Greg Dobbs: Phrase “Know thine enemy” seems to be lost on Trump when it comes to North Korea.

On-the-job-training to make hamburgers at White Castle? Makes sense. On-the-job training to make war or peace at the White House? Not so much. But that’s how it’s been feeling. Exhibit A: Our president’s epiphany earlier this month when China’s president explained the facts of life about North Korea, to which the leader of the free world responded, “After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy.”

Any of us could have told him that. (And so could the internet.) But he had to hear it from a power whose interests are almost the polar opposite of ours?

Exhibit B: Our sudden shows of strength. For the first time since he moved to the Oval Office, President Donald Trump won bravos from both sides of the aisle when he sent a message to Syria in the form of 59 cruise missiles. But then, before that dust had even settled, we dropped the mother of non-nuclear bombs on some caves in Afghanistan, and sent a carrier strike force (circuitously, it turns out) to the waters off North Korea.

Personally I don’t think these are bad moves. Aiming a pistol at a miscreant — without ever releasing the lock — might modify his misbehavior. The trouble is, given Trump’s penchant for applause, what he is pursuing overseas — after some deflating domestic defeats — looks more like feel-good policy than foreign policy. Which might make us safer from a North Korean nuclear threat. Or it might put us in more peril.

Sure, North Korea’s fitful leader, Kim Jong Un, talks tough. But that’s just how he plays the game. I’ve covered rulers from the likes of Iran and Iraq and Libya and the Soviet Union who also talked tough. Old-timers will particularly recollect Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s warning to the United States, “We will bury you.” He didn’t. It was bluster. The man currently in the White House knows a thing or two about that.

But what Trump doesn’t seem to know is, while the bad guys in Syria and Afghanistan can’t effectively shoot back, North Korea can. And if you believe that crazy men sometimes do crazy things, it might. As journalist Barbara Demick points out in her insightful book “Nothing to Envy” (taken from a slogan brainwashed into every North Korean child’s head, “We have nothing to envy in this world”), North Korea’s dynasty, now in its third generation, perpetuates a permanent state of almost-war; it keeps its people scared, and loyal.

But Kim Jong Un isn’t suicidal; his only ideology is survival. He isn’t bluffing about being a nuclear threat, but he is bluffing about throwing the first punch. He won’t. Not against our allies, not against us. But if we strike first? He might see no recourse but to strike back. Not only do crazy men do crazy things, desperate men do desperate things.

China understands North Korea. The day after Trump warned, “The problem will be taken care of,” China warned us, “If war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, multiple parties will lose and no one will win.” Trump should pay heed. The geopolitical consultancy Stratfor, which tracks “the hidden pressures on nations,” warns that “a comprehensive campaign” against North Korea “virtually guarantees fullblown war on the Korean Peninsula.”

I don’t have a splendid solution, not one that would safeguard the world against North Korean nukes. But neither does Trump, not when you look at the awful options open to him. And neither does China, not when you look its complicated relationship with North Korea, and its dependence on North Korea as a buffer against American military might in its own sphere of influence.

We wouldn’t want to risk everything on the confidence that North Korea is all talk. But Trump would be prudent to obey the adage “Know thine enemy.” As he learned from his Chinese counterpart during that on-thejob training session, he doesn’t yet.