TCR Brief: Trump Presidency May Very Well Be Defined By His Self-Proclaimed Ability To “Handle” North Korea (Without Killing Thousands Upon Thousands Of Innocent People)
North Korea launched what appears to be its longest-range missile yet. Trump responded by returning to a simple phrase he’s uttered before “we will handle it”.
That was immediately widely interpreted as a threat of unilateral military intervention on the part of the United States.
The missile was the first launched by the North after a 2-month pause, and it was shot almost directly straight up into the air.
That’s left scientists to figure out how far it might’ve gone if it was launched at an attack trajectory. The Union of Concerned Scientists, and others, estimate it could’ve hit Washington, DC (although probably not that far if it was actually carrying a heavy nuclear payload).
In a meeting with Trump and Republican leaders at the White House, Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed this. Watch clip here:
North Korea later stated the missile was a “new type ICBM Hwasong-15”. The BBC provides this chart of the types of missiles the North is now known to possess:
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reports sources in China say to expect North Korea to do another nuclear bomb test fairly soon on the heels of this latest missile test.
The Chaos Report in Korea recently and were surprised to find very little fear or concern on the part of everyday citizens. We’ve been in many places with high risk of sudden violence: Israel, Pakistan, Brazil, and in all those places we got the sense that it was always in the back of people’s minds, but they just found a way to push it aside so they could live their lives anyway. In South Korea we had no such feeling: an attack by the North didn’t seem to be a looming concern at all. We contacted some of our friends their this morning when the story of the launch and Trump’s response broke here. They still seemed similarly nonplussed. For several, our question was actually the first they’d heard of it.
Meanwhile, North Korean “ghost ships” with dead or no sailors continue to wash up on Japanese shores: 4 so far this month. This CNN report speculates North Korea is pressing people with no fishing experience — perhaps young military recruits — onto rickety fishing boats and setting them off into the often very treacherous sea between Korea and Japan.
CNN says it’s likely an effort to combat famine in the country. We think it may be a gruesome sign Trump’s increased economic sanctions on the North are actually working. Because the seafood trade with China and Russia, which is conducted almost exclusively in cash, is one area where sanctions are nearly impossible to enforce.
(This story originally appeared in “The Chaos Report” Newsletter. Subscribe at https://thechaosreport.com/subscribe/?scr=Medium)
