North Korea: evil and reckless, but not suicidal

William J. Perry,

Politico Magazine: “The danger is not, as some believe, that North Korea will make good on its bluster and actually launch a surprise nuclear attack. The North Korean leadership, while it is evil and sometimes reckless, is not crazy or suicidal. Their primary goal is to sustain the Kim dynasty and, against all odds, they have shrewdly succeeded in that for many decades. They know that if they launch a nuclear attack, the American response would bring death to them and devastation to their country. The primary danger instead is that North Korea might overplay its hand and provoke a military response from South Korea. This could quickly expand into a larger conventional war, inevitably involving the United States, which has almost 30,000 troops in South Korea.”

Chicago Tribune,

editorial: “Putting aside prickly trade disputes with China appears to be a big part of the deal Trump envisions reaching with Xi. He said at the news conference that he told the Chinese, ‘ The way you’re going to make a good trade deal is to help us with North Korea, otherwise we’re just going to go it alone.” There’s foolishness in Trump’s hurtling from position to opposite position, yet there’s cleverness too. His three immediate predecessors lackadaisically watched as North Korea became a nuclear menace. If Trump can work with Xi to defang Pyongyang, we wish him every success. Thanks to decades of American dithering and denial, Trump inherited no better option.”

Mark Seddon,

in The Guardian: “Trump’s boast to a TV host that he had informed President Xi of his Tomahawk missile at- tack on a Syrian airbase as they shared chocolate cake was surreal theater at its most grotesque. But it was a message designed explicitly with North Korea in mind, as was his bunker- busting bomb in Afghanistan. The Chinese are intensely nervous and irritated by the behavior of the formerly useful buffer state that is now a source of potential nuclear conflict and waves of refugees.” Jonathan Cristol, CNN. com: “Kim Jong Un is not crazy. Kim Jong Un is not irrational. He’s probably not stupid either. We Americans frequently make the mistake of assuming that our enemies are crazy, irrational or stupid. We expect every other nation state to go along happily with what we want it to do. When a world leader does otherwise, we attribute our lack of understanding to some flaw in that person’s judgment. Not all political systems mirror the United States; not all cultures are our culture; and not everyone’s interests are America’s interests.”

George Lopez,

interview in New York Magazine: “On the campaign trail, the president said, ‘ I think I could sit down directly with this guy, and in ten or 15 minutes, we’ll see how far we can get.’ It was ‘ Trump as the great negotiator.’ But we didn’t hear any of that after the inauguration. Instead, what we’ve gotten follows a different theme you heard on the campaign trail: ‘ My administration isn’t going to tie the hands of the military. We are not going to back down from any threats from places like North Korea. We’re going to solve problems with or without the Chinese.’ However, this seems to sideline Japan and South Korea — our two most critical allies.”