So Who's Crashed The Party.

Today (9/3/18) the 2018 Winter Para-Olympic Games formally opened in PyeongChang in the Republic of Korea (RoK/South).

I will watch a recorded version of the Opening Ceremony later tonight. In Standard Definition (SD). Like some sort of Neanderthal.

I think that really shows the contempt in which the UK broadcaster Channel 4 hold disabled people. Just because you've lost a leg doesn't suddenly mean you've gone blind.

The Opening Ceremony however has been overshadowed somewhat by other news from the Korean Peninsula.

The staging of the Olympics & Para-Olympics on the Korean Peninsula has prompted something of a rapprochement between the RoK and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North). Two neighbours which are technically still at war with one another.

A meeting between the two Koreas on January 20th (20/1/18) saw an agreement that the DPRK would participate in the games.

That included the RoK and the DPRK competing as a single team in some events such as Ice Hockey. It also saw the two Koreas participate in the Opening Ceremony's Parade of Nations as a single team. Under a single flag of Korean Unification.

The DPRK also sent a 400 strong diplomatic mission to the games. This was lead by Kim Yo-jong, the sister of DPRK leader Kim Jong-un. At the Opening Ceremony this led to the first ever handshake between a South Korean President and a member of North Korea's fabled Mount Paektu bloodline.

That handshake led to a high level South Korean delegation travelling to the DPRK on March 5th (5/3/18).

Yesterday (8/3/17) that South Korean delegation travelled to the US to share the outcome of their trip to the DPRK.

The result of the visit was that the DPRK has offered to suspend its nuclear weapons program. In return for a highest level Head of Government/State (HOGS) meeting. Between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.

The US immediately accepted the offer. The meeting between Kim Jong-un and President Trump is provisionally scheduled for late May 2018.

This is highly unconventional.

In a period between September 1950 and April 1951 the US engaged in a strategy of; "Nuclear Blackmail." They flew nuclear armed bombers over the Korean Peninsula in a clear threat that they were ready and willing to use them.

From the DPRK's perspective the most offensive thing about this is that the US was doing this to blackmail China. It did not consider the DPRK important enough to bother threaten.

This prompted the DPRK to embark on a seven decade quest to obtain nuclear weapons of its own. Specifically so the US would treat it as an equal.

Therefore the US finally treating the DPRK as an equal by agreeing to HOGS talks risks handing a massive propaganda coup to Kim Jong-un. It also creates something of a moral hazard. Re-affirming the message that nations must become nuclear armed states before the US will treat them as equals.

The conventional diplomatic wisdom then is that there would be some level of foreplay before HOGS talks take place.

Something like the DPRK suspending its nuclear weapons program in return for the US suspending the military drills it holds every spring. Although the US denies it these drills are practice for invading the DPRK.

However we have been doing conventional diplomatic wisdom for the best part of 70 years. It has taken the DPRK at least to the nuclear threshold. The point where it stops trying to obtain nuclear weapons and becomes a state with nuclear weapons.

Throughout 2017 it became increasingly obvious that the DPRK is at the very least at the nuclear threshold. The US' diplomatic response to this has been predictably conventional. It has increased sanctions on the DPRK.

To me that response has seemed unwise. The DPRK is so committed to and now so close to becoming a nuclear armed state it seems there is nothing the US can do to stop them. Up to and including itself using nuclear weapons against the DPRK. That means that sanctions now are likely to be a wasted effort.

I liken the situation to the fact that as I write this is currently raining. I am not happy about the fact that it is raining. However there is nothing I can do to stop it raining. Therefore it is best that I wait until it stops raining before I decide to go out to the shop.

As such it may well be the time to attempt the unconventional.

Although it is certainly a significant development this meeting between the leaders of the DPRK and the US is not as significant as certain people are making it out to be.

This is the thing that former US President Barack Obama completely failed to grasp. Actually in life it doesn't matter how you make people feel. It matters what you do.

All that is being done here is that two men are going to meet in a room. They may or may not talk to each other while in that same room.

If that meeting doesn't result in the outcome that either man wants they can simply walk away and say;  

"Well at least we tried." 

And then go back to doing what they were going to do before.

The UK has also been trying to build its part during the Para-Olympics. With the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and others in the UK city of Salisbury. An event I'm fast running out of John le Carre themed puns to cover.

Since my post on that topic yesterday there has been one significant development.

It has been confirmed that the MI6 officer who recruited and ran Skripal as an agent now works for a company run by Christopher Steele. The source for US Democrats claims of Russian interference in the US' 2016 Election.

No I don't have a link to a newspaper article to prove this point.

That means there is a direct connection between Skripal's poisoning and the actions of US Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller.

The US is obviously very concerned about that link and has been asking about it for most of the week.

As the UK is continuing to refuse to share intelligence with the US this questioning has taken the form of the; "President and the Porn Star" story linking President Trump to the porn star Stormy Daniels.

There is an American gay-male porn star named Christopher Steele. I can provide you with a think to prove that. But it's best I don't.

This lack on intelligence sharing and the link to the Mueller investigation - which I am informing the US about - should have the US very alarmed by today's other big announcement. 180 of the British military have been deployed to assist with the case.

That seems intended as a reminder to a faction within the US intelligence community that if it continues to act in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated groups it will be treated like other ISIL supporters.

After all the Chapter 7 United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2170 (2014) applies to all nations. Including the US.

The news of the deployment of British troops onto British streets probably sounds alarming to nations which have suffered under military dictatorship. Nations such as the RoK and 2016 Olympic host Brazil.

It really does not sound alarming to the residents of Salisbury. Due to the Salisbury Plain Training Area this area of Wiltshire is home to, I think 7 military bases. Alongside the Porton Down Chemical Weapons facility.

As a result if you're driving on the roads in and around Salisbury and you spot a police vehicle. Well there's a 50:50 chance it's the Military Police rather than the civilian police.

However unlike in Brazil the British Military Police are there to police all the members of the military.

17:55 on 9/3/18 (UK date).

Edited at around 15:55 on 10/3/18 (UK date) to add;

I'm worried I may have overstated the moral hazard presented by a HOGS level meeting between the US and the DPRK.

In many ways this is the history of the World. You treat people who can beat you up much more seriously then you treat people you can beat up. It is not the best of human nature but it is certainly human nature.

The supposed superiority of nuclear armed states is well established within the global order. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) had five permanent members, all wielding veto power. It is no coincidence that these are the five original nuclear powers.

Therefore the risk of sending out the message that the US is only now taking the DPRK seriously because it is a nuclear armed state is slight. The US has been sending out that message for the last 70 to 80 years. It's not going to come as a surprise to anyone.

Plus the DPRK now has nuclear weapons. If not the ability to reliably deliver them. Therefore any future interaction with the DPRK is going to be an interaction with a nuclear state.

An initial HOGS level meeting then actually seems to be a very good idea. It gets the notion that the US is not prepared to respect the DPRK as an equal out of the way.

The nuclear weapons then become the reason there can't be further cooperation between the nations. It's the fact it has nuclear weapons which makes the DPRK an inferior state rather than an equal.

16:05 on 10/3/18 (UK date).