Bluster or legitimate threat, U. S. President Donald Trump’s latest castigation of North Korea has again left observers wondering if the leader will greenli
Bluster or legitimate threat, U. S. President Donald Trump’s latest castigation of North Korea has again left observers wondering if the leader will greenlight some kind of military action against the country in a bid to halt its seemingly inexorable march toward a credible nuclear strike capability.
Trump on Saturday issued his latest veiled threat to Pyongyang in a series of tweets deriding past U. S. leaders’ attempts to solve the intractable North Korean nuclear issue, saying that “only one thing” could bring the crisis to a close — an apparent allusion to military action.
“Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid,” Trump tweeted. “Hasn’t worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U. S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!”
Asked by reporters to clarify his comments later Saturday while en route to a fundraiser, Trump said only: “You’ll figure that out pretty soon.”
The mercurial U. S. president’s remarks came two days after he cryptically said during a dinner with top American military brass that the meeting was “the calm before the storm.” He also refused to clarify that comment, saying only that “you’ll find out,” when asked what he meant. On Saturday, asked again about the storm remarks, Trump said there was “nothing to clarify.”
Trump has variously threatened to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea and to “totally destroy” the country of 25 million people if the United States is forced to defend itself or its allies, including Japan.
He has repeatedly said that all options — including military action — remain on the table for reining in its nuclear weapons ambitions. The U. S. president has also appeared to advocate regime change, saying that Kim and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, “won’t be around much longer” after Ri hinted at a possible nuclear weapons test over the Pacific Ocean.
Trump’s hard-line rhetoric and scornful disdain of dialogue with the North suggest that military action is likely on the president’s mind.
“The U. S. is confronting a ‘devils alternative’ — either accept North Korean nuclear weapons status, and watch the regional nonproliferation norms fall apart, and North Korea be more emboldened behind a nuclear shield — or risk a military confrontation,” Malcolm Davis, a senior defense analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said after Trump’s recent remarks.
“I don’t see the U. S. accepting North Korean nuclear weapons status, or accommodating Pyongyang,” Davis said. “I see war on the horizon — it’s a question of when and what context, and how does it start, and how does it end.”
Last week, Trump poured cold water on a suggestion that negotiations with the isolated country would be anything other than a distraction, saying that U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” a mocking reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
