Tobin Harshaw, Columnist

A North Korea Solution: Take Kim Out of the Loop

A Q&A with Philip Bobbitt on game theory, nonproliferation strategy and a deal between the U.S. and China that can end the global threat.

January 20, 2018 at 1:00 PM UTC

By Tobin Harshaw

Tobin Harshaw is a Bloomberg Opinion senior editor and columnist on national security and military affairs. Previously, he was deputy editor at the op-ed page of the New York Times and the newspaper’s letters editor.

Looking for attention.
Photographer: Keith Bedford/Bloomberg

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"I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un." In uttering those words earlier this month, President Donald Trump managed to take U.S.-North Korea relations, which have long existed deep inside some Foggy Bottom opposite day, exuberantly through the looking glass. And yet, it all kinda makes sense.

For decades, Trump staked a place on the periphery of American culture while despising the elites for denying him a position at the center of it. For even longer, the Kim dynasty has felt the same way about the "international community" that has denied it legitimacy. The elites have now had their comeuppance, and even the least elite among them (a.k.a. yours truly) has to admit defeat in a battle we never knew was being fought.