If the president wants to prevent the North from developing nuclear weapons, the starting point is to recognize Pyongyang’s security conundrum.
Presumably, President Donald Trump believed he was sticking a rhetorical dagger in North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s heart by calling the latter “Rocket Man.” But what greater compliment could there be for the leader of a small, impoverished, and isolated nation than being recognized the U. S. president as joining the global superpower in possessing intercontinental missiles and nuclear weapons? By the president’s own words, Kim is now one of the “Big Boys.”
President Trump also threatened to “totally destroy North Korea.” In doing so, he became the mirror image of the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, blustering and swaggering while spewing threats far and wide. President Trump isn’t bad at the game, but the DPRK’s rulers have had far more practice and are without peer. Kim can always trump Trump in this way.
And the president’s warning had two other counterproductive effects. The first is justifying the North Korea nuclear program. Kim, like his father and grandfather, shows no signs of being suicidal: he wants his virgins in the here and now, not hereafter. His principal concern, other than maintaining domestic control, is regime preservation against U. S. pressure. Nuclear weapons are the best means to ensure that he does not suffer the fates of Saddam Hussein, Muammar Ghaddafi and other foreign dictators who ran afoul of Washington. Creating a nuclear deterrent is Pyongyang’s preferred tool to prevent America from destroying the DPRK—at least assuming the president is as rational as the Supreme Leader.
President Trump’s rhetoric also was a propaganda gift to the North. One can imagine North Koreans growing a little cynical after being lectured endlessly on the “American Threat.” Now the president has created the perfect sound-clip for use at home and abroad. He didn’t even bother to distinguish between the Kim dynasty and North Korean people or nation. From the DPRK’s perspective, he’s apparently planning on wiping out everyone and everything.
The problem is not just that there is no filter between the president’s gut and mouth. He also knows little of the complexity of the Korean standoff. Thus, he imagines that all he has to do, in contrast to the calm, cool, and collected President Barack Obama—who obviously is responsible for most if not all of the world’s ills—is match Kim Jong Un insult for insult. Put a little scare into the chubby if cherubic looking dictator, and the latter will rush to surrender the weapons Pyongyang has spent a quarter century or more developing.
The president can dream on. Kim, like his father and grandfather, already is scared. Which is why he is developing ICBMs capable of striking the U. S. He wants to deter American military action. He isn’t going to launch a crazed suicidal attack on the U.
