are saying. Wait, is Trump over-hyping things news now? :-)

That's a really good interview. Thanks for linking that. And Mr. Garlauskus makes a lot of sense. Not the least of which, IMO, is that Kim thinking the US fears war more than he does gives him an advantage (do you think he doesn't think that now? I do), that bringing the missile testing to a pause is crucial for de-escalating and negotiations to continue (which is now gone), and that those that were claiming Trump was bringing us to "imminent WWIII" back in '17 were mind bogglingly dumb, dangerous, and even destructive to the process (but hey, let's not let that stop us from "getting Trump").

It also confirms my reason to be skeptical about the depiction of Trump walking away from negotiations in the first article. Garlauskas paints a very different picture of that meeting than that article did. And he would obviously know.

One thing I didn't see addressed that seemed important was China's role. In addition to all the steps mentioned there, it seemed, to me anyway, that Trump was counting on, or hoping for Xi and China being part of the carrot and stick approach to convincing Kim to be reasonable so he could join the civilized World. That seemed to be helping at first, and there's no doubt that without Chinese support Kim would be screwed, but that certainly seemed to fall off later in the process. Probably due to our own one on ones with China and issues between us, but I don't think ignoring those for progress with Kim would've been a good tradeoff.

In the end, I think it's hard to claim this hasn't gotten worse under Biden, or even that it would've been the same regardless of hoo was in the White House now. I don't think you could claim it would be the same if Trump were there. I don't think you could claim it would be the same if someone like Pompeo, Cotton, or even Li'l Marco were there. Shoot, I'm not sure it would even be the same if Hillary were there. Kim senses that weakness and unwillingness to turn to the stick, or "bigger and more powerful button, and it works" if you prefer.

And unfortunately for Biden, or hooever follows him, I don't think current events in Ukraine (after what he watched in Libya), are going to make it easier to get him to denuclearization.