Is Kim Jong-un prepared to risk everything?

It is a sad comment on diplomacy that both North Korea and President Trump have reverted to the language of insult which was so prevalent two years ago. Pyongyang has started to refer to Trump as a dotard which it first did in September 2017 and Trump has reintroduced his favourite name for Kim Jong-un - Rocket Man, following the new series of short-range missile test firings. It does not bode well. The North Korean leader has set a deadline for the end of this year for Washington to come up with something concessionary if Trump wants another summit with him. That means a promise to start lifting sanctions which have been helping to cripple the North Korean economy although Kim and his cohorts have found cunning ways to circumvent them. Deadlines are always dangerous because if nothing happens before the last day it puts pressure on the deadine-maker to do something spectacular (stupid) to underline who is boss. If the December 31 deadline passes without a move from Washington it's almost inevitable that Kim will order his generals to carry out a nuclear test or launch an intercontinental ballistic missile flight test to prove he has a weapon that can reach the United States. His recent tests on more powerful rocket engines prove that that is what he has in mind. Washington has issued warnings about the need for North Korea to do nothing to damage the painful negotiations that had been going on but without any obvious success. Kim is clearly running out of patience and wants his "friend" Donald Trump to demonstrate his good faith or face the consequences. It's difficult if not impossible for Trump to row back on his red-line position which is that sanctions will not be lifted until North Korea has totally dismantled its nuclear weapons and facilities. And the more dangerously threatening North Korea becomes it makes it even more impossible for Trump to concede anything because it would be seen in Pyongyang as a classic case of Washington being forced to back down. Does Kim want war? Does he want annihilation as Trump once threatened? Surely not. But it's the most risky brinkmanship game since the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960s. Whatever Kim does, whatever "Christmas gift" he has in mind cannot be so major that it provokes Trump into some form of military action. No one in the Pentagon will be advocating a military response. So it's up to Trump and his advisers to produce a formula of words that will appease Kim without actually promising anything. Tricky but not impossible. Something like, "Look Chairman Kim, we know our sanctions are biting hard but there is a reason why we imposed them in the first place. So let's have another summit and talk about it, and at the same time discuss what you can do to reassure the rest of the world that you really are prepared to denuclearise. Happy Christmas."