Now we know why it matters who’s in the Oval Office
AS TRUMP BLUSTERS, N. KOREA AGAIN CALLS HIS BLUFF
The Korean Missile Crisis of 2017 ended in the only way it could have: with the capitulation of the United States. It began with a crudely inflammatory statement, apparently improvised, from the president. “North Korea,” Donald Trump intoned, frowning, arms crossed, “best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
No member of the president’s security team was advised beforehand that he would be using such extraordinary language. The meeting from which the statement was issued — at one of his golf courses, naturally — was devoted to another matter altogether, the opioids epidemic, as were the talking points on the paper in front of him.
The U.S. secretary of state — no, not Jared Kushner, the other one, Rex Tillerson — hastened to put out a statement to the effect that the president didn’t really mean what he said (“Americans should sleep well at night”), but he needn’t have bothered. Nobody believes a word this president says, least of all the North Koreans, who responded to Trump’s threat not to make any more threats by promptly issuing another threat, this time to incinerate Guam. Bluff: called.
Or rather, called again. All through the last six months, as Kim Jong Un’s regime made its dash for a nuclear weapon that could reach the continental United States — first successfully testing intercontinental ballistic missiles, then (as reported this week) learning how to fit them with nuclear warheads — various Trump officials have been warning darkly of unspecified but presumably military consequences. It seems only to have accelerated their efforts.
In part this simply reflects the reality of the situation, which is that there is no easy military solution to the North Korean threat. This is less in the nature of a showdown, after all, than it is a hostage-taking: Unless the U.S. were able to instantly and comprehensively eliminate all of North Korea’s command structure, the first response of Kim’s regime to any pre-emptive strike would avowedly be to nuke South Korea, whose capital, Seoul, is just across the border. If that sounds crazy, well, there’s a certain credibility that comes with being crazy.
Much speculation has surrounded Trump’s mental state, but as a madman he is not in Kim’s league. He is, rather, a fairly conventional bunkum artist — more unprincipled than most, to be sure, indeed seemingly unburdened by any commitment to fact, but ultimately a transparent bluffer. For all his attempt to play the bully, Trump can no more be counted on to deliver on a threat than a promise. Recall how his first bits of bravado, the suggestion that he might recognize Taiwan, or move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, ended: dropped at the first hint of pushback.
So the “credible” part of “credible threat” was lacking, even before Trump attempted it. Perhaps this is a good thing, in a way: who knows how the North Koreans might have reacted had they taken him seriously. Trump likes to boast about his “unpredictability.” But in truth he has made himself something of an open book: as the national security analyst John Schindler has pointed out, those thousands of tweets are a priceless resource for psychological profilers in adversary states.
Still, the stakes are too high for the slightest miscalculation, on either side. With so many differing messages coming out of the Trump administration — shortly after Tillerson’s crisis-what-crisis remarks, Trump adviser Sebastian Borka was on TV comparing the situation to Cuba in 1962 and blustering about American “hyperpower,” followed by a classic Trump tweet falsely claiming to have completely “renovated” U.S. nuclear forces (in six months!) — it would be easy for confusion to arise. The hope, if that is the right word, has been that “the generals” — Defence Secretary James Mattis, Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster — would take Trump in hand. But quite apart from the worrying implications for civilian governance, it’s far from clear the generals can rein in Trump.
The lesson from all this, painfully obvious as it should have been, is that it matters who is in the White House, not just who isn’t. Those who had convinced themselves that, whatever Trump’s manifest unfitness for office, “at least he isn’t Hillary,” if they had not already repented of their folly over the previous six months, must surely do so now. (He said with no conviction whatever.) The presidency is not a ceremonial post; neither is it a program of policy. It is a command centre, with decisions to be made, many on short notice, sometimes with the most profound consequences. All of the U.S. Constitution’s careful separation of powers and checks and balances — though thank God for them — cannot erase the awful power of the office. Only Congress can declare war, but a president can sure start one.
Dealing with North Korea would tax the abilities of the ablest of presidents, and has. Trump cannot be blamed for the regime’s having acquired nuclear weapons: that was the legacy of previous presidents of both parties, whose concessions and bribes had no more effect on its actions than Trump’s threats. But now that it has nukes, it demands the most delicate and assured handling, one requiring deep experience in matters of state, subtle understanding of human nature, judgment, fortitude and sang-froid.
Needless to say, Trump possesses none of these qualities. But hey, what’s the worst that could happen?