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I am concerned with our backsliding to the 2018 Singapore Summit.
Voices Nov. 17, 2025 / 10:15 AM
Sleepwalking into Kim Jong Un's trap
By David Maxwell
https://www.upi.com/Voices/2025/11/17/perspective-trump-lee-statement-north-korea/3701763390593/
A photo released by the official North Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) attending the military hardware exhibition “Defense Development-2025” in Pyongyang, North Korea, in October. KCNA said the exhibition marked the 80th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, showcasing advanced weapon systems and other modern military hardware developed under the party’s national defense strategy. Photo by KCNA/EPA
Nov. 17 (UPI) -- With the release of the Trump-Lee Joint Statement and the 57th Security Consultative Meeting Communiqué, the United States and South Korea have taken a quiet step backward into a dangerous past.
Their reaffirmation of the 2018 Singapore Statement and the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration gives Kim Jong Un exactly what he has sought for years. Neither Washington nor Seoul appear to have intended this outcome.
Yet, the result is unmistakable. Kim's political warfare strategy has gained new life and the alliance has offered it space to grow.
The problem begins with how we understand the regime in Pyongyang. Too often, we see it as we want it to be rather than as it is. This false mirror hides the truth.
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The Kim family regime has one vital interest: its own survival. It has one strategic aim: control of the entire Korean Peninsula. It has one method: political warfare supported by nuclear weapons and the willingness to use force when the moment favors it.
When our policy begins from wrong assumptions, it will lead us toward wrong conclusions. This is what is happening now.
A regime that never changed its goals
Outside observers speak often of co-existence or negotiated settlement. Kim does not share these aspirations. His constant goal is dominance. His political warfare uses tension, inducement, false dialogue, charm, coercion and terror.
His purpose is simple. He seeks to break the alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea, and he seeks to do it over time in ways that appear reasonable to audiences on both sides of the Pacific.
This strategy has rhythm. Kim pressures and provokes. He then offers talks that promise relief. He shapes South Korean politics through influence and intimidation. He shapes American politics through threat and illusion.
He uses negotiations not to solve the nuclear problem, but to increase its value. When the alliance weakens, his confidence grows. When it strengthens, he waits and searches for the next opening.
He does all of this with one eye always fixed on the same horizon. He wants to dominate the Peninsula under his rule.
How the alliance just helped him
The most recent Security Consultative Meeting produced a clear setback for the alliance. The communiqué lacked the strongest deterrent message available. For decades, we relied on a simple truth that prevented catastrophe. Any nuclear attack by North Korea would result in the end of the Kim family regime. The absence of this warning does not go unnoticed in Pyongyang. It creates room for miscalculation and encourages bolder action.
More troubling is the explicit return to the 2018 Singapore Statement. That statement rests on different assumptions on each side of the table. The United States and South Korea believe it calls for denuclearization first, followed by trust building, normalization and the construction of a peace regime.
Kim reads it in the opposite order. He believes the United States must first change its posture, end what he calls hostile policy, reduce exercises, lift sanctions and create a peace regime. Only then, after the alliance has been weakened, will he discuss the meaning of denuclearization.
Even then, he believes the term applies to the removal of the U.S. nuclear umbrella and extended deterrence and the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
The sequencing is not a detail. It is the core of his strategy. By accepting language that favors this sequencing, the alliance grants Pyongyang a structural advantage.
This renewal of Singapore automatically revives the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration. That document was embraced by Seoul in hope and sincerity, yet Pyongyang always viewed it as a tool.
It constrained allied exercises, influenced South Korean debates and created the impression of symmetry between an outlaw nuclear regime and an allied democratic coalition. It bought Kim time. He used that time to test missiles, refine warheads, deepen ties with Russia and China and strengthen his internal control.
We now return to that very terrain.
Moment of opportunity for Kim
While the alliance steps back, Kim advances. He enjoys new military support from Moscow. He benefits from political space provided by Beijing. He has built a larger and more sophisticated arsenal. He now believes he can gain recognition as a nuclear power and press for concessions that reduce U.S. presence and influence. He sees a path, and it begins with the very documents we have now revived.
This is not an abstract risk. It is visible in the changes in North Korea's doctrine, the rising boldness of its tests and its direct military cooperation with Russia. Kim moves with patience and confidence. When he studies the current diplomatic environment, he sees weakness he hopes to exploit.
What must come next
A correction is still possible. The alliance must first regain a shared understanding of the regime's nature. Without that, policy will drift in different directions.
Both governments must then reject the sequencing trap built into Singapore and Panmunjom. Engagement is valuable only when it strengthens security and protects freedom. It becomes dangerous when it accepts Pyongyang's terms.
The alliance must restore clear deterrence language. Clarity reduces risk. Ambiguity invites testing. We must also anchor long-term policy in the pursuit of a free and unified Korea, because that is the only enduring solution to the nuclear, humanitarian and geopolitical challenges on the Peninsula. Anything short of this goal leaves the region trapped in cycles of provocation and false resolution.
Finally, we must expose and counter Kim's political warfare. It works only when we fail to recognize it.
A weakened alliance
The danger we face today is not deliberate capitulation. It is quiet drift. The alliance is not seeking to empower Kim Jong Un, yet it is doing so in practice. The return to the language of 2018 is more than a symbolic choice. It is a return to a strategic frame that favors Pyongyang and weakens the alliance that has preserved peace for 70 years.
We must wake from this drift before it hardens into policy. History may judge this moment as the time when the alliance, despite its strength and experience, stepped back into the deception that Kim Jong Un designed for it. Correction is still possible, but it requires clear eyes, hard truths and unity of purpose.
David Maxwell is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional and political warfare. He is vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation. After he retired, he became associate director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society and is the editor at large for the Small Wars Journal.
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