Look at me, I'm surprised

What first appeared to be a gesture indicating North Korea might be willing to dismantle its nuclear weapons program appears to have been little more than a propaganda effort for the world's cameras.

Billing it as an exercise in transparency, North Korean officials invited international journalists to witness the detonation of their underground nuclear test tunnels at Punggye-ri -- but intelligence has increasingly shown that the public spectacle may have amounted to little more than a show, according to US intelligence and international arms control officials.

[...]

No weapons inspectors or nonproliferation experts were invited to witness the detonation, and now initial assessments indicate that the show was essentially a charade.

"The explosions seem to have been too small" for scientists to have discerned any significant geologic activity such as collapsing tunnels, an international arms control official who follows North Korea closely told CNN.

"The fact that journalists were reportedly only around 500 meters from the explosions is a good indication that these were small blasts. And the amount of dust leads us to believe that they were quite superficial," the official said.

[...]

The analysis is based on seismic sensors in the region that calculated how large the explosive events were at the time.

This may be one of the clearest indications that at least portions of the tunnel complex remain usable, something the US had suspected since the North Koreans allowed media to view the detonations.

[...]

On Tuesday, CNN reported that a series of US intelligence assessments concluded that while Kim could give up some weapons in negotiations with the US -- including warheads and missiles -- he may not be willing to give up his capabilities to regenerate his program.

  CNN

Why the hell would he? Nukes are the only thing that got him international recognition as a serious player. He'd be an idiot to drop them now. As big an idiot as the one in the White House who apparently thinks his big bluster scared Kim into capitulating.

Which brings me to this article:

I’ve always told students at the very beginning of class that the chief misconception of those who aspire to positions of authority is the belief that leadership is an exercise akin to primal displays of male dominance. This is a fallacy that is most seductive to teenage boys and those who are developmentally indistinguishable from them. Unfortunately, it is also embraced by the president with all the enthusiasm of ungainly adolescence. Whether it is the superlatives that have become a mainstay of presidential rhetoric — everything inevitably has to be the best, the most, the biggest ever — or the greetings that look like an aggressive child learning to shake hands, our president’s leadership style has all the subtlety of a silverback gorilla threatening beta-males.

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“You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” he observes. “That is a bunch of crap. In a great deal, you win — not the other side. You crush the opponent and come away with something better for yourself.”

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Ever since the beginning of his presidency, we have watched Trump vainly endeavor to apply this approach, especially to global affairs. In his efforts to strong-arm other countries, Trump has often petulantly walked away from the negotiating table or struggled to sit down in the first place. The consequences for US foreign policy have been alarming. On the one hand, with the abandonment of global agreements like the Paris Accords, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, many of our closest allies have become skeptical that they can work in good faith with the administration.

  John Paul Rollert

Surely they're no longer merely skeptical.

As the president insists in the pages of [his book] Think Big, human affairs offer two types of interaction: submission and dominance. Other people can either be cowed or crushed. In turn, despite living in gilded mansions and indulging every carnal desire, Trump’s view of the world is remarkably bleak. There is no possibility of reliable allies. Faithful employees are a fiction (“My motto is ‘hire the best people and don’t trust them’”). And even close friends pose an ever-present danger. “They want your jobs, they want your house, they want your money, they want your wife, and they even want your dog,” Trump warns. “Those are your friends; your enemies are even worse!”

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The president’s instinctive paranoia, together with a sense of self-esteem at once inordinate and fragile, have invited contempt from allies and manipulation by enemies.

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Notwithstanding his failure to successfully exert his power in global affairs, many of my students are still inclined to believe that President Trump is the embodied wisdom of Niccolò Machiavelli.

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Machiavelli did not merely have in mind the ability to tell a lie — a talent for which Trump has proven himself so gifted he tells them even when they’re unnecessary — but a kind of social dexterity that allows one to be strategic in his behavior. A prince, he says, must be “a great pretender and dissembler” to win people’s trust. He must selectively lie without giving the appearance that he is anything other than a model of candor.

Trump has proven himself ill adept at such duplicitous behavior.

[...]

Indeed, rather than strategically dissemble to achieve some goal, he more often using lying in a lionlike manner, as a club of sorts to achieve some purpose.

[...]

Indeed, beyond a few weak-kneed House members and well-fed lackeys in the West Wing, no one really fears getting their ass kicked by Donald Trump. But they’re terrified at the prospect of endlessly having to hear about it.

I wonder if this is also a common trait of narcissists.

As I tell my students, the power of persuasion can often seem like no power at all. It requires empathy, understanding, close attention to others, and compromise. These are traits the president has shown neither an aptitude for nor an interest in, and many of his failures in office reflect these omissions. Trump remains unbowed, however, for the Kick Ass ethic does not include learning from mistakes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

BTW:  Looks like Kim's even going to get us to pay for his hotel room in Singapore.  Maybe Trump could get a hint about how to get another country to pay for something.