The reason for the Trump administration's escalation of the rhetorical war is that there seems not to be any diplomatic strategy in place other than Trump's tactic of a 'Madman Act'. Emulating Nixon in 1969, the idea seemed to be to get China to compel what's considered a proxy power-North Korea-to the table.'..the reckless rhetoric coming from the Trump administration — such as a threat of “fire and fury” and a claim that North Korea is “begging for war” — damages alliances and raises the risk of conflict.'
The problem with this tactic is that it heightens the paranoia in Pyongyang without there being any evidence, as there was in the late 1960s over Vietnam, of any attempt at back channel diplomacy going on. Consequently, as this crisis gathered momentum in early 2017, a potentially lethal game of 'chicken' has developed.
Kim Jong Un has no idea what Trump could do and has every rationale to play for the highest stakes in this game of nuclear brinkmanship. In April, Trump, who opposed involvement in Syria, suddenly did a complete reversal of policy and fired off tomahawks on the pretext of an alleged Assad gas attack.
The real reason had being to impress upon Xi that Trump could do anything and that cooperation over North Korea, and reining in Kim, was vital if he were not to consider doing the same against another rogue dictator. But the Chinese simply don't have the leverage over Kim that Trump assumes they have.
In fact, the public and savage execution of Kim's uncle in 2013, either thrown to dogs or blasted live out of a cannon, was designed to signal that those who had aligned close to Beijing could expect to be purged or murdered, a policy of terror that has undermined China's attempt to use trade to mollify the regime.
Trump's expectation that either Xi sorts out Kim or Trump will deal with him from supreme strength-including 'fire and fury'-is bound to turn what is potentially a containable conflict into a serious war, even World War Three, should China then draw red lines as regards any unilateral use of force to 'take out' the regime.
In fact, the best diplomatic response has actually, probably for this purpose of 'deconfliction', been from China which has advocated a 'dual freeze' policy whereby talks could be established and Pyongyang would agree to freeze its nuclear tests in return for the US-South Korea ceasing its war games and drills.
Ultimately, if there are to be talks, there needs to be an opening move followed by a mutual intent to try to bring the First Korean War that ended in 1953 to an official end and steadily demilitarise the Korean Peninsula on both sides of the DMZ. This would mean Russia and China are essentially a party too.
North Korea: Permanently Awaiting War.
North Korea lives in terror state of fear imposed by the regime and by history. It has been on a permanent war footing ever since the conflict ended: in fact, the war has not ended in North Korea where propaganda drills it into the people morning, noon and night that a vile US Imperialist attack is coming.
As Bruce Cumings has pointed out, whereas Trump probably has no idea about the 'forgotten history' of the Korean War, North Korea has perpetually expected a second devastating attack in line with the deeply traumatic impact of the first. The disconnect between how the war is remembered in the US and North Korea is clear.
Whereas the US war is depicted as being that of a 'policeman' to deter unprovoked communist aggression, few "understand that the South also mounted hundreds if not thousands of terrorist attacks on the North". Standard accounts also tend to underplay the sheer destruction unleashed by US carpet bombing.
Cumings makes clear in his The Korean War that the bombing destroyed 80% of cities in the north and killed five million people. When Air Force General Curtis Le May had literally run out of any more targets, he then decided to bomb the huge irrigation dams, destroying 75% of North Korea's water supplies.
The intractable problem in September 2017 is that the US gives all the signals in planning a unilateral action and Kim could have a semi-suicidal drive to see his brinkmanship through until he demonstrates he has functioning ICBMs that make him untouchable. Trump has rejected talking again and again.
Comparisons between North Korea and Iran.
Pyongyang is also bound to be aware that even if it were to strike a deal with the US, it would be worthless as Nikki Haley, who claimed Kim was 'begging for war' in the UN, has also set about intentionally sabotaging the nuclear deal with Iran, despite the fact the atomic inspectors found Tehran in compliance.
The race towards attaining nuclear weapons was hastened in earnest within North Korea in 2002 when George W Bush placed North Korea on the 'Axis of Evil' along with Syria, Iraq and, of course, Iran. The attempt to find Iran non-compliant in 'spirit' is more about purely power political considerations.
Throughout the summer of 2017, Haley and members of the Trump administration, as well as those close to it such as John Bolton, have been trying to undermine the deal because the long term consequence of the Iraq invasion has been the rise of Shia power and the westwards expansion of Iranian influence.
If WMDs rather than geopolitical and strategic resource considerations in the Middle East had been paramount, North Korea should have been the focus of diplomatic initiatives to continue a freeze on nuclear weapons programme in according with the framework set up in 1994 in which it would stop in return for energy help.
Given the fate of so many rogue state actors, such as Saddam, it's unclear whether why Kim could ever trust the US to keep its word. Gaddafi gave up his WMDs in 2004 when Blair struck a post-Iraq War deal with the West in order to survive. Just seven years later, France and the UK led yet another war of regime change.
North Korea: Determined on Highest Stakes Brinkmanship.
Mark Almond is right that Kim has little way too of backing down now over the tests. One ultimate rationale for nuclear power is regime survival and to impress on his own people the state is genuinely eternal, like the first Dear Leader himself, and no outside power is going to try to 'liberate it' from without.
Becoming a nuclear power is the last definite way Kim could ensure his regime lasts, as the threat of future sanctions that would be truly draconian and designed to destabilise his state would still require China to calculate whether it could afford to have a failed state with nuclear weapons right on its border.
Then, in the US, Trump is also struggling domestically with criticism he is a weak leader when he came to power pretending to be tough and consequential. As with Kim, it's now a game of nerves and who is going to blink first. And at present there seems no indication either side understands the other or will back down.
This is truly a problem from hell. There is no guarantee the Trump administration knows what the hell it is doing or what it could unleash should the US decide it's 'now or never' and go for a military solution to destroy Kim's regime before he acquires an ICBM arsenal that could reach mainland America.
'Freeze and Rollback' or 'Dual freeze': Rival Diplomatic Approaches.
North Korea might freeze missile testing as part of a quid pro quo in which, once negotiations are opened, require the US and South Korea to stand down the war game preparations. China would be brought in as part of a negotiated plan to fund North Korea on condition its nuclear programme remains frozen.
This would require North Korea to submit to inspectors in exchange for unlocking Chinese funding. This plan would have the benefit of drawing China into a deeper and more substantial role in holding Pyongyang to account, in ways it cannot at present, and to have more responsibility for reining Kim in.
Victor Cha and Jake Sullivan call this, in the Washington Post, a 'freeze and rollback' scheme. He isn't convinced by the 'dual freeze' plan. However, once China is more effectively involved into a mechanism to hold Pyongyang to account, there then could later be a broader move to demilitarise the Korean Peninsula.
China, as the power political circumstances stand in September 2017, is not going to be drawn into a deal in which it has the choice of either forcing Kim to stand down or else face a unilateral military action by the US to destroy the regime on its borders in which it has the choice of accepting on US terms or not.
Ultimately, the resolution of this crisis has to be regional and aimed at the US reducing its military role in South Korea and for China to step up and take responsibility for holding North Korea to account. It's dangerous to demand of China it does so 'or else' the US would attack North Korea to end the threat.
Unfortunately, there is, in US nationalist circles, still this Cold war idea North Korea is just a 'puppet' of China and that it's deceiving the West and its allies over its attempts to rein Kim in. The UK's Boris Johnson's demand that it must place more draconian sanctions on Pyongyang mindlessly replicates this stance.
China faces the nightmare dilemma that if it simply cuts off all supplies to North Korea, and its sanctions have actually been draconian so far, the regime could collapse and even become more aggressive in even threatening China as its nuclear arms swash around in a border state in conditions of chaos.
Worse, the US demand in the UN for severe sanctions that would see Russia and China cutting off oil and gas supplies would intensify the potential for regime collapse and Kim to ratchet up the nuclear programme to the point of a first missile strike. Without sanctions being attached to talks, the risk to China rises.
As Kim uses this threat as one reason why China could not cut off all supplies and trade, Cha's strategy of tying Chinese funding for the regime to a verified freeze in proceeding with the nuclear programme would be one way of ensuring it actually goes towards state survival and mutually accepted goals.
If Trump could be pushed into brokering such a China-North Korea deal, he would be able to come away with being able to claim success for his brinkmanship in response to Kim and to restore confidence in the US as a regional force for stability and cautious diplomacy. China's stance would be validated too.
The Future Threat Unabated.
This is the only realistic chance of averting catastrophe. If the stand off is left to develop, and North Korea achieves nuclear power status with ICBMs, the unofficial acceptance of this, combined with the unpredictable nature of the regime and concern over its capability and intent, would stimulate a nuclear arms race.
Both South Korea and Japan would not be prepared to rely on a Trump administration that is dysfunctional, comes out with contradictory claims and rhetoric on a daily basis and makes dark threats that are not credible in relation to North Korea. Trump has given every impression of empty blustering.
The prospect then for a worse crisis later would be increased. For if no war or diplomatic resolution, North Korea would have developed a second-strike capacity and it would be too late to do anything to put pressure on Pyongyang to curtail its nuclear programme and all regional powers would arm to face the threat.
North Korea is the 'joker in the pack' as regards nuclear missile power. None of the regional powers are onside with Pyongyang. None have security against it, as none know who the missiles could or would be aimed at. That would compel Japan to develop a nuclear deterrent and resurrect Chinese fears of it.
Though a nuclear armed North Korea might need to be adapted to, the process whereby the regional and global powers do adapt to it is fraught with the potential for a series of potentially catastrophic strategic miscalculations on both sides, the 'fog of uncertainty' and blundering that led to war in 1914 and, almost, in 1962.
The North Korean Crisis of 2017 is being compared to the Cuban Missile Crisis but it's far more potentially dangerous, as then there were two sides in a 'bipolar world' which had the capacity to engage to defuse the crisis. This time no Great Power quite has any idea what Kim Jong Un intends or could do.
While North Korea isn't in itself much of a nuclear threat, the danger lies in the potential for China and the US colliding over their approach to dealing with this state and China panicking in response to any US plan or an ultimatum, in which an attack on North Korea is mooted, and counter mobilising in reaction.
While common opposition to North Korea's nuclear programme could bring the Great Powers together, mutual fears and suspicions within the region-and an incompetent Trump administration-is playing havoc with the strategic calculations of the regional powers in ways that could multiply the confusion and room for error.
Sooner or later, either the US is either going to have to go to war with North Korea, back down and be seen to allow Kim a victory or else it's going to broker talks involving both it, China and the two Korean governments. Which way Trump will go-or be pushed-is unpredictable as much of what he does is a big show.
What's certain is the longer the North Korean Crisis goes on, the greater the danger of a miscalculation in response to Kim upping the ante by even more displays of seemingly psychopathological aggression will be in proportion. He has no intention of ceasing in his strategy of provocation and brinkmanship.
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