A world on the brink of the unthinkable

WITH the world looking on in horror, North Korea fires a missile over Japan, spreading panic among the 5.5million population of Hokkaido island and cranking up tension to snapping-point.

Indeed, not since the Cuban missile crisis has the world seemed as close to the brink of a genocidal nuclear exchange.

The difference is that in that terrifying stand- off of 1962, both John F Kennedy and Russia’s Nikita Khrushchev remained open to reason. For all their bluster, they saw full-scale war as unthinkable, and each was prepared to compromise.

But how confidently can the same be said of the protagonists in the Korean crisis?

This paper hopes and believes Donald Trump, though hugely unpredictable, is less reckless than he likes to appear. As leader of the world’s greatest democracy, he is also restrained by the US Constitution and independent-minded advisers.

But would that this were true of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un. Surrounded by sycophants too terrified or brainwashed to rein him in, he seems as deranged as he is ruthless.

Indeed, his countless victims include his half-brother, poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport, and an uncle he blew to shreds with heavy artillery at point-blank range. The fear is that anyone capable of such barbarity may be capable of anything.

But are threats of ‘exterminating’ his regime, and demonstrations of military might, the best way to deal with a madman who seems only to fear losing face?

Or will South Korea’s menaces and bombing exercises, and Mr Trump’s muscle-flexing, merely heighten Kim’s paranoia and sense of isolation, spurring him to ever wilder lunacies?

One thing seems sure. If Kim will listen to anyone, it will be to his neighbours the Chinese, who have everything to fear from war in Korea. So shouldn’t all the West’s energy now be concentrated on encouraging Beijing’s efforts to bring him to reason?

Certainly, Mr Trump should leave him in no doubt that the US will support South Korea to the hilt. But if he wants to be remembered as a statesman, he will tone down the language – and, like Kennedy, work to broker peace behind the scenes.

Goading this dictator with threats of ‘fire and fury’ is surely not the answer. It could even provoke the unthinkable.