President Trump’s opponents, both in the military and political establishment, have criticized his decision for halting the annual joint US-South Korean military exercises, commonly called Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, in exchange for North Korea to abandon its nuclear tests. To those critics, they see it as Trump making concessions to a untrustworthy dictatorship.

On the South Korean side, Tae Doo-jong, a military historian, believes it’s more about domestic political posturing:

“The Americans are more vocally opposed to the Trump’s deals than South Koreans are,” he said. “The South’s military sees him as an US commander-in-chief and ally, but many of Trump’s political and military subordinates see him as an adversary.”

He states that Trump’s deal has much merit.

For starters, North Korean troops lack training due to a lack of fuel as well as using obsolete equipment that cannot even survive maintenance during peacetime. Meanwhile, both US and South Korean troops constantly train, have state-of-the-art equipment, and are funded by world-class economies.

“It’s not like the early Cold War, including the Cold War, where the North actually had decent conventional forces,” Tae said, “Gone are those days. Trump cancelling an exercise won’t really affect the quality of South Korean and US forces.”

“His deal to cancel a military exercise will be like giving allied troops a well-deserved break, but the North’s nuclear weapons program will be delayed,” he said. “Trump can always reinstate the exercise, but the North’s delicate program will take longer to recover.”

Additionally, we already know how competent and well coordinated US and South Korean troops are, even without an exercise. But the North Koreans don’t know how well their nuclear weapons are if they can’t test them.

Nuclear weapons are the elite of North Korea’s military, in many cases, the only thing that’s guaranteeing their nation’s survival. In contrast, the allied troops at Foal Eagle and Key Resolve aren’t the most effective force available, although they are pretty impressive.

“On top of this, smaller exercises are routinely carried out by the South and the US to mitigate the ‘loss’ even more,” said Tae, “Trump only cancelled the most famous exercise, not the smaller ones the North doesn’t notice.”

Indeed, North Korea cannot just conduct smaller nuclear tests the same way. Nuclear weapons are designed to create impressive destruction, more than any other weapons, so testing them secretly will inherently be difficult. After all, these aren’t precision weapons.

In other words, the North can’t even make ‘a peep’ without getting caught. Previously, intelligence agencies detected its nuclear blasts using methods, such as by analyzing the air for radioactive particles and using seismographs, which is also used to measure earthquakes.

“Allied forces have decades of experience detecting Soviet nuclear tests,” Tae said, “so they have no problem with the North, which is technologically backwards. The world will know if they are cheating on the deal.”

“Trump’s deal is almost like getting pennies on the dollar,” he said, “We are losing pennies, but they’re losing dollars.”

“They need a nuke exercise more than we need an conventional exercise,” he said, “Nukes are special and rare, but conventional is called conventional for a reason.”

Our commander-in-chief has won, not by waging war, but by brokering peace.