We need to change the way we talk about North Korea
National
security adviser H.R. McMaster watches President Trump at a Cabinet
meeting in December. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
My hope for the new year is that the United States doesn’t bluster and blunder its way into a tragic, needless war.
My fear is that the Trump administration is capable of doing just that.
I
confess to having paid less attention than I should to the increasingly
apocalyptic rhetoric from the administration about the nuclear threat
from North Korea. I’m not talking about President Trump’s juvenile tweets
calling Kim Jong Un “Little Rocket Man” and making fun of his weight. I
mean statements by officials such as H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national
security adviser, who unlike the president is not known for meaningless
blather.
The potential for war with North Korea “is increasing every day,” McMaster said last month at a defense forum. “Time is running out” for a peaceful solution, he declared
in another public appearance. “I don’t think we can tolerate that risk”
of a nuclear-armed North Korea with advanced ballistic missiles, he told CBS in an interview.
What
is alarming is that the situation McMaster describes as intolerable is
the situation that exists today. And while he warns that time is running
out for a peaceful end to the standoff, he has also said that “there can’t be negotiations under these current conditions.”
I
worry that with such absolutist rhetoric, the United States is ruling
out the realistic options for peace — and putting us on a path that may
lead inexorably to war.
No amount of
threatening is likely to make Kim surrender his nuclear weapons, because
he sees them as an insurance policy. The North Koreans watched as
Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein gave up their nuclear ambitions — and ended up being deposed and killed. Kim has no intention of making the same mistake.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test while George W. Bush was president, four more while Barack Obama was president and another
under Trump. U.S. policy throughout has been remarkably consistent —
warnings, sanctions, more warnings, more sanctions, attempts at
multiparty talks — and remarkably futile.
What
good does it do for McMaster to say the United States cannot tolerate
what it is tolerating? North Korea has nuclear weapons and long-range
ballistic missiles; it may or may not be able to mount a nuclear warhead
on a missile and fire it accurately. If the United States launches an
attack to try to destroy those weapons or take them away, the North
Korean regime almost surely would be able to fire off a response that
killed many thousands or even millions.
I
understand why no U.S. administration wants to be the one to accept the
fact that North Korea has joined the exclusive club of nations with
nuclear arsenals. But this is, indeed, a fact. Trump and his advisers
need to deal with reality as it is rather than as they would like it to
be.
McMaster
and others should frame the North Korea situation as a threat to be
ameliorated and stop speaking in terms that should be reserved for a
full-blown crisis. A threat can be dealt with over time. A crisis,
however, requires urgent action — and at present there are no good
options.
Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, to his credit, has been trying to cool things down. He even
offered to begin talks with the North Koreans with no preconditions,
though this overture was quickly nixed by the White House. Tillerson’s instinct is the right one: Slow down, stop shouting, start talking.
The
obvious solution is some sort of negotiated deal that freezes the North
Korean nuclear and missile programs at certain levels. That would mean
accepting what the administration now describes as unacceptable, but it
would avoid the unthinkable: a bloodbath that could leave not just
Pyongyang but also much of Seoul, and perhaps Tokyo, in smoking ruins.
Someone
should remind Trump that he campaigned on a pledge to end the nation’s
role as the world’s policeman. Since taking office, he has mostly
allowed himself to be guided by the generals who surround him —
McMaster, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. On
balance, this has been a good thing. But I’m increasingly worried by
the way the generals talk about North Korea.
And
someone should remind Congress of its constitutional responsibility.
Congress, not the president, is given the power to declare war — and, by
extension, to prevent it.
Everybody
needs to lower the temperature and begin talking in reasonable terms
about achievable goals. Something is wrong when the rhetoric from
Pyongyang is no more belligerent than what we hear around Washington.
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