Unknown Unknowns

Let me get this straight. The American president and the North Korean dictator are going to sit down across from one another in May. Until then, North Korea promises no more missile launches or nuclear tests. If ever there was an example of a KNOWN UNKNOWN, this meeting will definitely be one of them.

The North Korean leader supposedly issued a personal request to meet with the American president through South Korean intermediaries. The US was not party to the discussions, has no first-hand knowledge of the exact circumstances or language used, and cannot possibly know what agenda will drive any discussion between the two leaders.

Yet, despite all this, Donald Trump intends to sit down across from Kim Yong-un to hash things out.

The United States and North Korea are technically still in a state of war. The two countries have no diplomatic relations with each other and, with the exception of mutual representatives at the United Nations, have no formal channel of communication at all. There have been no preliminary talks between the two governments, no framework for negotiations, to proposals for disarmament, no guarantee that international sanctions would be abolished or even loosened. There is no third-party who has agreed to host such a meeting, no discussion of security arrangements, and barely an easing (for the moment at least) in the name-calling between the two heads of state.

Those are the known knowns.

Despite all this, the world is to believe that a meeting between the two most insecure, inexperienced leaders on the world stage today will result in something positive. A good place to start would be to formally ending the Korean War. Short of that, where else is a conversation to go?

We can rest assured that Kim Yong-un will have a lengthy list of things he needs the American president to fix. He will court Donald Trump, bathe him in compliments to stroke his ego, and finally emerge with some (any) victory for his impoverished nation. The North Koreans are starving, so we can all rest assured that Trump will need to give them food or ease sanctions on the import of food items. North Korea needs hard cash, so Kim will undoubtedly seek easing of sanctions on the sale of coal to China and a loosening of international banking sanctions imposed on the Hermit regime.

Trump will leave the meeting claiming to have done what no other sitting American president has ever accomplished. To his credit, that is the truth. If Trump actually attends the meeting—six weeks is a long way off in politics—he will be able to fairly claim that small victory for the history books. Trump will focus on eliminating nuclear weapons from North Korea and implementing international observers. It is hard to believe that North Korea would comply with anything resembling international observers.

The winner can only by Kim Yong-un who will gain enormous domestic prestige be being able to claim the he—and he alone—brought the American president to the negotiating table. His state-owned media operation will milk the event for everything it is worth to prove that the young dictator has permanently elevated his country to the highest levels in global affairs. And, in some respects, he already has accomplished exactly that.

Trump has no grasp of American issues, let alone complex foreign policy and multi-lateral international concerns. There is no way he will be able to wrap his head around the Korean question nor the litany of problems facing North Korea in the next two months. He cannot possibly understand the concerns of our Asian allies, let alone the Chinese desire to keep a buffer state intact. All of these issues are simply beyond Trump's ability to digest.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's infamous Known Knowns speech is so fitting for this upcoming international fiasco. The known knowns are the least of our concerns. It's the unknown unknowns of this meeting that should trouble us all. With Trump's penchant of spouting off at the mouth, who knows what he will give away in a bi-lateral discussion with Kim Yong-on. That's the scary part of this.