{"id":39782,"date":"2018-06-06T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T20:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39782"},"modified":"2018-06-06T11:59:18","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T01:59:18","slug":"us-north-korea-are-you-feeling-lucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-north-korea-are-you-feeling-lucky\/","title":{"rendered":"US\u2013North Korea: are you feeling lucky?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"289\" class=\"size-full wp-image-39786 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/horse-racing-contestants-in-a-race-e1528194809804.jpg\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Australians love a flutter and nowhere is there a bigger gamble right now than the US\u2013North Korea summit, due to take place in Singapore on Tuesday, 12\u00a0June. Wise punters need a form guide, so we offer our best judgements about the colts and fillies, horses, mares and geldings of the year\u2019s biggest race. Remember: bet responsibly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The favourites<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump: 5 to 1. Has a habit of unexpectedly winning Group\u00a01 races. Into this canter the Donald brings quite a bit of lead in the saddlebags\u2014Russian fixers and genre film starlets are a weakness\u2014but give him his due, no past runner from the presidential stable has been able to deliver a head-to-head summit with the North Koreans. Lead trainer Mike Pompeo let slip the Donald\u2019s unusual race preparation by saying that <a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/5279914\/donald-trump-north-korea-summit-preparation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">no track work was necessary<\/a>. Trump will simply size up his opponent on gut instinct and let his natural charm do the rest. One thing\u2019s for certain, Trump won\u2019t take to the course unless he\u2019s reasonably certain of a win.<\/p>\n<p>Kim Jong-un: 15 to 1. Something of a dark horse, with absolutely no Group\u00a01 form, Kim has surprised on the upside by apparently showing a willingness to reverse course on nuclear and missile development. It\u2019s hard to believe that giving up nukes is really Kim\u2019s intention. Sired by Kim Jong-il out of a Kim Il-sung mare, this line has been bred over generations for brinksmanship and aggression but has a poor record in barrier trials. But the younger Kim is different: he has put a modern face on a harsh dictatorship by sponsoring girl-bands and theme parks and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2017-10-30\/kim-jong-un-examines-cosmetics-at-factory-visit-with-wife\/9098562\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">visiting cosmetic factories<\/a> accompanied by close stablemates\u2014his wife and sister. Although past Kims have galloped around the d\u00e9tente track before only to disappoint at the finish, perhaps this outing will be different. Kim\u2019s race prep has included <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/world\/north-korea-new-military-leaders-loyal-kim-jong-un-1.4690324\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">putting his top three generals out to pasture<\/a>\u2014a sign he\u2019s worried about being nobbled from within his own camp. One thing\u2019s for sure: if Kim starts, he must win, or it\u2019s the glue factory for the whole family stable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The wider field<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Xi Jinping: 40 to 1. Bred for a bigger track than the narrow Singapore circuit, Xi scrambled to reacquaint himself with Kim after the surprise fixture announcement. After six years of cold-shouldering his North Korean stable mate, Xi has twice met with Kim in recent weeks, just to remind little brother where his feed comes from. Xi wants Kim to win on the 12th\u2014just not by much. While China isn\u2019t that fond of North Korea\u2019s nukes, it would rather tolerate those than see its ally merge with the South or, even worse, get pally with the United States. It\u2019s an uncomfortable fixture for Xi, who has drawn an outside barrier here. He has become used to a rails run in North Asia.<\/p>\n<p>Shinz\u014d Abe: 80 to 1. This is an unsuitable track for Abe. It worries Tokyo that Trump might try to fix a result without taking Japan\u2019s interests into account. For example, Trump might settle for North Korea dismantling the ICBMs that can reach the United States but leave short- and intermediate-range missiles able to hit Japan. And if a deal is cut on the Korean peninsula leading to the withdrawal of US troops, Abe would worry that the US was being too na\u00efve and signing a deal that could easily crumble after race day.<\/p>\n<p>Moon Jae-in: 100 to 1. President Moon probably feels he has already run a long race. South Korea has a lot to lose if Trump unilaterally decides to blitz the track, which he was darkly tweeting to do over most of 2017. Moon has worked hard to cultivate Kim, trying to keep the race fixture on and the favourites playing nicely. The South Koreans will continue to feed the North lots of sunshine policy in the hope that the best race outcome is a happy Kim, no need for costly reunification and a nuclear-free peninsula. On the other hand, if the race is called off, Moon finds himself back in the unhappy world of sanctions and the Donald\u2019s tweets of Armageddon. At the pre-race Shangri-La Dialogue, South Korean Defence Minister Song Young-moo was desperately channelling his inner Kim to assure the audience that the North was ready to race. Let\u2019s hope Song is a good judge of horse flesh.<\/p>\n<p>Vladimir Putin: 150 to 1. Vlad, a perennial stayer, just keeps reminding us all that he still has an appetite for racing. Chief trainer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/a\/russia-s-lavrov-in-north-korea-ahead-of-planned-trump-kim-summit\/29260818.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov recently visited the Kim stables<\/a>, presumably to remind the North Koreans that Russia is an older, less demanding friend than China, and to remind China that Moscow should never be taken for granted. Putin\u2019s handlers will claim a victory even if Vlad doesn\u2019t show on race day.<\/p>\n<p>Bashar al-Assad: 500 to 1. Who let this bag of bones on the field? Yes, Bashar used to run free with the Kims, but it\u2019s altogether the wrong look now for North Korea to be consorting with Putin\u2019s pit pony. Call for a swab and the course vet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The course<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lee Hsien Loong: 6 to 4. One of Asia\u2019s smartest gallopers, Singapore has done well to promote its racetrack above all others. At the Shangri-La Dialogue, the race meet was being called the \u2018US-DPRK Singapore summit\u2019. Win, lose or draw, the smart money is on Singapore to keep up the image as the thinking-hub of regional security, and as an increasingly useful friend of the Donald. All PM Lee needs now is <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2018\/06\/02\/politics\/north-korea-summit-planning-kim-jong-un-hotel-room\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to find someone to pay for Kim\u2019s rooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The prize<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The fun thing about this race is that everyone is running without being sure about the prize. The US says it wants \u2018CVID\u2019\u2014complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation. That\u2019s technically complex and difficult to deliver and the absolute obverse of North Korea\u2019s generation-long push to be a nuclear-weapons state. Kim wants regime survival and the chance to hand the reins to his son. The fact that Kim hasn\u2019t already been dragged backwards out of a dirty culvert suggests that his nuclear strategy has been working. It\u2019s up to Kim and the Donald to jump the shark together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our pick<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t be surprised if the race is called off, but if it does go ahead we think that Kim and the Donald will cross the line together. Winning will be the winner in Singapore. Kim and Trump are so invested in the meet that neither can afford to turn up and lose. So, they\u2019ll engineer an outcome that allows them to keep talking, at least long enough to help the Donald with the mid-term Congressional elections and for Kim to kill off any lingering opposition among his generals.<\/p>\n<p>Get set for a second race meet, perhaps in Oslo in December when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australians love a flutter and nowhere is there a bigger gamble right now than the US\u2013North Korea summit, due to take place in Singapore on Tuesday, 12\u00a0June. Wise punters need a form guide, so we &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":39786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1428,702,86],"class_list":["post-39782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-donald-trump","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-north-korea","dinkus-trump-kim-summit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>US\u2013North Korea: are you feeling lucky? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-north-korea-are-you-feeling-lucky\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US\u2013North Korea: are you feeling lucky? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australians love a flutter and nowhere is there a bigger gamble right now than the US\u2013North Korea summit, due to take place in Singapore on Tuesday, 12\u00a0June. 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