Pompeo's and NK's contrasting descriptions of their meeting sounds like his/her post-blinddate talks with their friends:
Him: The date went great! We really hit it off. I think she's my soulmate!
Her: He's a loser but he likes to buy me things. I'll string him along for a while.

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) July 8, 2018

Ryeowook, a member of K-pop boy group Super Junior, gets his certificate of work experience during military service as he is discharged from the Army at a base in Jeungpyeong, North Chungcheong Province, on July 10, 2018, after completing his mandatory draft. (Yonhap)

It looks like people are starting to realize that President Trump has been following John Bolton’s advice all along in regards to North Korea:

First, Trump could simply choose to shrug, continue to tweet that the North Korean threat has evaporated, and direct Pompeo to secure concessions in any way possible. This would be a likely path to appeasing Pyongyang, resulting in the United States giving up valuable leverage for virtually cosmetic North Korean concessions like the reversible dismantlement of tunnel entrances at the Punggye-ri nuclear site. North Korea has plenty of old and now out-of-use nuclear and missile sites it could happily detonate before the international press.

Second, Trump could simply allow the North Korea process that began on June 12 to quietly collapse and put the issue of its nuclear program and disarmament on ice—call it a return to “strategic patience.”

The problem here is that the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign is all but dead after the Singapore summit and it’s more likely than not that China, along with Russia, will ease up on the implementation of existing sanctions and perhaps even call for a removal of United Nations sanctions applied in 2017 on North Korean exports.

In this scenario, the U.S. loses interest and North Korea benefits economically while continuing to build out its nuclear program without constraints. This would be the equivalent of a continuation of the muddling-through approach that three consecutive U.S. administrations found themselves resigned to with North Korea, updated for the era of a considerably more capable North Korea.

Third, Trump could find himself left with nothing but the literal nuclear option. Feeling spurned and humiliated by Kim, Trump may find that the only way to move forward is to let John Bolton’s March 2017 prophecy come true.

Weeks before entering the White House as Trump’s advisor on national security affairs, Bolton, as a private citizen, had remarked on Trump’s acceptance of Kim’s invitation that “[The purpose of this process is to] foreshorten the amount of time that we’re going to waste in negotiations that will never produce the result we want, which is Kim giving up his nuclear program.”

Gone would be the days of “all options” being on the table. Trump might conclude then that the only path to denuclearization is an all-out military strike on North Korea—a trigger to a nuclear war that would engulf Northeast Asia in tremendous destruction and likely parts of the U.S. homeland, given North Korea’s intercontinental-range ballistic missile capability.

None of these scenarios are appealing, though the third is quite clearly the worst. Trump’s Monday tweet offers the clearest glimpse of why diplomacy-for-diplomacy’s-sake with North Korea can be dangerous—even if it pulled us back from the brink of “fire and fury.”  [Daily Beast]

You can read more at the link, but I have been saying this for quite sometime that I think the Trump administration is simply giving the Kim regime one last chance to rejoin the world community and denuclearize.  It almost seems like they are checking every box to say they have tried every peaceful means to get them to denuclearize.  If the Kim regime does not take advantage of this chance I think other options will be seriously considered and appeasement which this article suggests will not be one of those options.

Admiral Harris is now on the job in South Korea and he has decided to keep his little mustache he has grown out since retiring from the Navy:

New U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris on Saturday expressed his resolve to further cement Washington’s alliance with Seoul, casting the security partnership as a “pillar of strength and stability” in the region and beyond.

The retired admiral issued a brief public statement after arriving at Incheon International Airport on Saturday to fill the ambassadorial post that has been vacant since his predecessor Mark Lippert stepped down upon the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017.

“President Trump and his administration have made clear strengthening even further America’s alliance with Korea is one of our top priorities. Our presidents have been in regular contact as we work together to persuade North Korea to chart a new course,” he told reporters.

“Over the past 65 years, the U.S.-ROK (Republic of Korea) alliance has served as a pillar of strength and stability throughout the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. America could not ask for a better friend, partner and ally than the ROK,” he added. The Republic of Korea is South Korea’s official name.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here is an extremely horrible story out of Incheon:

A 43-year-old housewife and her three children – 2, 4 and 6 years old – were found dead in their car at an outdoor parking lot in Incheon on Saturday. Articles commonly used to commit suicide, and a short memo, presumably a suicide note, were also found inside the car.

Upon receiving a report from the mother of the housewife, who had gotten a text message from her daughter hinting that she would end her own life, police tracked down the housewife’s car and dispatched police officers to the location.

The housewife was not under any financial pressure, according to authorities after a police investigation. She also had no medical record of treatment for depression or other mental illnesses.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is NK’s propaganda narrative, so why are we subscribing to it? Since the Korean War, the only side engaged in a truly *hostile policy* has been NK. NK fears its own people more than it does the US. Its history of internal repression and external belligerence proves this. https://t.co/YszRyysMkO

— Edward Oh (@EdwardHBOh) July 9, 2018

This photo provided by the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage on July 6, 2018, shows ancient Korean earthenware of the Balhae Kingdom (698-926) that was excavated in the Russian Far Eastern Amur region recently by a research team from the university. (Yonhap)

Just like when people emphasize North Korea following the China model, they can’t follow the Vietnam model either because neither country had to maintain a personality cult like the Kim regime does:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered North Korean leader Kim Jong-un the Vietnamese model of normalization of bilateral relations with Washington and economic prosperity, speaking in Hanoi on Sunday on the heels of a two-day trip to Pyongyang.

“In light of the once-unimaginable prosperity and partnership we have with Vietnam today, I have a message for [North Korean] Chairman Kim Jong-un,” said Pompeo at a business event at the Sofitel Metropole Hotel in Hanoi. “[U.S. President Donald] Trump believes your country can replicate this path. It’s yours if you’ll seize the moment … it can be your miracle in North Korea as well.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

The North Koreans have now said more about why they are unhappy about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Pyongyang, they want US troops removed from the peninsula before they do anything:

The next line of the more than 1,200-word statement may have captured the central complaint: “The U.S. side never mentioned the issue of establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, which is essential for defusing tension and preventing a war,” an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman said.

The statement shows that Kim is willing to test Trump’s patience and not bargain away his arsenal without sufficient security guarantees. The regime’s belief that the weapons are needed to deter a U.S. attack dates back nearly 70 years to the still-unresolved Korean War, and will take more than a handshake to dispel.  (…….)

That’s why the vague 1-1/2 page agreement Kim signed with Trump on June 12 called for establishing a new relationship and a “lasting and stable peace regime.” The pledge to “work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” was listed third.

Practically, assuaging Kim’s security fears could require risky choices for the U.S. and its North Asian allies, such as rolling back America’s nuclear umbrella or pulling back its troops in South Korea. The desire for a broader security realignment explains why Kim agreed to “denuclearization” and not disarmament.

Trump has already faced criticism for being too quick to make security concessions to Kim, including his unilateral suspension of military exercises with South Korea. The North Korean statement indicated such gestures hadn’t gone far enough, saying the U.S. moves were “highly reversible” and left its military force intact “without scraping even a rifle.”  [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link, but I am sure the Kim regime cares little about the irony of them complaining about “highly reversible” actions taken by the Trump administration when they have done the same thing.  There is not one thing the Kim regime has done as part of the ongoing nuclear negotiations that cannot be easily reversed if so desired.

With that said remember the North’s nuclear weapons has nothing to do with security guarantees as discussed in the article; the North’s conventional weapons have kept the US and South Korea in check for decades because of the threat to Seoul.  That is why you will not see the North Koreans push their artillery away from the DMZ despite ROK requests to do so.

The North’s nuclear weapons are linked to threatening the United States to get the US president to sign a peace treaty, withdraw troops, and remove the nuclear umbrella over South Korea.   Once this is done, then the next phase of establishing the peace regime can occur which is essentially a confederation of North and South Korea on North Korean terms.

North Korea likely had no plans of giving up their nukes, but were willing to pretend for a while to string the US along.  However, the sharp rebuke they gave this weekend to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit may be linked to the China trade issue:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) suggested on Sunday that China may have pressured North Korea to take a harder line against U.S. negotiators during a recent visit to the isolated country by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“I see China’s hands all over this,” Graham told “Fox News Sunday,” citing an ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China as Beijing’s possible motivation. “We’re in a fight with China.”

Graham’s comments came a day after the North Korean foreign ministry released a lengthy statement, condemning U.S. negotiators’ “gangster-like demand for denuclearization.” [The Hill]

You can read more at the link, but if China continues to violate sanctions to support the Kim regime I wonder if at some point the Trump administration will consider sanctions on China as well.