Donald Trump. (photo: Al Drago/NYT)
Donald Trump's Reckless Response to North Korea's Nuclear Test
By Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker
05 September 17
It 's not clear what time Donald Trump, our restless President, was told of
the latest North Korean nuclear test, which took place close to midnight
Saturday, Washington time, and was that nation's largest yet-Kim Jong-un's
first hydrogen bomb, apparently. But it only took until 7:30 A.M. for Trump
to make an extremely dangerous and volatile situation worse. He did so, in
part, by attacking South Korea, America's ally and a country at risk in any
confrontation-its capital, Seoul, home to ten million people, is close to
the border, within range of the North's artillery-for a supposed lack of
toughness. Even at a moment of historic crisis, Trump can't shake his
bully's instincts: disdain those who you think are weak; home in on and mock
the vulnerable; blind yourself to the realities of your own circumstances
and character; and pretend that a brawl will make it all better, despite the
certainty that it won't.
The first tweet was relatively straightforward: "North Korea has conducted a
major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and
dangerous to the United States....." "Major" is an apt word: tremors of the
underground test, including an aftershock suggesting the collapse of
whatever cave or chamber it was in, were felt in both South Korea and China,
and detected as far away as Argentina. North Korea has falsely bragged about
the size of its bombs before, and the stage management of this test-a
picture of Kim inspecting a mystery weapon, shown on North Korean television
hours before-might have signalled that this, North Korea's sixth nuclear
test, was exaggerated. But the seismic measurements indicate that its power
is many times that of North Korea's previous detonations, and also about a
half dozen times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. But,
as Trump's elongated ellipsis suggested, he wasn't just going to talk about
the facts. He had some blame to dole out.
"North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and
embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success," he
tweeted next. And then: "South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that
their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only
understand one thing!"
What is that "one thing"? War, missiles, tweets, Trumpism? "Fire and fury
like the world has never seen," as Trump promised to inflict on North Korea
last month if the country acted in a hostile manner? (Trump made that threat
at an event at which he was supposed to be talking about the opioid crisis,
and it had the effect of distracting attention from that situation;
similarly, his latest remarks may take necessary attention away from the
aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.) It seems to have escaped Trump that matters
with North Korea, never good, have deteriorated during his Presidency. What
has changed is not the South's "appeasement" but his heedless will toward
escalation. That the people of Seoul, who have built up their city, and,
over the years, their democracy, in the face of the spectre of war, might
have their own definition of fortitude is an idea that he doesn't seem able
to grasp. (As the Times noted, Trump's anger at South Korea appears to be
connected to his anger over his so far unsuccessful attempt to rewrite trade
deals with that nation-an issue that, one hopes, will not be entangled with
the question of triggering a nuclear war.) Instead, last week, Trump said
that he thought that Kim had begun to show "respect" for him. That boast was
followed by North Korea's firing of a ballistic missile on a flight path
that took it over the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Trump responded by
tweeting, "The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them
extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!" What, again, is
Trump's answer? China, which quickly condemned the test, could certainly do
more, but baiting its officials with talk of their "embarrassment" may not
be the best mode of persuasion-unless Trump thinks that he has cowed
President Xi Jinping into a state of abject respect for him, too.
"Mr. President, will you attack North Korea?" a reporter asked Trump on
Sunday morning, as he was leaving church, a couple of hours after his
tweets. He answered, "We'll see." By then, his national-security team had
mustered, to deal with both Kim and, presumably, Trump. In yet another
tweet, a little after noon, Trump said, "I will be meeting General Kelly,
General Mattis and other military leaders at the White House to discuss
North Korea. Thank you." It is revealing that Trump still classifies John
Kelly, his chief of staff, who, like James Mattis, his Secretary of Defense,
is retired from the Marines, as a general and a military leader. And was
that "Thank you." directed at them? There are reasons it should be: within
an hour of Trump's rejection of talk last week, Mattis told reporters that
"we're never out of diplomatic solutions."
Mattis was also asked, in a separate encounter with reporters last week, why
he hadn't quit working for Trump. "You know, when a President of the United
States asks you to do something, I come," he said. "I don't care if it's
Republican or Democrat; we all have an obligation to serve. That's all there
is to it." Mattis added that he had had arguments with Trump, he said, but
"this is not a man who's immune to being persuaded, if he thinks you've got
an argument. So anyway, press on." Press on, and hope, meanwhile, that
President Trump will not press any buttons.
Perhaps Mattis put that proposition to the test in his meeting with Trump
Sunday afternoon. Afterward, Mattis emerged to make a brief statement, in
which he said that North Korea should be aware that any threat to America or
its allies could be met with a "massive military response." But he also
noted that the United States was not a lone enforcer, and that the United
Nations had spoken with a "unified voice" in calling for a denuclearization
of the Korean peninsula. He hoped that Kim was listening to all of them,
"because we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely
North Korea. But as I said we have many options to do so." President Trump,
Mattis said, had "wanted to be briefed on each one of them."
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