By John Burton
I can tell you what Washington policymakers and think tankers have been doing during their evenings the last two weeks. They have been watching the 10-part, 18-hour documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick on the Vietnam war, which has been airing on America's public television stations (whose funding is under threat by proposed budget cuts by the Trump administration).
The series has repeatedly come up in conversations, none more so than among those who follow North Korea. Its sobering look at the death and destruction in Vietnam and the ideological splits the war caused in the U.S. is a useful reminder of the risks of going to war with a tough-minded and nationalistic Asian country.
Talk of war with North Korea has escalated in Washington over the summer, encouraged by President Trump's bellicose rhetoric. In August, he talked about unleashing "fire and fury" against Pyongyang, followed by a warning that the U.S. military was "locked and loaded." But in September, he took to issuing personal insults against Kim Jong-un, called him "Little Rocket Man." Kim responded by calling Trump "a mentally deranged U.S. dotard."
Trump's language is adding to concerns that a miscalculation could trigger a full-scale war. The U.S. president appears to be painting himself into a corner if North Korea stages a provocative act to which he has to respond with military action if he does not want to look weak.
The image of two inexperienced and insecure leaders trading insults and with their fingers on the nuclear button does not bode well for the chances of resumed negotiations. Indeed, Trump seems to have given up on the idea of trying to strike any type of deal with Pyongyang, which is why he is resorting to intimidation instead.
That was a tactic that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon tried to use during the Vietnam War to force North Vietnam to make concessions. They failed despite Hanoi lacking a nuclear weapon, although both presidents were conscious that the Soviet Union or China might employ their nuclear arms if North Vietnam was pushed to the wall.
The current stand-off with North Korea is of a different scale since Pyongyang has greater firepower than Hanoi ever possessed. In addition, North Korea is likely having a harder time figuring out whether the U.S. threats amount to a bluff or an existential threat. The North Koreans are not the only ones confronting this problem. Asian experts in Washington who once focused on reading the tea leaves in Beijing or Pyongyang now admit they are perplexed by what the U.S. president is doing and have resorted to what has been called White Houseology.
Will Kim Jong-un seeing U.S. B-1 bombers flying ever closer to the North Korean coast decide that this is prelude to an imminent nuclear strike and decide to shoot one or more down? Or would he decide to a send a missile in the direction of Guam, where the B-1 bombers are based? Or will the U.S. try to shoot down a North Korean nuclear-tipped missile before it conducts a threatened atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean? What would be the U.S. response if Pyongyang instead carried out an extensive cyberattack on South Korea or sank one of its warships as it did in 2010? These are some of the possible scenarios that could lead to Trump deciding to conduct a military strike against North Korea.
U.S. military planners talk about an escalated scale of military actions that could be taken against North Korea, starting with limited surgical air attacks and ending up with the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This creates the illusion that military action could be easily calibrated and controlled. But any sort of military action would likely feed Pyongyang's paranoia, already inflamed by Trump's threat to "totally destroy" North Korea, and it may decide it has no choice but to immediately unleash its nuclear arsenal at South Korea, Japan or, if possible, the U.S.
Cooler heads in Washington are suggesting that Trump could still preserve his tough macho image by adopting a policy of containment and deterrence similar to the one the U.S. once pursued against the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War. But the success of that policy was also based on Moscow and Beijing correctly reading coherent signals from Washington. Trump's heated rhetoric undermines that premise when it comes to Pyongyang.
Since Trump is known for preferring to watch TV to reading books, perhaps it would be worthwhile to suggest that he should see the lengthy series on the Vietnam War to learn how to avoid stumbling into a destructive Asian war. But since he suffers from a short attention span, that advice would also likely prove to be impractical.
John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.
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The series has repeatedly come up in conversations, none more so than among those who follow North Korea. Its sobering look at the death and destruction in Vietnam and the ideological splits the war caused in the U.S. is a useful reminder of the risks of going to war with a tough-minded and nationalistic Asian country.
Talk of war with North Korea has escalated in Washington over the summer, encouraged by President Trump's bellicose rhetoric. In August, he talked about unleashing "fire and fury" against Pyongyang, followed by a warning that the U.S. military was "locked and loaded." But in September, he took to issuing personal insults against Kim Jong-un, called him "Little Rocket Man." Kim responded by calling Trump "a mentally deranged U.S. dotard."
Trump's language is adding to concerns that a miscalculation could trigger a full-scale war. The U.S. president appears to be painting himself into a corner if North Korea stages a provocative act to which he has to respond with military action if he does not want to look weak.
The image of two inexperienced and insecure leaders trading insults and with their fingers on the nuclear button does not bode well for the chances of resumed negotiations. Indeed, Trump seems to have given up on the idea of trying to strike any type of deal with Pyongyang, which is why he is resorting to intimidation instead.
That was a tactic that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon tried to use during the Vietnam War to force North Vietnam to make concessions. They failed despite Hanoi lacking a nuclear weapon, although both presidents were conscious that the Soviet Union or China might employ their nuclear arms if North Vietnam was pushed to the wall.
The current stand-off with North Korea is of a different scale since Pyongyang has greater firepower than Hanoi ever possessed. In addition, North Korea is likely having a harder time figuring out whether the U.S. threats amount to a bluff or an existential threat. The North Koreans are not the only ones confronting this problem. Asian experts in Washington who once focused on reading the tea leaves in Beijing or Pyongyang now admit they are perplexed by what the U.S. president is doing and have resorted to what has been called White Houseology.
Will Kim Jong-un seeing U.S. B-1 bombers flying ever closer to the North Korean coast decide that this is prelude to an imminent nuclear strike and decide to shoot one or more down? Or would he decide to a send a missile in the direction of Guam, where the B-1 bombers are based? Or will the U.S. try to shoot down a North Korean nuclear-tipped missile before it conducts a threatened atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean? What would be the U.S. response if Pyongyang instead carried out an extensive cyberattack on South Korea or sank one of its warships as it did in 2010? These are some of the possible scenarios that could lead to Trump deciding to conduct a military strike against North Korea.
U.S. military planners talk about an escalated scale of military actions that could be taken against North Korea, starting with limited surgical air attacks and ending up with the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This creates the illusion that military action could be easily calibrated and controlled. But any sort of military action would likely feed Pyongyang's paranoia, already inflamed by Trump's threat to "totally destroy" North Korea, and it may decide it has no choice but to immediately unleash its nuclear arsenal at South Korea, Japan or, if possible, the U.S.
Cooler heads in Washington are suggesting that Trump could still preserve his tough macho image by adopting a policy of containment and deterrence similar to the one the U.S. once pursued against the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War. But the success of that policy was also based on Moscow and Beijing correctly reading coherent signals from Washington. Trump's heated rhetoric undermines that premise when it comes to Pyongyang.
Since Trump is known for preferring to watch TV to reading books, perhaps it would be worthwhile to suggest that he should see the lengthy series on the Vietnam War to learn how to avoid stumbling into a destructive Asian war. But since he suffers from a short attention span, that advice would also likely prove to be impractical.
John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.
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