MONTEREY, California - Kim Jong Un never, not once, promised to abandon his nuclear weapons. It was always South Korean diplomats who framed his aspirational comments about denuclearization as a concrete pledge. What Kim wanted was recognition. Kim wanted the United States to accept North Korea as a country, Kim as a ruler, and his nuclear weapons as a fact of life. What he was willing to trade for this recognition was better behavior -- an end to nuclear testing and ICBM flights, plus promises not to export nuclear technologies to other states and a reduction in tension on the Korean Peninsula.