Kim jong-un

As a birthday treat, a good father might take his ten-year-old daughter to the ballet or a Disney movie. Three years ago, North Korea’s ruling dictator Kim Jong-un (“Brilliant Comrade”) took his ten-year-old daughter Kim Ju-ae to the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. It was her first public outing. Subsequent kiddie treats have included visits to the mausoleum that houses the bodies of her grandfather, Kim Jong-il (“the Dear Leader”), and great-grandfather, Kim Il-sung (“the Great Leader”). She also got to stand at military parades, inspect nuclear facilities and make an official visit to Beijing. In the North Korean media, Kim Ju-ae is referred to as the Supreme Leader’s

He is using the two-and-a-half months between Election Day and Inauguration Day to re-plunge himself into the world of international diplomacy

With the apparently quixotic exception of Travis King last year, defection to the country has all but ended

Motivations are still unclear, but Private King had been disciplined before the incident

Pyongyang has tested another intermediate-range ballistic missile, but this time is more dangerous than in 2017

As bizarre as Kim can sound sometimes, he appears to know where Washington’s red-lines are

Pyongyang just tested a missile but the president doesn’t want to enable the GOP

It might have driven clicks but it’s not a serious threat to anyone

Time to talk to the portly pariah of Pyongyang

Almost everything you can hear, and several things you won ’ t

For the last few years, Kim has been very clear about setting his agenda for the coming year in the most public of ways

We are nowhere near a deal to denuclearize North Korea

The reviews are coming in for Donald Trump’s performance in Singapore and they aren’t pretty. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times says Trump was ‘hoodwinked’. Ari Fleischer, the former press spokesman for George W. Bush, says ‘This feels like the Agreed Framework of the 90s all over again. NK gave its word to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They never intended to keep their word. And then they broke it.’ And Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation, says ‘This is very disappointing. Each of the four main points was in previous documents with NK, some in a stronger, more encompassing way. The denuke

Donald Trump means different things to different people. To his core supporters, he’s the man who will make America great again.  To his diehard opponents, he is a dangerous juvenile with authoritarian tendencies. Ultimately, these descriptions are secondary to how Trump sees himself: a tough, dealmaking Svengali who has the experience and power of persuasion to get a deal that is advantageous to himself and to the people he represents. Democrats laugh and dismissively wave off that mindset as self-delusion. Even some Republicans would likely roll their eyes in private. Trump, of course, knows this too well – which is why his dalliance with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un this week