August 9th: Here’s Everything You Need To Know About The Past 24 Hours

Trump, Kim Jong Un, and the “enveloping fire” of Trump’s credibility.

Alice Minium
Aug 9, 2017 · 9 min read
Image: Simon Montag

This article is being updated in real time.

What Happened In The Past 24 Hours:

  • UN Security Council imposes new sanctions North Korea.
  • In response, North Korea announces through state media that it is reviewing plans to strike U.S. military targets in Guam with its medium-range ballistic missiles to create “enveloping fire.” (North Korea often threatens the U.S. with grandiose threats of attack, but threats are usually vague and do not include target strikes so specific.)
  • U.S. President responds: “If North Korea continues to threaten the United States, it will be met with fire and fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
  • At 6:50 pm on Wednesday, North Korea threatens to launch four Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles at Guam. North Korea’s statement flat-out mocks the President of the United States.
  • No one is sure what the President will do or if he will make good on his threat of a preemptive strike. Most hope he will not, and that he will defer to the negotiating table and pursue negotiations through diplomatic channels in order to avoid an “accidental war.”
  • Nonetheless, Guam and Hawaii are now preparing their citizens with emergency preparedness strategies. They have notified their citizens of the locations of nuclear fallout shelters, and they have told their citizens to listen for the warning sound. Some people of Guam are used to this.
  • Guam is a sovereign U.S. territory with a strategic airfield and naval station. Guam is American soil. White House says that “An attack or threat on Guam is an attack or threat on the United States, and it will be defended.”
  • Governor Calvo says he is convening a group to discuss “the state of readiness of our military and our local first responders. May God bless the people of Guam, and may God bless the United States of America.”
  • Guam is 4,000 miles west of Hawaii and 2,200 miles southeast of North Korea. It is the home port for nuclear submarines, a contingent of Special Operations Forces and the launching point of flights for strategic bombers.
  • The island is also home to a terminal high-altitude area defense missile defense battery, which targets ballistic missiles.
  • A pair of B-1B Lancer bombers arrived in Guam from South Dakota after a 10-hour flight. 60% of U.S. Navy and 60% of combat Air Forces are being located in the region.
  • The Pentagon has not made any statement.
A map depicting U.S. forces in the South Pacific as of 2013. More forces are now deployed.

Experts Weigh In:

“The brink is where we stand.”

Jonathan Freeland (Contemporary History Scholar):

Make no mistake. Trump’s remarks on Tuesday have pushed the US to the precipice of nuclear confrontation with North Korea. We have to hope that both parties will step back, but be under no illusion that the brink is where we stand. And Trump put us there.

The form of words the president used made the critical difference. Threatening Kim Jong-un with ‘fire and fury’ was bellicose enough. But adding the words ‘the likes of which this world has never seen before’ left no doubt that he was talking about a nuclear strike against North Korea…. Both sides in this conflict are now led by — how should we put this? — unpredictable men. Trump’s predecessors have all understood the approach put so memorably by Theodore Roosevelt: ‘Speak softly, and carry a big stick.’ Meaning, that if you carry a big stick, you don’t need to speak loudly. Indeed, you ought to speak softly, so that you don’t ever have to wield that stick. The risk Trump has created is that he will now feel compelled to follow through on his threat, lest he be seen to lose credibility.”

The Stock Market’s freaking out.

“There is a significant risk of escalation.”

Henry Farrell (Georgetown Professor of Political Science and International Affairs):

This is the dilemma Trump has created. Trump threatened “fire and fury” and “power” against North Korea in a classic example of brinkmanship. Trump told North Korea that if it issued any further threats of any sort to the United States, it would suffer dire military consequences…. If he doesn’t deliver on this, the U.S. will lose credibility.

If the United States decides to go to war against North Korea, North Korea can retaliate. At a minimum, it can use conventional artillery to devastate Seoul and much of the rest of South Korea, which is an important political ally, and it can always threaten to escalate to nuclear warheads.

In addition, North Korea may believe that it can count on the support of China — which is a genuinely formidable power — in a military crisis. Finally, while North Korea has few friends, Trump is a weak U.S. leader who may have difficulty in getting support from key allies.

The U.S. is now in a difficult situation of Trump’s making. It will be highly costly, and possibly greatly damaging to the United States to deliver on Trump’s threat, even in its minimal form. There is furthermore a significant risk that a spiral of threat and counterthreat might lead to actual nuclear war, which would have devastating consequences.

Terms to Know:

Credibility:

Credibility is an important term in foreign diplomacy and negotiations of power. It determines how much diplomatic capital, and therefore negotiating power, you have. The layman’s gist is that credibility could be roughly translated to: how important are you, how much are you actually going to make good on what you say, how much can we trust you. It’s a key strategic cornerstone to maintaining U.S. power and diplomacy abroad.

Credibility matters more to some presidents and less to others, with some presidents such as Lyndon B. Johnson caring very much how they were perceived by the world as “strong.”

Ex: If Trump does not follow through with his threats, he risks losing the U.S. diplomatic credibility, and he will look like a weak leader.

Here’s Robert J. McMahon’s on credibility in Diplomatic History:

Robert J. McMahon; Credibility and World Power: Exploring the Psychological Dimension in Postwar American Diplomacy, Diplomatic History, Volume 15, Issue 4, 1 October 1991, Pages 455–472.

Brinkmanship:

The art or practice of pushing a dangerous situation or confrontation to the brink of active conflict in order to achieve an advantageous outcome. It occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, high-stakes legal battles, and military strategy involving the threat of nuclear weapons.

Brinkmanship is the ostensible escalation of threats to achieve one’s aims. The word was probably coined by Adlai Stevenson in his criticism of the philosophy described as “going to the brink” in an interview with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles under the Eisenhower administration, during the Cold War.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was an example of nuclear brinkmanship.

Ex: Trump threatened “fire and fury” and “power” against North Korea in a classic example of brinkmanship.

What kind of nuclear power does North Korea have?

North Korea is known for making ridiculous threats. They’re like China’s embarrassing little brother, and no one takes them seriously. But it turns out they might be capable of more than you think.

The world has been concerned with the erratic nation and its growing nuclear power for awhile now, with attempts at deescalation going back as far as 2003, when the Bush Administration first discovered that North Korea has admitted operating a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement to dismantle their nuclear reactors.

North Korea has conducted five successful nuclear tests to this date.

Timeline

In February 2003, the United States confirmed that North Korea had reactivated a five-megawatt nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon facility, capable of producing plutonium for weapons. In April, North Korea first declared that it has nuclear weapons.

The actual truth of their specific claims cannot be verified. But shouldn’t we take them at their word that they might have weapons, and proceed according to that risk? As we all know from this past year in politics, sometimes you can be absolutely sure something won’t happen, and then it just does. All of our instincts probably tell us not to be worried about a nuclear war with North Korea under Kim Jong Un. But these are the same instincts that told us not to worry about Trump winning the office of the presidency. If there’s anything we should know by now, it’s that the power of absolute insanity will surprise you.

The United States is undoubtedly the stronger nuclear power- by a long shot, no pun intended (that joke really would be in terrible taste right now). You are probably safer here than you think, and definitely safer than someone in North Korea, or someone in Guam. However, the U.S. likes to pick battles it can win. The fact that we could win a nuclear war unfortunately makes it more likely. We all also know that this is a president with a fragile ego who cannot bear taunting or threats- he always wants to be “winning,” and to be “strong,” and he has often handled his opponents with disproportionate uses of force and bravado. This is the man who already conducted strikes in Syria and in Afghanistan based on very little political precedent. He does not understand the current climate of diplomacy like most seasoned politicians do, and these are murky waters for him to navigate- and he could easily make the mistake of escalation with his typical showboating out of mere naivete. But it doesn’t matter what his intentions are, it matters what he has the power to do. And he has the power to do a lot.

Oh no.

Trump might love winning. But there are no winners in nuclear war.

Duck and cover.

What can I do?

Call your Congressman and ask Congress to restrict the president’s authority to start a nuclear war according to H.R. 669 the Restricting Use of Nuclear Weapons Act. Click here to find your Representative.
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This article is being updated in real time.

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