Why insecure Kim Jong-un now needs a gentle hand, not tough love, from Donald Trump

Are there grounds for optimism on the Korean peninsula? Looking back at how the players, particularly Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea, got to where they are may yield mild optimism and some grounds for hope. 

One view is that the young Kim feared for his regime, if not his life, and realised that US President Donald Trump was on the verge of wielding a mighty sword against his regime. According to a political analyst from China, United Nations secretary general António Guterres sent Jeffrey Feltman, undersecretary general for political affairs, to North Korea in December to warn Kim that the US was fully prepared to attack.

This was less than a week after North Korea test-fired a new ballistic missile it claimed could hit the US mainland and just a day after the US and South Korean militaries launched their biggest-ever joint air exercise. Nikki Haley, America’s UN ambassador, said the tests had brought the world closer to, not farther from, war.

US Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican foreign policy hawk who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that “war with North Korea is an all-out war against the regime … There is no surgical strike option.”