change in its national interest/policy following USSR’s collapse: Forceful reunification out, partner w/ ROK in. Communication & Frank honest conversation is required to

https://twitter.com/bonicmichael/status/1477166995829248003?s=21

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 ferret out the truth. Yet as Frank Aum points out, if any US Admin is unwilling to expand US goals to include building ☮️ & confidence, reducing tensions & improving relations w/ NK (Biden called Kim a “murderous dictator” already raising the ire of DPRK’s), but defaults to the

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 non-risk conventional approach of:

Preventing war
Maintaining strong deterrence
Coercing PY into submission
Enforce international law

thru a Maximum Pressure Policy - which as Aum says is antithetical to the aforementioned goals, b/c “pressure is inherently a hostile policy” -

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 then the wall of distrust and non-communication only becomes more fortified and anchored in ideological polarity. DC & PY therefore must build trust:

Questions I would ask Kim Yo Jong in an informal Q&A:

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1441406495854264320?s=20

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1475197806247747584?s=20

https://twitter.com/BonicMichael/status/1476345432343121924?s=20

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 If there is to be ☮️ and war is to be avoided, communication & trust are prerequisites. Maximum Pressure will only ratchet up tensions. Communication is the key but it won’t happen as long as the US is still living under the Cold War rock the DPRK left behind decades ago.

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 Common sense and critical thinking are often overridden by the irrational forces of subjectivism, cognitive distortions, ideology as distorted belief & paranoia, and rational forces of political agenda & strategic policy formatted in
two dimensional thinking. As they say: You can

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

@ACScowcroft @Mister_G_2 @threadreaderapp compile