Most of Trump’s difficulties since he became President can be traced back to his own hand, for good or bad. But he inherited North Korea. All of his predecessors kicked the can down the road until the end game arrives to a schedule which coincides with his arrival at the White House. For this Trump cannot be blamed. Neither is it rational to complain if he speaks to the North Koreans in florid terms which hit home and mirror their own scary rhetoric and blood curdling threats. We know the cautious, diplomatic, non-provocative approach has spectacularly failed to deliver. So talking their language is at least worth a try.
How this is going to end is now impossible to predict. It is finely balanced between a negotiated peace across the entire Korean Peninsular and the destruction of much of it with millions of casualties and unknown consequences to follow. It is useful to state the position of each side, so that at least we know from where we begin.
America no longer cares whether North Korea is a communist totalitarian State or not. Neither does South Korea, which has done very well as an engine of global capitalism. What both care about is a nuclear threat from the North. If that threat is extended by advances in missile technology to include a real and viable threat to the cities of America itself, this is something which will not be allowed to happen.
America knows that it lives under a potential threat from both Russia and China but it knows both are rational and understand that they too face destruction if they start to press red buttons. But there is no certainty that such a determination to avoid self destruction drives strategic thinking in Pyongyang. But that could be wrong. In fact there is evidence that if you think it through the reverse is true. It is known that Kim Jon Un took note that although both Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi had nuclear weapons programmes they gave them up and it did them no good. He knows about Syria and Afghanistan.
He figures that the only way to stop an American led coalition at some point embarking on regime change to bring his rule to an end, is to offer an unacceptable cost for the enterprise. He already is capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties on South Korea even if the war only lasts an hour. But the real guarantee comes if the cost includes San Francisco or LA. In other words he is well aware that if he were to launch a nuclear attack his country would be wiped out before the end of the day. But the knowledge that he has the capability to do so will, he thinks, bring America to the negotiating table, not just to state take or leave it terms, but to cut a deal which leaves his regime intact and secure. In return he will make peace with the South and renounce first use of nuclear weapons. He will need a lot of guarantees to give them up.
What happens next depends on whether he is right in his calculations and whether America’s risk reward analysis allows it to cut him some slack. I would not bet on it.