Mike Pence—who should seriously not assume his presence on the Korean peninsula would cause Donald Trump a moment’s concern when it comes to dropping explosives on the other side of the DMZ—had a Monday message for leaders of North Korea.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea not to push President Donald Trump, calling the recent American military strikes on Syria and Afghanistan an example of Washington’s strength.
“North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States,” Mr. Pence said on Monday, after making an unannounced visit to the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean Peninsula.
A message that boils down to “don’t expect Donald Trump to display rationality or restraint” is valid on any occasion, but one that also includes “put down those weapons, so we can do to you what we did to the last two guys we didn’t like” may not exactly have the effect that the Trump regime is aiming at.
So far, North Korea is responding to the message that it should sit down and admit that it’s in the wrong the way that North Korea has reacted to these messages since there has been a North Korea.
Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency responded to that decision on Monday by warning that North Korea would respond with a nuclear strike if “a single shell” was fired into the country’s territory.
Pyongyang has conducted at least eight missile tests since Trump took office, including some that involved multiple launches. And they’ve announced an intention to continue conducting tests on a regular, weekly basis.
The results is that on one side ...
“Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and in Afghanistan,” Mr. Pence said, underscoring the “message of resolve” that he said he was bringing to Northeast Asia.
And on the other …
North Korea UN ambassador says he hoped people had a nice Easter. Then says "nuclear war may break out at any moment."
It all comes together to cause some to draw a rather frightening analogy.
What is playing out, said Robert Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who tracks this potentially deadly interplay, is “the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.”
But that comparison seems to be wrong on at least a couple of counts. First, the threat of global destruction is a bit more abstract in this case. Yes, Kim might kill literally millions should North Korea fire a shot into Seoul, or Japan … or erstwhile ally China. But the handing-the-keys-to-the-cockroaches factor seems considerably reduced from the confrontation over Cuba. Second … what’s slow about it? Thirteen days in October may have been at the crux of the Cuban matter, but the confrontation with North Korea seems to be accelerating toward a conclusion just about as quickly.
There are some comforting signs. Despite the display of missiles (and mess-ups) by North Korea, the fact that we’re discussing tests that happen above ground may indicate some restraint is still being employed by some actors in this play.
The fact that Mr. Kim did not conduct a nuclear test over the weekend, timed to the anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, the founder of the country and its nuclear program, may indicate that Mr. Xi has given him pause. In the White House’s telling, Mr. Xi is responding to pressure by Mr. Trump to threaten a cutoff of the North’s financial links and energy supplies — its twin lifelines as a state.
Through there are reasons why North Korea’s leadership would feel pressured to keep up the tests even if no one were waving a “firm resolve” flag in their face.
For much of the Cold War, North and South Korea were at roughly comparable levels of economic and political development. Both could claim, at least internally, to be the rightful government of the Korean people who had been temporarily disunited.
But by the 1990s, the South enjoyed a booming economy and a blossoming democracy. Communist governments worldwide were collapsing, and North Korea seemed likely to follow.
Kim Jong-il, then the leader, responded with the “Songun,” or military-first, policy, which marshaled the nation to prepare for a war said to be just around the corner.
This policy sought to explain the country’s shortages and rationing as necessary to maintain its immense military, to justify oppression as necessary to root out internal enemies and to rally the nationalism that often comes during wartime.
Putting the nation on perpetual war footing, along with universal conscription, provides both a convenient excuse for every hardship and a unifying theme for the populace. The posters and propaganda that dominates North Korean life may seem ridiculous from the outside, but for the people who live there, they’re in an age of “victory gardens” and the kind of privation that families in many nations have experienced when the economy had to be focused on the military. No one outside the country would mistake Kim Jong-Un for Churchill … but you can bet that parallel has been drawn by Pyongyang.
And there’s certainly one Churchill statement that applies to the current situation.
Kim Jong-Un is also riding a tiger, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, daring not to dismount for fear of being eaten.
It’s hard to think of how North Korea can be dealt with militarily without horrible results. It’s hard to think of how North Korea can be dealt with non-militarily without horrible results. But “it’s complicated” shouldn’t be a call to surrender to simple, satisfying—and deadly—action.
It’s a situation that demands nuance, careful action, planning, and forethought. Everything, in short, that Donald Trump is lacking.