North Korea

North Korea will be watching very carefully how the Trump administration handles itself in the Middle East. It will look at how determined Washington is in using its arsenal [against Syria].

[South Korean President Moon Jae-in] is saying the right things [on coordinating with the U.S. on North Korea], but his Chief Presidential Secretary [Im Jong-seok]'s history and central role in North Korea policy make a lot of people nervous about the potential for the Moon administration to veer left and create fissures in the alliance with Washington.

We have to understand very clearly what Kim’s phrase ["denuclearization"] means. Based on how North Korea has elaborated on its conditions in the past, it probably means, at some point, the end of U.S.-R.O.K. alliance, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, the end of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. None of these things are something American or South Korean government would contemplate.