Madman or madman strategy?
KIM JONG UN, TRUMP FEUD COULD BE SOME SORT OF BIZARRO CHESS
After a successful missile launch at the end of November, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un threw his head back in a flamboyant cackle, lit a cigarette and celebrated with his generals.
It was the latest step forward for a weapons program that was put on fast forward in 2017, and there’s no sign that it will slow down in 2018.
Since taking power in 2011, Kim Jong Un has tested 89 missiles, compared to 16 by his father and 15 by his grandfather.
The year of the launch was followed by a traditional New Year’s Day speech by Kim that struck a disconcerting balance between olive branches and belligerence.
Couched in bellicose language about launch buttons — which inspired a memorable tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump — was a plea for dialogue with South Korea. Those talks ended with an agreement that will send a North Korean delegation to this year’s winter Olympics in the south.
The move appeared to be part of a sophisticated strategy to drive a wedge between a peace-seeking South Korean government and the sabre-rattling Trump administration. Even the timing was smart, as it imposed a deadline on the South Koreans, forcing them into hurried talks.
“This is ‘we say jump, you ask how high’ diplomacy in action — which is effective for showing who is in control of the negotiation process,” wrote Nicholas Eberstadt, an expert on international security on the Korean peninsula, who warned the South Koreans about underestimating their negotiating partners.
This apparent strategic thinking runs contrary to a popular perception of North Korea and Kim best summed up by U.S. Senator John McCain, who described the dictator as the “crazy fat kid that’s running North Korea.” But McCain’s perspective is not completely baseless.
In 2013, North Korea threatened to “wipe out” South Korea and turn one of its islands into a “sea of fire,” and, in 2017, Kim warned of a “super-mighty pre-emptive strike” against the United States.
Never shy about getting personal, the North Koreans have described Trump as a “dotard,” Barack Obama as a “dirty fellow” and Hillary Clinton as a “pensioner.”
Meanwhile, any actual news leaking out of North Korea tends to be either bizarre or horrifying. The apparent assassination of Kim Jong Un’s half brother Kim Jong Nam, the execution of his uncle Jang Song-thaek and a widespread purge of military leadership show a ruthless young leader eliminating threats.
This vicious streak is accompanied by a whimsical fascination for western culture, especially from the 1990s. Former Chicago Bulls player Dennis Rodman has probably had the most access to Kim Jong Un of any westerner.
The missile tests, the purges, the relentlessly pugnacious government statements and the whole Rodman thing have raised some legitimate questions about the man running North Korea. Is he a rational actor or, is he a crazy rich kid who also happens to have a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons?
To get a sense of how hard the question is to answer, consider that serious column inches have already been devoted to analyzing how rational Trump is. This is a man who tweets impulsively, has conducted dozens of interviews since taking office and has been an open book and media celebrity for decades.
Now consider that sternfaced intelligence agents discussing North Korea will find themselves quoting information gleaned from a heavilytattooed retired basketball player. We don’t really have a lot to go on.
For all the palaces and power, though, dictators tend to exist on the very low end of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Survival is paramount and any authoritarian leader who lasts more than a couple years has obviously mastered the art of staying alive. We’ve already seen signs that Kim Jong-un will take extreme measures to maintain power.
After the dictator executed his uncle, an official press release described the deceased former adviser as a “traitor for all ages,” who was attempting to overthrow the state “by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods.”
In February, Kim Jong Nam, Kim Jong Un’s brother, was fatally attacked with a nerve agent in a Malaysian airport. As Kim Jong Il’s oldest son, Kim Jong Nam may have had a troublesome claim to the North Korean throne.
For top brass in North Korea, this has been a brutal, but undeniably rational, way for the young leader to consolidate his power. North Korea experts have pointed out that it hasn’t trickled down to the citizenry. The country is still full of political prisoners, but that hasn’t gotten worse under Kim. The purge has been targeted at an old guard that may be skeptical of a young leader.
Similarly, the North Korean bluster on foreign affairs has always had an eye toward both domestic and international consumption.
Kim may believe the best way to deter a pre-emptive strike from the United States is to give the impression that he’s just crazy enough to bring the whole peninsula down with him.
At his golf course in New Jersey, Trump took the opportunity to send a message to Kim Jong Un.
“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 said.
The remarks were strangely reminiscent of the North Korean rhetoric directed at the U.S. and immediately set off a wave of speculation and analysis. Was “fire and fury” a reference to nuclear weapons? Were these prepared remarks or — as was later reported — ab-libbed comments by the president?
Most importantly: was Trump off his rocker or was he just trying to look that way?
Some have argued that Trump is employing some version of Richard Nixon’s “Madman strategy,” when it comes to dealing with North Korea. The idea isn’t so much to convince the enemy the president is a frothing maniac who wants to blow up the world, but that he’s an ultra hardliner who shouldn’t be tested.
We could now be in the situation of watching two madmen, or two men employing a madman strategy, facing off against each other on top of gigantic nuclear weapons stockpiles.
Trump has ramped up the rhetoric and repeatedly referred to Kim as “little rocket man,” and even gone so far as to torpedo his own Secretary of State’s efforts with a tweet about how diplomacy is a waste of time.
The madman strategy has some detractors, though. The obvious criticism being that Vietnam ended infamously for the United States, regardless of the strategy employed.
The second criticism is that threats don’t work if everyone knows they are empty.
When Trump warned ominously that there was an armada steaming toward North Korea, it turned out be a single aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean that was headed in the opposite direction.
Trump’s threats probably unsettled the North Koreans, but couldn’t change the fundamental belief of the country’s leader: that nuclear weapons ensure he stays in power and that it’s worth risking everything to keep them.
THIS IS ‘WE SAY JUMP, YOU SAY HOW HIGH’ DIPLOMACY.