A South Korean newspaper reports that White House Nat Sec Council senior director for Asian affairs Matthew Pottinger said that a U.S. bloody nose strike on North Korea would help in the midterm 2018 elections.
“...White House National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs Matthew Pottinger was reported as saying in a recent closed-door meeting with US experts on Korean Peninsula issues that a limited strike on the North “might help in the midterm elections.”
If he did say this, Pottinger would echo President Trump who reportedly said that politically 9/11 saved Bush in the 2002 midterms.
But. Not knowing how North Korea might respond to a limited strike is more than risky. From the Jan 31 article, “The Cataclysm That Would Follow a ‘Bloody Nose’ Strike in North Korea,” in The Atlantic: if Kim decided to strike back, “...the result could be the most calamitous U.S. conflict since World War II.”
Victor Cha, the abandoned U.S. Ambassador nominee to South Korea, wrote an editorial in the Washington Post. The South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh writes today in its editorial “Trump’s ‘Bloody Nose’ Strategy must be completely off the table,” says of Cha’s WaPo editorial:
According to Cha’s Washington Post piece, some ultra-hardliners have argued that the risk of endangering the lives of the 230,000 Americans living in South Korea if the bloody nose strategy escalates is worth taking in terms of “long-term interests” and the “safety of Americans living in the continental US.” The fates of 50 million South Koreans don’t even warrant a mention.