For all his bluster, Donald Trump may have recognized what US strategy long refused to acknowledge: North Korea is ready to discuss denuclearization in exchange for recognition and respect.

Beijing's grabs for puny islands have alarmed and alienated smaller countries in the region. But Washington doesn't need to “pivot” to Asia–it's been in charge there for decades.

The North's philosophy of rule bears close resemblance to what Koreans traditionally said about their kings—or what Hegel said about the German monarch.…

There has been no closure to either the Korean-Japanese or the Korean war from the North Korean standpoint; neither has come to an appropriate resolution.

That the United States would be hegemonic was inevitable from Bretton Woods onward. That it might also become an empire was not.

The current crisis with North Korea “has the same solution as the original [in 1994]: get North Korea's nuclear program mothballed and its medium- and long-range missiles decommissioned by buying them out at a set price. That price is American recognition of North Korea, written promises not to target the North with nuclear weapons, and indirect compensation in the form of aid and investment.”