![]() However, the debate (pre-Trump) about North Korea was firmly stuck in the weeds, lacking urgency. The credibility of that threat was evaporating while ever North Korea moved closer and closer to developing a nuclear weapon. Patience is only viable as a strategy while ever the threat of retaliation is available. But always Pyongyang prevaricated, wanting more than the US would give, and always, Pyongyang would act out belligerently to demand attention. Food swaps for a missile moratorium in 2012, with the prospect of more talks down the road. In simple terms, don’t reward bad behaviour with attention.ĭeals were half-heartedly offered on occasion. It was Kim who came to power in the years before, having torpedoed a South Korean warship in 2010, killing 46 sailors, and later raining artillery shells on a disputed island.Īnd the Obama administration’s response back then? Much as had been the accepted wisdom of the years before, the continuation of a policy dubbed “strategic patience”. Yet don’t forget it was Kim who actually launched the missile tests and set off nuclear explosions to showcase his new bomb. Clinton branded Trump’s threats at the time as “dangerous and short-sighted”.ĭon’t forget it was Kim who actually launched the missile tests and set off nuclear explosions to showcase his new bomb. It was also Trump’s furious thumbs which sparked the alarming Twitter storm that raged across 2017, including infamous brags about the size of his nuclear button and threats to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the man he dubbed “Little Rocket Man”. (Anyway, despite the “victory is not winning for our party, victory is winning for our country” tone that marked the early part of his speech, it is plain there is one victory Trump wants to savour most, and he’ll never, ever, miss a chance to rubbish Clinton.) Perhaps with his Korea comments he was reaching for an “ Only Nixon could go to China” vibe. Now, yes, Trump’s jibe about Hillary Clinton, his 2016 rival who would be in the White House in his stead, stands in complete contrast to the bipartisan spirit he had supposedly sought to rally. ![]() But this particular “what if” scenario bears thinking about, because maybe in this case he is also right. He didn’t offer any explanation to back up the claim. “If I had not been elected president of the United States,” Trump declared, clearly relishing what he was about to say next, “we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea.”Ī major war? It’s a big call, and not for the first time. Donald Trump threw a meaty hypothetical on the table in the midst of his big set-piece speech to the US congress on the State of the Union.
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