Trump’s threats could backfire
Escalating war of words raises fears of a high-stakes miscalculation
NEWS ANALYSIS President Trump’s use of apocalyptic imagery in threatening “fire and fury” against North Korea represented some of the most bellicose language uttered by any president since World War II.
“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,” Trump said Tuesday.
That statement, in response to reports that the communist regime had developed a warhead capable of being mounted on a ballistic missile, mirrored a North Korean propaganda machine that once threatened to turn the South Korean capital into a “sea of fire.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that the president’s words were designed to send a clear message to North Korea’s enigmatic leader “in language that Kim Jong Un can understand.”
But tension escalated Thursday on the Korean Peninsula. North Korean Gen. Kim Raj Gyom repeated a threat to target the U.S. territory of Guam with what he called “historic enveloping fire” from four ballistic missiles.
He called Trump’s warning “a load of nonsense” and said, “Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason, and only absolute force can work on him.”
The escalating war of words raises worries of a high-stakes miscalculation.
“What we have is two schoolyard bullies out-threatening each other,” said Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups. “The problem with that is that it has the tendency to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. You end up with conflict coming out of a misunderstanding and one side feeling they have to attack first.”
Saber-rattling is as old as diplomacy — and can be effective in bringing about a negotiation.
“I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime on the U.S. unquestionable ability to defend itself ... and its allies, and I think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part,” Tillerson said Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Pyongyang to “cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”
Veteran Korea watchers said Trump’s statements are likely to be counterproductive.
“Yes, this is language that Kim Jong Un and his generals might understand very clearly,” said Tim Shorrock, a journalist with the Korea Center for Investigative Reporting. “But this language isn’t just heard by Kim Jong Un, it’s heard by millions of people who live in the region.”
It’s a region where cultural memories of World War II, atomic bombs and the Korean War are still raw.
Trump’s threat Tuesday was followed up with a tweet Wednesday boasting that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is “far stronger and more powerful than ever before.”
Trump’s bombast isn’t unprecedented. After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, President Truman said of Japan, “If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this Earth.”
Such statements can be effective, as in the Cuban Missile Crisis. “We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth — but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced,” President Kennedy said, promising “a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union” in the event of a missile launch from Cuba.
Experts said Trump doesn’t have plausible military options for backing up his threat. There is vast artillery pointed at Seoul, so a conventional war on the peninsula could claim millions of lives.
“Interpreting the statement literally makes it almost ridiculous,” said Roseanne McManus of the City University of New York, author of Statements of Resolve: Achieving Coercive Credibility in International Conflict.
She said presidential saber-rattling is most effective when it’s credible, specific and understood.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the threat was “reckless.”
“No matter how much the Kim regime deserves international condemnation and action — which it does — it is not a strategic or responsible response to issue wild threats of destruction. Such is behavior we’d expect to see from Mr. Kim himself, not the president of the United States,” he said Wednesday.
The White House pushed back Wednesday on suggestions that the remarks took security officials off guard. “The words were his own,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. “The tone and strength of the message were discussed beforehand.”
Tillerson, who was on his way to Guam for a pre-scheduled stop, said Americans should “have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days.”
“I think what the president was just reaffirming is the United States has the capability to fully defend itself. ... So the American people should sleep well at night,” he said.