Nuclear Mishap. Image: RJHaas. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsMilitary tensions between Washington and Pyongyang continue, and are being sharpened by fiercely provocative statements on both sides. The latter include Trump's implication that the North Korean leadership would not last long, a boast likely to be seen as a direct threat of assassination, and the DPRK's threat to explode a nuclear weapon in the Pacific as a demonstration of its power.
A cluster of recent columns in this series explores some of the issues (see "North Korea: the art of the deal" [3 August 2017], "Trump vs North Korea: a 1945 echo" [10 August 2017], "Trump in a fix: North Korea and Iran" [15 September 2017]. Two central points emerge. The first is the risk that at a time of high tensions, quite untoward events can tip things over into a crisis or even open conflict. The acronym AIM (accidents, incidents and mavericks) summarises the kind of problem that can occur. It must always be kept in mind that military thinking invariably incorporates worst-case planning and even the willingness to “get your retaliation in first”.
The second is that there is now a fundamental conflict of interests between the North Koreans and Trump. For the Pyongyang regime, developing a small nuclear force that can threaten the United States is absolutely essential. Otherwise the leadership believes it has no future. This dates back to George W Bush's declaration in 2002 that North Korea is part of the “axis of evil”. The stance was consolidated by the US-led regime terminations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the US's involvement in getting rid of Gaddafi in Libya.
