The news that North Korea has developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile has escalated a war of words.
President Donald J. Trump’s pledge to visit “fire and fury” upon North Korea, should it persist in making threats, reverberated through the media.
{mosads}Trump’s critics cited the expression as another example of his instability and recklessness, while his supporters stood by his sentiments. Privately, administration insiders were quick to discount Trump’s rhetoric, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis sounded a more dispassionate if stern note.
North Korea’s response, which contemplated launching missiles in the direction of Guam, suggested the desire to escalate the war of words was mutual.
Even as we hear echoes of the Cold War (in particular, the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962), we might recall that a divided Korea was one of the first products of that conflict as well as the stage for one of its most notable confrontations.
Nor is the pattern of threat and response new. North Korea has often used provocative language, leading some observers to speculate on the sanity of its leadership.
What is new is the direct and blunt response offered by an American president. Those words starkly contrast with the statements of predecessors who balanced firm warnings against aggression with efforts to reach agreements that might forestall what, in hindsight, might now seem inevitable: North Korea’s emergence as a nuclear power.
It is North Korea’s ability to act on its threats that presents a new challenge. Otherwise the words would be all sound and fury, signifying little if anything.
Whatever one makes of Trump’s language, most observers would concede that the United States would retaliate with overwhelming force to a nuclear attack on Guam or its allies in Asia. That position has served as the foundation of the American strategy of deterrence since World War II.
At the same time, an American preemptive first strike, unless completely successful, would open the door to a costly response.
All of the above has been true for decades. But does escalating language in itself increase the chances for military conflict?
It need not be so. After all, this is not the first time nations possessing nuclear weapons have confronted each other, and it will not be the last. Students of the Cuban Missile Crisis will recall that heated exchanges preceded an eventual settlement, bringing the world back from the brink of nuclear catastrophe.
Saber-rattling is intended as much for one’s own people and allies as for one’s rivals and foes. President Trump believes vigorous language can reassure Americans that he is tougher than his predecessors and will resolve a situation that has bedeviled the United States for 70 years. Other presidents have found that to be easier said than done.
Mild language can be equally risky. In January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson outlined an American defense perimeter in Southeast Asia that inexplicably omitted South Korea; that June, North Korea invaded South Korea, inaugurating the Korean War.
Research has suggested Acheson’s statement had little impact on Soviet and North Korean calculations about American intervention, but critics of Acheson and President Harry S Truman were not so sure at the time or for decades to come.
It is also counterproductive to issue ultimatums that one is not prepared to enforce, as Barack Obama learned when he drew his “red line” over Syria’s use of chemical weapons. The challenge is to be tough and firm while being calm and reassuring during a crisis, which is no mean feat for the best of presidents.
North Korea’s own strident rhetoric may well be primarily intended to reinforce the regime’s reputation with its people, who have grown up believing the United States was the aggressor in the Korean War of 1950-53. Yet, just as Germany could never have united under East German leadership except by force, only through war could Korea unite under North Korean rule.
Therein lies the rub: The only recourse to achieve unification would involve initiating a conflict that would result in the virtual destruction of North Korea, while the primary restraint on such a U.S. response is the concern about how much would such a victory cost.
This was not the situation during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which involved a much different issue. Both the Soviet Union and the United States would have been devastated in a nuclear exchange. While the presence of Soviet missiles in Fidel Castro’s Cuba might have seemed to protect the Cuban dictator from a second Bay of Pigs, American policymakers were far more concerned that the close proximity of those missile bases would give the Soviets a chance to deliver a catastrophic first strike.
What remains unclear is how each adversary assesses its counterpart.
In 1962, both John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev sought to understand what was behind each other’s behavior as the Cuban crisis unfolded. Kennedy’s conclusion that internal Soviet politics were pushing Khrushchev to a more extreme position proved essential in how he dealt with conflicting signals from Moscow.
Whether North Korean analysts conclude that President Trump’s utterances are the expression of a man willing to act upon them remains to be seen. After all, Richard Nixon once speculated that perhaps North Vietnam’s leaders would draw back in alarm if they perceived that Nixon was a madman who just might resort to extreme measures.
Perhaps American policymakers want to send the same message in a different way. Implicit in administration spokespersons’ assertions that the president’s comments reflect American policy is the admission that the fundamental American position has not changed, even if it is being presented more vigorously.
It will be left to the North Koreans to decide whether the president intends to act upon what he says and whether further escalation is wise.
Brooks D. Simpson is ASU Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University. He is the author of “Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity, 1822-1865” (2000, 2014) and the editor of the Library of America’s “Reconstruction: Voices From America’s First Great Struggle for Racial Equality” (forthcoming, 2018).
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