Blog No. 180 North Korea and Trump: What Now?

There have been few, if any, occasions when Donald Trump, as a candidate or as president, has drawn favorable comment from RINOcracy.com. Nevertheless, the most recent developments concerning North Korea may be grounds for an exception. The announcement that the Singapore Summit will in fact go forward is encouraging as is the fact that Trump has wisely taken pains to scale down expectations of that event. He referred to the negotiations as “a process,” and cautioned against demands for an immediate result:

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we walked out and everything was settled all of a sudden from sitting down for a couple of hours?” Mr. Trump said. “No, I don’t see that happening. But I see over a period of time. And frankly, I said, ‘Take your time.

On balance, Trump’s current approach deserves a cautious and tentative nod of approval. His most recent comments reversed his stance of just the week before in which he had said that North Korea had to dismantle its nuclear weapons arsenal “over a very short period of time.” Similarly, Secretary Pompeo insisted on “rapid denuclearization, total and complete, that won’t be extended over time.” Yet those prior positions were almost certainly unrealistic and underscored the greatest risk of a summit: a failure to meet expectations that would result in a militaristic response from one or both parties.

Some critics complain that Trump has awarded North Korea a “prize,” the prestige of direct negotiations with an American president, giving Kim Jong-un the position on the world stage that he covets. Perhaps so. But it is not clear that any significant concessions could have been extracted in exchange for that prize, nor does it appear that agreeing to the negotiations has made our own situation any more dangerous.

The track record of negotiations with North Korea under both Democratic and Republican presidents does give abundant reason for caution or even skepticism. In the past, North Korea has made promises of denuclearization that, after its receipt of economic aid, were covertly breached or publicly abandoned. There is no guarantee that something similar might not occur in this case. A New York Times analysis on Saturday was titled “Trump Veers to a Korea Plan that Echoes Failures of the Past.” At the same time, there is some reason to hope that such failures can be avoided here. A thoughtful op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Nicholas Eberstadt set out several constructive guidelines that would help negotiators avoid such pitfalls. The influence of hardliners like Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton may provide some check against Trump’s desire for a legacy achievement. One hopes that they may prevent him from becoming intoxicated by the heady aroma of a Nobel Prize.

At this point, it is impossible to predict how events will develop when the two volatile leaders take on so difficult and complex an issue. As the Wall Street Journal put it:

The Trump Presidency is often harrowing but never dull, so perhaps it was inevitable that a summit between Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un would be back on again. The two adversaries who were publicly trading schoolyard taunts a few months ago will now meet on June 12 in Singapore after all, and the only thing we can say with any confidence is that no one has a clue what will happen.

Clearly, we must be prepared for failure, but it is unclear what would constitute success or failure and whether some middling result should be acceptable. The American goal remains “complete, verifiable, irreversible, denuclearization” and possibly, despite widely held expert opinion to the contrary, that end is achievable. But is anything short of that standard a failure, and if so, what should the reaction to such a failure be? One answer is that in the event of failure, however defined, America can not only continue but can significantly strengthen the sanctions against North Korea. An earlier Eberstadt article in Commentary in January set out a considerable menu of possible economic steps that might be taken over and above those previously taken. Still, the ultimate effect of sanctions is at best uncertain.

On the other hand, a military response, which only a few months ago seemed nearly in sight, must be deemed a last resort – or no resort at all – unless there is clear evidence of an imminent attack by North Korea. Put another way, anything in the nature of a preemptive attack to avoid a presumed threat would be a grave mistake. The costs of such an attack in lives, both Korean and American, and in treasure, would be staggering. Here the position of South Korea deserves particular consideration as its protection has been the centerpiece of our adversarial relationship with North Korea. On the other hand, some comments from the administration and others, questioning the pro-active role of South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in as he pushed for the summit meeting, have seemed to imply that we have an independent and possibly overriding interest of our own. Nevertheless, the most devastating impact of a military conflict would fall on South Korea: apart from North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, the North has an estimated 8-10,000 artillery pieces trained on Seoul. Therefore, it would seem obvious that we should hardly venture to initiate an attack on North Korea without the active support of the South.

Moreover, South Korean support for such action cannot be taken for granted. Apart from the fact that South Korea would bear the brunt of a response by North Korea, public opinion in South Korea is far from unified. On a recent airline flight, I sat next to a young woman who had come to the United States at the age of eight, now has an MBA, and visited South Korea for the Olympics and to see her grandparents. She told me that opinion in South Korea tended to divide along generational lines: the older generation, who recall the Korean war or felt its impact, greatly fear North Korea and are deeply grateful for American support; many in the younger generation, however, are far less fearful of the North and may have negative feelings toward the United States. In fact, some of those who are hostile to North Korea are even concerned that the North might take over the South not through military action but through growing political power in the South. When I mentioned my airline conversation to Nick Eberstadt in an email, he confirmed that South Korea “is even more polarized than the US in its domestic politics,” although he believes that the situation is much better now than it has been in past years. The current division of opinion is reflected in polling reported by Newsweek on Saturday to the effect that while both Kim and Trump have improved their approval ratings, they are now virtually tied:

Trump has gained eight percentage points in the past two months to achieve a 32 percent approval rating from South Koreans, according to a Gallup Korea poll released Friday. Only 9 percent of South Koreans approved of Trump a year ago.

The United States president is only slightly more popular than his North Korean counterpart. Kim over the past two months gained 21 percentage points for a 31 approval rating, according to the poll that was conducted from May 29 to 31.

Finally, a preemptive attack on North Korea would be a momentous step, far-removed from the pin-pricks on Syria and the interventions of prior presidents, and as such it is an action that could be legally undertaken only with the authorization of Congress which has the constitutional responsibility to declare war (or decline to do so). That conclusion is firmly supported by a just-released memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice that extensively reviewed existing legal authority and opined that the latest attack on Syria was lawful without Congressional authorization. A crucial pillar of that determination was that the limited attack on Syria did not rise to the level of an act of war. It is highly unlikely that any such narrowing characterization could be applied to an attack on North Korea, even if it did not deliver all of the “fire and fury” that Trump promised some months ago.

Given the limited appeal of available alternatives, skeptics of Trump’s initiative should probably show some restraint in their criticism and try to support him to the extent possible. That does not mean, it might be added, that Trump is entitled to support for his intention, reported in the Wall Street Journal, to hold a summit meeting with Vladimir Putin. There is no urgent need for such a meeting and, given Trump’s peculiar affection for the Russian leader, any such a meeting would be likely to produce more mischief than anything else.