The End of the War?

Kim Jong Un crossing the demilitarized zone to meet with the leader of South Korea, the removal of loudspeakers and lightening of guards along the North/South border, President Donald Trump warmly welcoming him at the recent summit…after over sixty years, the Korean War might be on the verge of officially being over.

Or is it?

Naturally, the amount of effort the President has been putting into the North Korean dictator has both sides of the political drama weighing in. The Republicans vow to remain vigilant despite meek “this is a great first step” assertions. To some Democrats, this is yet another warning sign that Trump is indeed Hitler reincarnated; others condemn him for neglecting our long-time allies in favor of the autocrats.

I actually found it quite funny that Trump seemed to step away from being President very briefly and back into the businessman when he tried to make Kim envision the greatest hotels in the world popping up in North Korea if he would just give into peace instead of arms. People need to remember that the Korean War has technically still been going on since the mid-fifties. A ceasefire is not the same thing as a peace treaty. While many are condemning Trump’s actions, he is proving to be the exact opposite of what everyone has been calling him before. Trying his luck with peace talks with the leader of perhaps our greatest “potential” enemy and remaining Cold War rival proves that Donald Trump is not the war-monger he was accused of being after the Syria bombings months ago. It shows a strong desire to get things done that so far no other President has been able to do.

It can be forgiven, then, that he is spending more of his focus on Putin and now Kim these days instead of our old friends in Europe. Russia, China, and North Korea are the three powers that pose the United States our biggest threat, not only economically and militaristically, but they all have nukes. And tensions with all three have been getting hotter and hotter until recently when Trump decided to start playing the ambassador side of his position. I don’t blame him at all. I would rather live in a world where the threat of global war and nuclear holocausts were at its bare minimum. To me, that is far more important than whatever France and England have to say about the Iran deal.

I hope in the end the war will officially end and we will at least have a new peaceful relationship with North Korea, even if it doesn’t end up being the economic partnership that Trump the real estate developer wants. These talks should be applauded because for the first time in six decades a major war is on the verge of ending. And it was men like Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un who brought it to the table.