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Cheeseburgers in the Workers' Paradise

undefined and Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE

Rodger Baker

Director, Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, Stratfor

Mar 9, 2018 | 19:05 GMT

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un. The two leaders plan to meet in May.

(CHIP SOMODEVILLA/STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

Circumstances have changed around the Korean Peninsula, creating room to break out of the decadeslong cycle that has defined the conflict.
North Korea may be just as surprised as the rest of the world that U.S. President Donald Trump has accepted its offer of a summit — meaning it may not have the intention of giving up its weapons program and may have been looking to stall for time.
There are still many extremely tangled issues to unwind before the promised summit.

The easy part is agreeing to a summit. The hard part is solving the problem. But that doesn't mean we should be entirely cynical. Some say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. That could apply equally to talking with North Korea and to trying to isolate it into submission. But circumstances change, and sometimes the same action in a different context has different results....

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