Fire and Fury

Ken AshfordNorth Korea, Trump & AdministrationLeave a Comment

North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said they will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.

Trump was reading from a statement when he said this, and nobody is quite sure who wrote it. Probably Trump himself since he sans advisers at his Bedminster Golf Course. Bannon is a non-interventionist, and his wiser military advisers would definitely have urged Trump use softer (and non-public) language and perhaps try to DE-escalate the situation.

UPDATE —

Instead, what we have is one narcissistic lunatic facing off against another, each one making grand pronouncements from which it is difficult to back down.

North Korea returns rhetoric:

The president’s comments came as North Korea earlier in the day escalated its criticism of the United States, as well as its neighboring allies, by warning that it will mobilize all its resources to take “physical action” in retaliation against the latest round of United Nations sanctions.

The statement, carried by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, was the strongest indication yet that the country could conduct another nuclear or missile test, as it had often done in response to past United Nations sanctions. Until now, the North’s response to the latest sanctions had been limited to strident yet vague warnings, such as threatening retaliation “thousands of times over.”

“Packs of wolves are coming in attack to strangle a nation,” the North Korean statement said. “They should be mindful that the D.P.R.K.’s strategic steps accompanied by physical action will be taken mercilessly with the mobilization of all its national strength.”

“Fire and fury” versus “pack of wolves”.  How long before “winter is coming”?

North Korea followed up with a threat against Guam, which has two US military bases:

North Korea said on Wednesday it is “carefully examining” a plan to strike the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam with missiles…
A spokesman for the Korean People’s Army, in a statement carried by the North’s state-run KCNA news agency, said the strike plan will be “put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment” once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision.

In another statement citing a different military spokesman, North Korea also said it could carry out a pre-emptive operation if the United States showed signs of provocation.

Earlier Pyongyang said it was ready to give Washington a “severe lesson” with its strategic nuclear force in response to any U.S. military action.

Resolution 2371 was a proper response, and a rare Trump victory.  It was unanimously supported in a vote by the UN Security Council several days ago. As a result of its passage, “the regime of Kim Jong Un will be banned from exporting any goods or services. The BBC estimates that the sanctions will reduce North Korean exports from $3 billion to $2 billion annually. That $2 billion will be retained by continued illicit trading with nations such as China”. The sanctions also “ban[s] member countries from importing coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood from North Korea. They also prohibit member nations from hosting any additional workers from the North above their current levels.”

How serious is this? Well, we are (once again, with Trump) in unknown waters. He is determined to have something in the “win” column, and he is determined to do things different than his predecessors. That does not bode well.

Nor does he seem to understand that consequences of using nuclear weapons, even in a preventative way. The United States, if it acts nuclearly and preventatively, will be a pariah for history, ceding its world leadership position to Russia and China. Which is what Russia and China, and maybe even Bannon, want.  Trump seems rather ho-hum about proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries (“I’m not sure that would be a bad thing for us“) and has not ruled using nukes against ISIS. That does not bode well.

Of course, it might be rhetoric used to intimidate our enemies, but in many ways, it becomes a red line that he will be forced to cross or not cross. Keep in mind, North Korea knows that Trump lies — i.e., says things he does not mean. He has a credibility problem. So now Trump’s unfaithfulness to truth is more than just an annoyance to voters; it now plays a factor in a potential nuclear standoff.  THAT does not bode well.

Trump would be better off speaking softly and carrying a big stick.  John McCain believes the situation is serious, but he warns that the president’s rhetoric is not helpful.

McCain is right, the situation is serious, but it’s not Cuban Missile Crisis serious.  First of all, only one intelligence agency thinks that North Korea has miniature nuclear weapon capabilities. Secondly, we really CAN wipe out North Korea if it strikes at all, and Kim Jung Un knows that. I HOPE.  Rex Tillerson tells everyone to take a chill pill. Via AP:

Only hours before Trump’s tweets, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged calm and said Americans should have “no concerns” despite the exchange of threats between the president and North Korea. Aboard his plane as he flew home from Asia, Tillerson insisted the developments didn’t suggest the U.S. was moving closer to a military option to dealing with the crisis.

“Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson said. He added: “Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours.”
…
In more tranquil terms than Trump, Tillerson sought to explain the thinking behind Trump’s warning. He said the president was trying to send a strong and clear message to North Korea’s leader so that there wouldn’t be “any miscalculation.”
…
“What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un can understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Tillerson said. “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime on the U.S. unquestionable ability to defend itself.” He said the U.S. “will defend itself and its allies.”

I’m not sure that is calming.  This is not going away tomorrow, or two months from now.  We have severe sanctions and a good shot at getting China on our side more. Let’s go with that policy and not blow it up (literally) with over-the-top touch talk from a luxury resort.

UPDATE:  Here’s a sobering reminder…

As former Secretary of Defense William Perry told the podcast Radiolab, “the system is set up so only the president has the authority to order a nuclear war. Nobody has the right to countermand that decision.”

Nobody. Not the Defense Secretary. Not the vice president. Not the generals. Not the individual officers tasked with launching the missiles. Donald Trump alone decides whether to set off a nuclear holocaust.

The reason for this is that our nuclear protocols were designed for a very different era, when the threat of an external enemy loomed much larger than the threat of a madman president.

On the other hand, you always gotta laugh…