The situation with North Korea is stable. Relax. No one can start a war. Let's call that what it is: Peace.
Maybe there is craft in all this. Or blustering foolishness. And there is the nasty problem that accidents do happen.
Yesterday this blog, and commenter Thad Guyer, described the situation with North Korea as stable and at equilibrium. We are at a stalemate with hostages on both sides of the border. No war. Go live your lives.
The divided Korea is acceptable for both China and the US. China gets a buffer, which is better than a strong, United Korea trading competitor right on its border. The US has an excuse for military bases right near China, helping to define and limit its sphere of domination. Win-win.
A different president might be thought to be advancing a complicated bit of long term strategy with the frightening round of trash talk. Imagine this: a tough talking President Hillary Clinton might be publicly goading Kim Jong Un for a long range strategic purpose carrying out carefully planned US policy. By raising tensions and threats in the region it would give Japan and South Korea reason to re-arm to prepare themselves agains regional threats from wherever they might come. Instead of relying on the US they would create their own defense forces. Japan would build aircraft carriers and ship to ship missile systems under the cover of needing protection against North Korea.
The actual American strategic purpose would be execution of a thirty year plan: to keep China a great regional power, but not a world power, and to surround China with armed neighbors wary of regional aggressors.
The great challenge for the US in the next century is to co-exist peaceably with China. We must avoid direct confrontations. If there is scuffling over control of the South China Sea it needs to be China vs. proxies, not Chinese ships vs. American ships. The shouting going on regarding North Korea could be all about public opinion and public policy in Japan, toward the goal of re-setting American commitments and creating Chinese containment.
That would be Hillary, doing long range statecraft.
But America elected Trump. Nothing we have seen about Trump gives credibility to the idea that he is calculating in that manner. He is spontaneous. But there are two ways to get to the same place. One would be Defense-State-Generalship calculation and the other is gut. Trump might simply think: Japan is rich and they have been coddled. Pull your weight, Japan. We are sick of subsidizing you.
It gets to the same place: regional allies serving as a nearby counterweight to the inevitable growth of Chinese power, based on its increasing economic and geopolitical heft.
Possibly--it is conceivable--there are backchannel contacts between the US and North Korea, expressing a "wink wink" telling Kim Jong Un not to sweat the verbal fireworks, that this is just Trump doing domestic politics. I doubt this, but this is unquestionably great politics for both Trump and Un and each realize this. Each get to sound tough.
It is harmless--unless it isn't. The back and forth name calling and trash talk looks familiar: junior high school boys trading insults. But accidents happen. One boy might actually touch the other boy. That must be countered with a touch back, which escalates to pushing, which escalates sometimes to hitting. Neither side dare back down. Self interest is trumped by pride. Real fights start with taunts.
Does this happen with grownups? Yes.
Barbara Tuchman described it in The Guns of August. It nearly happened in the nuclear age when JFK and Khrushchev had mis-cues over intentions in the Missile Crisis. What could go wrong? An earthquake could be misinterpreted as nuclear blasts. A North Korean test missile could go astray and be seen coming down onto Japanese land. A fishing boat could be confused with a spy boat. Something can happen on the ground that convinces one side or the other that the war has already begun and that fast countermeasures are utterly essential. The other guy started it.
Mis-cues happen.
This brings us back to the temperament of Donald Trump. In 1962 John Kennedy chose to interpret an ambiguous message by the Soviets as unintended, and superseded by a different message, even though that message had actually come earlier. It turned out to be a good guess.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un may make different choices.
The divided Korea is acceptable for both China and the US. China gets a buffer, which is better than a strong, United Korea trading competitor right on its border. The US has an excuse for military bases right near China, helping to define and limit its sphere of domination. Win-win.
 |
| Sixty five years ago, and today |
A different president might be thought to be advancing a complicated bit of long term strategy with the frightening round of trash talk. Imagine this: a tough talking President Hillary Clinton might be publicly goading Kim Jong Un for a long range strategic purpose carrying out carefully planned US policy. By raising tensions and threats in the region it would give Japan and South Korea reason to re-arm to prepare themselves agains regional threats from wherever they might come. Instead of relying on the US they would create their own defense forces. Japan would build aircraft carriers and ship to ship missile systems under the cover of needing protection against North Korea.
The actual American strategic purpose would be execution of a thirty year plan: to keep China a great regional power, but not a world power, and to surround China with armed neighbors wary of regional aggressors.
The great challenge for the US in the next century is to co-exist peaceably with China. We must avoid direct confrontations. If there is scuffling over control of the South China Sea it needs to be China vs. proxies, not Chinese ships vs. American ships. The shouting going on regarding North Korea could be all about public opinion and public policy in Japan, toward the goal of re-setting American commitments and creating Chinese containment.
 |
| Great domestic politics for both. |
That would be Hillary, doing long range statecraft.
But America elected Trump. Nothing we have seen about Trump gives credibility to the idea that he is calculating in that manner. He is spontaneous. But there are two ways to get to the same place. One would be Defense-State-Generalship calculation and the other is gut. Trump might simply think: Japan is rich and they have been coddled. Pull your weight, Japan. We are sick of subsidizing you.
It gets to the same place: regional allies serving as a nearby counterweight to the inevitable growth of Chinese power, based on its increasing economic and geopolitical heft.
Possibly--it is conceivable--there are backchannel contacts between the US and North Korea, expressing a "wink wink" telling Kim Jong Un not to sweat the verbal fireworks, that this is just Trump doing domestic politics. I doubt this, but this is unquestionably great politics for both Trump and Un and each realize this. Each get to sound tough.
It is harmless--unless it isn't. The back and forth name calling and trash talk looks familiar: junior high school boys trading insults. But accidents happen. One boy might actually touch the other boy. That must be countered with a touch back, which escalates to pushing, which escalates sometimes to hitting. Neither side dare back down. Self interest is trumped by pride. Real fights start with taunts.
 |
| Trump and Kim Jong Un both love this. |
Barbara Tuchman described it in The Guns of August. It nearly happened in the nuclear age when JFK and Khrushchev had mis-cues over intentions in the Missile Crisis. What could go wrong? An earthquake could be misinterpreted as nuclear blasts. A North Korean test missile could go astray and be seen coming down onto Japanese land. A fishing boat could be confused with a spy boat. Something can happen on the ground that convinces one side or the other that the war has already begun and that fast countermeasures are utterly essential. The other guy started it.
Mis-cues happen.
This brings us back to the temperament of Donald Trump. In 1962 John Kennedy chose to interpret an ambiguous message by the Soviets as unintended, and superseded by a different message, even though that message had actually come earlier. It turned out to be a good guess.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un may make different choices.
4 comments:
China is not passive in this conflict.
Chinese military are no doubt advising NK and are prepared to take over with a military coup. My view is that the strategy, which was thwarted by the Obama administration, is to escalate to a point then step in and trade NK for Taiwan. The U.S. will accept this and move on. There are too many commercial interests at risk. China will not allow the Korean peninsula to be united, but will accept development after the coup.
I agree accidents and miscues are a wild risk, although none has occurred in my lifetime or in the nuclear age. Oddly, humans have managed nuclear weaponry without error. Error is inevitable, but castastrophic consequence is not.
The issue is policy, foreign and military policy. Trump's key cabinet team apoears good at it. His "return to the nation state" policy at the UN is a profound step in global reordering, emphasizing multilateralism over globalism. Handling North Korea in that new order will more clearly project US military superiority and reduce the risk that North Korea and Iran will think the UN will intervene. Trump doctrine is you deal ONLY with the US on military consequences. That is now our unambiguous policy going forward with rogue states. It also is a more workable template for dealing with China and Russia.
Yes, he is doing a re-ordering. This means that "international norms" of the kind promulgated by the UN and the Paris Climate Accords and TPP and normal diplomacy are being replaced. But there is a problem here. Trump is projecting a USA that is not a new, sober, reliable, solid independent rock around which to re-order.
He projects an unstable, impulsive new player. He isn't changing the rules, he is undoing the rules. All in all a place like America--exquisitely tied into the world--does better in a rule based world, in large part because we make the rules. We remain the big, sophisticated market. We have the reserve currency. We can put a missile anywhere. We keep the oceans safe for trade.
We aren't trading one order for a better one. We are trading one order for a period of disorder. That provides others, particularly China, to step into the void. They are already doing it on trade.
Well said on this: "All in all a place like America--exquisitely tied into the world--does better in a rule based world, in large part because we make the rules." Exactly. The American left and Western Europe don't like Trump's bilateralist and multilateralist rules. The American right, Eastern Europe, Israel and non-communist Asia do.
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