North Korea’s declaration that it only wants military equilibrium with the USA and a peace treaty with the South, so as to guarantee the survival of their country, is a game changer from the blood curdling threats of annihilation of American cities of recent times. Already there are signs that both Russia and China, while very much opposed to the notion of a nuclear armed neighbour, now see the US as both the cause of NK’s nuclear programme and the responsible party in finding a solution. Sanctions are clearly a waste of everybody’s time and only talking will now resolve the issue.
There is no military solution short of nuking North Korea with such a cascade of warheads that it would be unable to respond at all. The fallout would make much of the Korean peninsular uninhabitable for decades. It would also cast a pall of shame over the United States from which it would be unlikely ever to recover. Gone would be the notion of world leadership. Every American would be scarred. The alternative of targeting conventional strikes at NK nuclear facilities would result in such an onslaught on South Korea that hundreds of thousands, even millions, of casualties would be suffered even if the whole thing were over in a day.
There was a time when America could have brought North Korea to it senses and had it not been the author of its calamitous programme of regime change and never ending wars it might have succeeded. But sadly, while the blunt force of the Cold War confrontation was played with extraordinary restraint and skill, the subtle diplomacy and military pressures demanded of the post 9/11 era has proved beyond US political structures to deliver. This is a pity and the whole world will pay a price. One part of that may end up as learning to live with a nuclear armed North Korea. That would indeed be game set and match for Kim Jon Un.
However there is an odd coincidence that may yet hold the key. If Kim Jon Un is hard to read, Donald Trump, the first citizen president of the United States, the non-politician who does things his way, is even harder. The mixed messages coming from the White House, often out of step with either the State Department, or the Pentagon or both, or even its own view the day before, has proved confusing to its enemies and perplexing to its friends. But the North Korean crisis provides a golden opportunity for Trump the deal maker to fix an historic settlement with the young and much underestimated leader in Pyongyang. They both have much to gain. And if they fail, everything to lose.