Tag Archives: Henry Kissinger

Foreign Policy, Opinion, Politics

Examining Trump’s Meetings on North Korea with “Long-Time Friend” Kissinger

Leave a comment

Last Friday, former U.S. Secretary of State and contentious public figure Henry Kissinger made headlines after asserting that North Korea poses the most immediate threat to “global security” and ominously stated that the “temptation to deal” with North Korea “with a pre-emptive attack is strong.” While some may dismiss Kissinger’s statements as merely the musings of a 94-year-old former statesman, others may argue that his influence over the presidential administration of his “long-time friend” Donald Trump could turn this “temptation” into reality.

After his rise to political prominence, Trump’s first meeting with Kissinger took place in May of 2016. Notably, that meeting occurred only a day after then-candidate Trump said he would open dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if elected President. After that initial meeting, Kissinger and Trump met last November of that same year and, afterwards, Kissinger stated that Trump would likely not be keeping all his campaign promises, as he was undergoing “the transition from being a campaigner to being a national strategist.” This apparently included letting go of his promise to open dialogue with North Korea.

In addition to their meetings in 2016, Kissinger and Trump met an additional three times last year. The most recent of those took place last October, and the topic was none other than North Korea. That same day, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis instructed the U.S. Army to stand ready if North Korea diplomacy fails. The next day, Trump met with the nation’s top military commanders in the White House Situation Room, sometimes called “the War Room,” to discuss possible options for responding to North Korean “aggression.”

These options included the “tempting” plan for a pre-emptive “bloody nose” strike against North Korea. Experts, and even former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, have noted that tens of millions of innocent civilians could easily be killed in the first 30 minutes of a military conflict erupting on the Korean peninsula as well as the fact that such a conflict could quickly become global in scale. Experts have also asserted that the U.S. would be “unlikely” to win a conflict against North Korea.

Yet, of all the possibilities raised during that meeting, not one of them included a diplomatic approach despite the attempts of both North Korea’s and Trump’s own State Department to open dialogue. Those present at the meeting also did not consider North Korea’s repeated offer to terminate its nuclear weapon and missile program if the U.S. stops conducting annual war games with South Korea in proximity to North Korean territory – an offer refused by both Obama and Trump.

While some Trump supporters may argue that Trump is unlikely to follow the advice of someone as closely connected to the “deep state” as Henry Kissinger, Trump has expressed nothing but praise for the man who is credited with transforming U.S. foreign policy into one of perpetual, undeclared war.

Henry Kissinger and Nancy Kissinger, Donald Trump and wife Ivana Trump backstage at a Liza Minelli show in New York, June 11, 1987. (AP/ Ron Frehm)

After their most recent meeting last October, Trump praised Kissinger’s “immense talent.” “Henry Kissinger has been a friend of mine,” he added. “I’ve liked him. I’ve respected him. But we’ve been friends for a long time, long before my emergence into the world of politics, which has not been too long.” All this, despite the fact that Kissinger is also a long-time advisor and confidante of Trump’s former rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton.

Kissinger’s recent statements on North Korea come at an interesting time. Despite best efforts from the U.S. to inflame tensions on the Korean peninsula, North and South Korea have made major breakthroughs towards peace. The most noteworthy of these was the joint decision to have the teams of both nations march together during the upcoming Winter Olympics to be hosted on the Korean peninsula.

Yet, as Kissinger’s past clearly indicates, his version of “diplomacy” does not typically allow for peace. A 2016 article written by Greg Grandin chronicled Kissinger’s most noteworthy actions:

“Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy–maker. He (1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years; (2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos; (3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists; (4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; (5) urged Nixon to go after Daniel Ellsberg for having released the Pentagon Papers, which set off a chain of events that brought down the Nixon White House; (6) pumped up Pakistan’s ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan; (7) began the US’s arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran; (8) accelerated needless civil wars in southern Africa that, in the name of supporting white supremacy, left millions dead; (9) supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America; and (10) ingratiated himself with the first-generation neocons, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who would take American militarism to its next calamitous level.”

Kissinger’s notable stance on North Korea and apparent sway over Trump, along with the Trump administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review, raises additional questions related to Trump’s foreign policy moving forward as well as the question of whether Trump may be later exemplified as a war criminal alongside his “long-time friend”.

Foreign Policy, International, Politics

Kissinger on North Korea: “Temptation to Deal with It with a Pre-emptive Attack is Strong”

Leave a comment

Washington, D.C. — Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned members of the Senate Armed Services Committee about the dangers of a potential military conflict so close to the Russian and Chinese borders without international support during testimony about global challenges and U.S. national security strategy.

While the White House has previously implied that any development of a nuclear capable ICBM would be a potential red line, some geopolitical experts claim that North Korea has already achieved a nuclear armed ICBM, or is very close to achieving this capability.

As PJ Media reported, Kissinger detailed his perspective on an imminent “fork in the road,” where the Trump administration will be forced to consider whether to engage in a  “pre-emptive attack” or tighten the current sanctions regime.

“We will hit that fork in the road, and the temptation to deal with it with a pre-emptive attack is strong, and the argument is rational, but I have seen no public statement by any leading official,” Kissinger told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 25. “But in any event, my own thinking, I would be very concerned by any unilateral American war at the borders of China and Russia, in which we are not supported by a significant part of the world, or at least of the Asian world.”

The refusal of North Korea to denuclearize, according to Kissinger, could potentially lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Asia. The former Secretary of State under the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford told the committee that he believes South Korea will eventually seek to develop nuclear arms if North Korea continues its program unabated— with Japan likely following suit.

“Then we’re living in a new world, in which technically competent countries with adequate command structures are possessing nuclear weapons in an area where there are considerable national disagreements,” Kissinger said. “That is a new world that will require new thinking by us.”

Kissinger presciently noted that such a turn of events would require a dramatic overhaul of the entire U.S. nuclear posture, as it would require strategic planners to mitigate multiple nuclear threats instead of one as currently assumed. Kissinger pointed out that the situation has the capability of devolving into a global nuclear proliferation nightmare.

The geopolitical thought leader also chimed in on the proposed “freeze for freeze” agreement, which calls for North Korean to halt missile tests in return for abandoning defined Allied military exercises, noting that such a plan would not fulfill or advance the goal of denuclearization of North Korea. In fact, Kissinger says that such a move would only “equate legitimate security operations with activities which have been condemned by the UN Security Council for decades,” and serve to potentially “dismantle American alliances in the region”— while simultaneously “legitimizing North Korea’s nuclear establishment.”

“Interim steps towards full denuclearization may well be part of an eventual negotiation. But they need to be steps towards this ultimate goal: the dismantlement of Pyongyang’s existing arsenal. They must not repeat the experience of the Vietnamese and Korean negotiations, which were used as means to buy time to further pursue their adversarial objectives,” Kissinger told the committee.