Remembering How Close We Came to Disaster with North Korea

Instead of recognizing the folly of linking maximalist goals with “maximum pressure” sanctions, the U.S. has retained both while dismissing engagement as a waste of time.

The U.S. and North Korea came dangerously close to war during Trump’s presidency. This is often discounted or forgotten in assessments of Trump’s foreign policy record because the war didn’t happen and Trump then made a big show of meeting with Kim Jong-un, but the crisis was real and war was much closer than most people realize. As Van Jackson has written in On the Brink, “The world was perilously close to nuclear conflict in 2017.”¹ That the crisis ended and war was averted was a lucky development that happened in spite of U.S. policy at the time. As Jackson notes, “the policy of maximum pressure was the catalyst of the nuclear crisis, not the cause of its end.”² Had it not been for the diplomatic efforts of the South Korean government, there could very well have been a major war on the Peninsula that probably would have dwarfed any war the U.S. has fought at least since Vietnam.

Some people may object that Trump’s “fire and fury” rhetoric was always empty and he never seriously meant any of it, but that is hard to believe. A new report gives another example of how Trump spoke privately about the possibility of attacking North Korea, including the option of a nuclear first strike:

Behind closed doors in 2017, President Donald Trump discussed the idea of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea and suggested he could blame a U.S. strike against the communist regime on another country, according to a new section of a book that details key events of his administration.

The claim rings true. It not only lines up with the deranged threats that Trump was making publicly during this same period, but it fits with how Trump talks and thinks about the use of force against other countries. Just last year, Trump “joked” that the U.S. should “bomb the shit” out of Russia and then blame China for it. It is a classic Trump proposal: extremely aggressive, heedless of consequences, and eager to shift responsibility to someone else for his actions. It may be possible to distract Trump from following through on his crackpot notions, but it is important to remember that his first instinct is to attack.

This is not just a question of correctly remembering how close Trump’s handling of North Korea came to disaster. It should also inform how we think about North Korea policy now. Today, North Korea continues expanding and improving its arsenal and “maximum pressure” sanctions remain in place. There appears to be no serious reconsideration of the goals of U.S. policy or how it might reach some sort of negotiated compromise on arms control. The U.S. still has the same bad policy that created a crisis with a nuclear-armed state, and the current administration doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to alter that policy.

Biden has never given any hint of making the necessary changes to the North Korea policy he inherited. As a candidate in 2020, he positioned himself as more hawkish Trump and campaigned on increasing pressure on North Korea. Since taking office, Biden has put North Korea on the back burner, and there has been no sign that he and his advisers are rethinking anything. The Biden administration is sticking with an obviously failed approach, and their only idea is to impose more sanctions.

This combination of useless economic warfare and diplomatic neglect is a good way to get a new crisis with North Korea sooner or later, and my fear is that something will happen in the next two years that will take us back to the edge of disaster. It could be a seventh North Korean nuclear test and U.S. and allied overreaction to that, or it could be some unexpected incident that leads to escalation. Trump had the benefit of a South Korean government that served as a mediator, but the current government in Seoul cannot do the same for Biden.

The danger here is that the U.S. and North Korea aren’t talking and the potential for misperception and miscalculation is great. The U.S. didn’t really learn anything from Trump’s failure except to draw exactly the wrong lesson about the value of direct talks with North Korea. Instead of recognizing the folly of linking maximalist goals with “maximum pressure” sanctions, the U.S. has retained both while dismissing engagement as a waste of time. Is it any wonder that the situation is getting worse?

1. Jackson, On the Brink: p.193.

2. Jackson, p. 194.