Is the Trump administration prepping the American people – indeed, the world – for a war against North Korea? It certainly seems so. US President Donald Trump is constantly needling North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, comparing the size of their respective “nuclear buttons,” while during a speech to the United Nations in September he promised to “totally destroy North Korea” if it was believed to be a threat to the United States
Trump’s generals – the only other people he seems to trust, outside of his immediate family – appear to be playing along. The head of the US Marine Corps told his troops that “there’s a war coming.” H R McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, also seems pumped up for conflict. According to recent articles, McMaster feels that traditional deterrence will not work on Kim, and that it is “almost impossible to overstate the threat from a nuclear-armed North Korea.”
In apparent response, the US military seems to be gradually yielding to the idea of war with North Korea. A recent New York Times article ominously suggested that the military is quietly preparing for “a last resort: war with North Korea.” US forces are practicing quick-reaction mobilizations and air-assault exercises, sending Special Operations forces to South Korea, and deploying additional bombers, including B-2s, to Guam.
The US military insists that it just wants to be prepared for any contingency. However, every day it seems more and more conceivable that a US-North Korean war could break out.
Suppose they gave a war …
Admittedly, there is a wide gap between conceiving a war with North Korea and actually undertaking one – and thank goodness for that. However, conceptualizations are often the first step toward action, and this raises two big concerns.
The first worry, of course, is that the Trump administration could simply talk itself into a war. Saber-rattling and mobilizations can have the effect of self-fulfilling prophecy. The more one talks about war, the more it seems inevitable. This sense of inevitability, of being destined to fight, was one of the more powerful factors in the outbreak of World War I. This fore-ordainment also helped spark the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq war.
More important, however, the Trump administration seems to have no idea how it should and could fight a war against North Korea. The United States has never engaged in an open and direct conflict with a nuclear-armed power. How does it fight such a war without setting off a nuclear response?
The unlikely ground invasion
In the first place, a ground invasion is probably out of the question. South Korea would never allow the US to use its territory as a launching pad for an attack on the North, and Seoul would certainly not join the US in such a foolhardy act.
Even if US forces could cross the heavily defended Demilitarized Zone, they would face a huge and obstinate opposing force; most of the North Korean military may consist of obsolete weaponry, but it has a tremendous advantage in numbers, and the North Koreans would be fighting on their territory for their country. And if they began to lose, what would stop them from resorting to nuclear weapons?
Moreover, such military action would play directly into Pyongyang’s hands. The North Koreans are already obsessed with the idea that the US wants to destroy them. A unilateral attack would only prove their fears are justified, and that might be sufficient to provoke a nuclear response.
In addition, unilateral US military action would almost certainly engender global opprobrium. China would be livid that the US was destabilizing regional security. The Western alliance would be perhaps irretrievably ruptured, both in Europe and in Northeast Asia.
The myth of the limited air campaign
If the United States were to limit itself to bombing North Korea – using aircraft and cruise missiles – what would that accomplish? Trying to punish North Korea by using air attacks would again simply add to already high levels of North Korean paranoia that the US is trying to obliterate the country and eliminate the Kim regime. That could also incite a nuclear response.
Could a US air campaign simply try to target North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) – that is, its nuclear-weapons sites, missile factories, and missile systems? In other words, engage in a round of muscular counter-proliferation?
That might work, if the United States had a very good idea where all of Kim’s WMD were located, and if it had a more than likely chance of destroying them all in one fell swoop. However, it is very likely that North Korea’s WMD complex is widely dispersed and heavily protected. Much of it is probably underground, in bomb-proof facilities.
Consequently, it is unlikely that US air strikes would succeed in radically denuclearizing North Korea. At the same time, it could just as easily provoke the North Koreans into retaliating against the United States, using whatever nuclear capacities it had left.
Would you like to play a game?
In the end, the whole Trumpian war scenario against North Korea starts to resemble a sad, real-life imitation of the classic 1983 movie WarGames. In that film, a supercomputer used to simulate nuclear war-fighting almost launches a real nuclear war, until it learns that, in such a scenario, “the only winning move is not to play.” Let’s hope that there are some people in the Trump administration who have watched this movie.
The opinions expressed here are the author’s own.
You do realize that North Korea is solely responsible for the current instability on the Korean peninsula. No nuclear weapons program, no US threats. Trust me, the US has never planned on arbitrarily attacking Norrh Korea out of the blue. What would we gain?
USA invaded Korea in 1950, massacred millions of Koreans, destroyed trillions of dollars worth of infrastructures, and is still occupying part of Korea with 30,000 soldiers, who routinely rape and murder Korean girls with impunity. The Americans are the aggressors, the invaders, the murderers and the rapists. The Koreans are in their country and are defending themselves against the invaders and murderers. North Korea became a nuclear power because USA invaded Korea. North Korea has set up a nuclear strike force that can annihilate any city in USA. In case USA attacks North Korean, North Korea will, with its nuclear arsenal, vaporize tens of millions Americans.
Michael Chan North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. The US as part of a United Nations force was defending South Korea, not invading.. Know your history before spouting off, please.
Let’s also not forget who liberated Korea from the Japanese. Ungrateful.
Mark Goldschmidt,
Have you ever be told at your university the difference between a civil war and an invasion. When people in the same country struggle for power using arms, it is called a civil war, but when foreign soldiers come to a country and fight the local army, it is called an invasion. Korea is one country, like Vietnam is one country. In both countries, the communists were struggling with the non-communists for power. It was a civil war. But when American soldiers come to Korea and Vietnam to fight, it is an invasion of Korea and of Vietnam by American soldiers. There was also, at the same time, a civil war in China, like there were civil wars in Russia, USA, Spain and elsewhere. No one can invade his own country. Frenchmen cannot invade France, Koreans cannot invade Korea. American soldiers in Korea is invasion of Korea by American soldiers. Fighting between Korean communists and Korean non-communists is a civil war.
Michael Chan
Right on.
Michael Chan Great points! Fully agree! US should have left the Koreans to themselves in 1950s to sort things out even if the Communist Koreans would have won it. Imagine the RUssians and Chinese intervened in the US Civil War to take side with South then, what shape of the country the US would have been today?
Mark Goldschmidt agree..this man is hallucinating…US invaded Korea ?? oh man thats disgusting..30 thousands americans died in korean war defending south korea and this is the thing he will say..haha
Not a fan of that chubby Kim, but he won this round against bigger button US. Seoul knows it and is why jumped at the chance to cooperate and include NK participation in the upcoming Olympics. The vancouver, invite only, summit fiasco in which Washington "convinced" Canada to co host (yes Ottawa will jump hoops and f_ck dead pigs while Nafta hangs in the balance) is just damage control.
As much as I hate to admit it, I believe your assessment to be accurate.
North korean are no naive in war, they will hit every nation around then, so that catastrophe in large scale and resulting to hate the american for nuclear provocation
Mark Goldschmidt….what is your opinion to Michael Chan’s? The day USA cease to impose itself and its capitalist manipulative, oppressive and deceitful policies on other nations is the day peace will forever prevail on earth. The Yankees are refusing to realise the bitter truth that the world is sick and tired of them…plus their bully attitude. God bless Korea Republic.
Je Ro The US did invvade Korea! The US intervened in what was a civil war among Koreans. In 1950 Koreans were fighting Koreans, it was a 100% Korean affair but US had to interve. Even if 3 milllion Americans died who gave a damn? US should not have been in Korea, Koreans would have sorted their own problem without the agressors Americans budging in. What if the Koreans had intervened in the US Civil War to side with the South? How would you feel? The US is still meddling TODAY in other countries as we speak. The US is a threat to world peace.
Without the whites, earth could have peace. They are evil
Mark Goldschmidt .U TALK OF LIBERATION? WHAT HAPPENED TO IRAQ,LIBYA? IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL LIBERATION? AMERICAN TALKED OF WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION SINCE DATE NONE WAS FOUND,LIBYA NO JUSTIFICATION AT ALONE ,JUST LEAVING OTHER COUNTRIES IN SHUMBLES IS AMERICANS HAPPINESS.iRAQ WAS INVADED JUST BECAUSE SADDAM ASKED ALL OPEC COUNTRIES TO SALE OIL IN EUROS INSTEAD OF DOLLAR ,FOR FEAR OF AMERICAN CURRENCY LOSSING VALUE YOUR WENT TO WAR.GADAFFI ASKED AFRICAN COUNTRIES TO DEVELOPE GOLD BANK THAT WAS THE FALL AND DEMISE OF GADDAFI AND FALL OF LIBYA ONE OF THE MOST SUCCEFUL AFRICAN COUNTRY WITHOUT EXTRENAL DEBT.