While much has been made of the recent heightening of tensions between the United States and North Korea, the general public has little rational cause for concern.
North Korea has been making bold threats towards the U.S. for decades, and while there are reports that they are coming closer to developing long-range nuclear missiles, this is not what has prompted the recent public outcry.
Trump recently made headlines for declaring that North Korea will be met with “fire and fury” if they continue to make threats against the U.S. and its allies. Doomsayers point to the fact that he didn’t qualify his statement by saying this response would apply only if North Korea were to take action. This distinction makes the statement an unprecedented one for an American president to make towards North Korea.
However, this is nothing new for Trump. Trump won the Republican nomination and later the presidency by spewing out whatever eight-word burst happened to pop into his mind with the sophistication of a fourth-grader.
He has consistently been rewarded for saying things that no other president would ever say, even when he has no plan to actually stand behind his declarations.
The immediate response from North Korea was to continue their threatening ways by announcing their plan to fire missiles close to the island of Guam, a U.S. territory. Trump was quickly called on his bluff and retreated to merely noting that military solutions are “locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely”—a statement which is far more in line with those of former presidents.
The blatant threats uttered by both sides proved to be little more than posturing. North Korea knows just as well as anyone else that they cannot survive a military conflict with the U.S.
Although the U.S. is sure to prevail over North Korea if war were to break out, the possibility of losing millions of Americans were a missile to reach mainland U.S. is something even Trump would be unlikely to risk. Even if he were to order a preemptive strike on North Korea, it is quite possible the instructions would be ignored.
The only scenario in which military conflict could realistically ensue would be for North Korea to attack first. The argument here is that Kim Jong-un has proven to display erratic behavior, and it is unclear whether he is willing to sacrifice his dignity for the lives of millions of his citizens.
Pushed too far, his bloated ego may force him to initiate military conflict with the U.S. While this idea has some merit, Kim Jong-un is likely rational in the sense that he does not wish to surrender his power and perceived legacy.
During the Cold War, people stayed awake at night fretting about a nuclear holocaust that seemed inevitable, yet never came to pass. The same type of behavior is happening today, and the outcome will surely be the same. As Barack Obama said after Hillary Clinton conceded the presidential election, “The sun will rise in the morning,” no matter how grim things may look.
