Donald
Trump, Kim Jong Un and the risk of nuclear miscalculation
It is possible that the US president
believes a first strike is a workable option
by: Gideon Rachman
17-4-2017
In 1950, a combination of ill-judged words in Washington and
miscalculation in Pyongyang led to the outbreak of the Korean war. Now, as the
world contemplates the prospect that another war might break out on the Korean
peninsula, the danger is that governments in the US and North Korea will once
again miscalculate — and slide into conflict.
Many historians trace the outbreak of the Korean war to a
speech given by Dean Acheson at the National Press Club in Washington in
January 1950. The US secretary of state spoke about America’s “defence
perimeter” in Asia — and suggested that Korea lay beyond the perimeter. In
Pyongyang, the leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, took note of the clear
implication that the US would not defend South Korea. Five months later his
armies poured across the 38th parallel and invaded the South. But Kim had
miscalculated. The US did fight. The Korean war cost hundreds of thousands of
lives, led to direct fighting between US and Chinese forces — and has never
formally ended. To this day, peace in Korea is maintained by an armistice
rather than a formal peace treaty.
Where Acheson signalled indifference, President Donald Trump
is signalling resolve — vowing that the US will stop North Korea’s nuclear
programme and hinting heavily that he is prepared to take pre-emptive military
action.
But once again there is a distinct danger that North Korea
will lash out unpredictably.
The country’s leader Kim Jong Un, the grandson of Kim Il
Sung, has embraced his forebear’s militarism, isolationism and paranoia. If the
current Kim concludes that the US is indeed poised to attack his regime, he
will be tempted to attack first. His incentive to move fast will only have been
increased by stories in the media, that the US’s war plans involve an early
attempt to kill the North Korean leadership.
North Korea’s military doctrine, as expressed in recent
exercises, envisages the first use of nuclear weapons to ward off defeat or
destruction. Jeffrey Lewis, an academic expert, wrote recently in Foreign
Policy: “Kim’s strategy depends on using nuclear weapons early — before the
United States can kill him or special forces can find his missile
units . . . He has to go first, if he is to go at all.”
Although North Korea has not yet developed a nuclear missile
that can hit the west coast of the US, it may well have nuclear-capable
missiles that could hit South Korea or Japan. The South Korean capital, Seoul —
which is just 35 miles from the North Korean border — is definitely vulnerable
to a devastating barrage of conventional artillery. And Japan and South Korea
are very worried by North Korea’s chemical weapons.
Mr Trump’s heavy hints that the US is considering an attack
on North Korea are designed to put pressure on China to “deliver” its client
state on the Korean peninsula. This might work. The Chinese government is
openly alarmed by events in North Korea and may pressurise Pyongyang much more
heavily. It is also possible that the Kim regime is more intimidated than its
outward swagger suggests and could yet freeze its nuclear programme.
But while it is certainly conceivable that the Trump
administration’s bellicose strategy could deliver, it is more likely that North
Korea will not back down — and that the Trump strategy will therefore fail. In
that case, the US president is faced with a dilemma. Does Mr Trump’s “very
powerful armada” steam away from the Korean peninsula, with its mission
unaccomplished? Can the administration present an intensification of economic
sanctions, possibly in conjunction with China, as the very tough action that it
has promised?
Mr Trump is capable of shameless switches in rhetoric and
policy. So it is certainly possible that he will simply back down on North
Korea, or will embrace the status quo as the dramatic change that he has been
seeking all along.
However, it is also possible that Mr Trump has convinced
himself that a first strike on North Korea is a workable option. Any such
conclusion would fly in the face of standard military advice, which holds that
it is impossible to “take out” the North Korean nuclear programme with a single
wave of attacks and that therefore, following any such assault, South Korea,
Japan and US bases in the region, would be exposed to retaliation.
The US military is well aware of the risks entailed by a
first strike on North Korea. So it is encouraging to recall that General HR
McMaster, Mr Trump’s national security adviser, has written a book lambasting
US generals for not giving frank advice to politicians during the Vietnam war.
Set against that is the danger that Mr Trump — after a
chaotic start to his presidency — has concluded that military action is the key
to the “winning” image that he promised his voters. The president lapped up the
bipartisan applause that he got for bombing Syria. He dropped a huge
conventional bomb on Afghanistan shortly afterwards and his son, Donald junior,
tweeted his exultation — complete with an emoji of a bomb.
There are members of the president’s inner circle who do
indeed believe that the Trump administration is seriously contemplating a
“first strike” on North Korea. But if Kim Jong Un has drawn the same conclusion
— he may reach for the nuclear trigger first.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
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