Dodging a Bullet or Missing an Opportunity?

I don't know whether to be angry or relieved that Trump will not be meeting Kim Jong Un in Singapore.  On the one hand, this is incredibly amateurish:

1. Respond to a visiting South Korean official who says KJU might be cooperative by announcing a summit.
2. Do no homework, prep, or work on anything besides coins and other symbols.
3. Set expectations at maximal NK surrender.  The experts kept saying complete denuclearization was not on the table for NK....
4. Brag about maximal pressure that pushed NK into a corner.
5. Leave the Iran deal which almost certainly had tougher verification than anything the North Koreans would agree to.
6. National Security Adviser Bolton talks dreamily of the Libya model--meaning the US fucks over North Korea in future with regime change (not to mention all the regime change stuff in the Iran conversations).
7. Issue a coin and use various statements that make it abundantly clear that Trump needs this meeting more than KJU.
8. Cancel meeting after NK issues testy press releases, as it wants to make clear it is not submitting to maximal pressure.

On the other hand, I have been legitimately worried that either a cranky Trump, after a long flight to Singapore, would get supremely angry at Supreme Leader OR he would suck up to KJU and abandon South Korea and/or Japan.  I really didn't expect anything good to come out of the summit, so I guess I am not that disappointed.

The big question is: what next?  Is the path to war shorter and faster or can we dither and blamecast and push that down the road some more?  I just don't know.  All I do know is that South Korea (and almost certainly Japan) were surprised by this announcement, and this is bad alliance management.  Which, of course, is to be expected, but we can still be appalled.  Most of the South Koreans I met earlier in the month were cautiously optimistic, but I felt that was mostly due to wishful thinking.  Sorry, folks.  Trump don't play that. 

All I know is that if I were an ally of the US right now, I would be hedging as much as possible. 

Taking the War Cap Seriously

A while back, I posted how we ought to think about American wars as like the salary caps in the NFL and NBA: that at some point, there is a limit of how much you can be doing (paying in the metaphor) at one time.  The basic idea is that the US can only fight so many wars at a time.  Remember when people thought Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were stupid for opening up multi-front wars?

It is not so much that fighting in multiple theaters opens up the US to attack from multiple directions but that the US does not have infinite numbers of soldiers, sailors, pilots, ships, planes and, yes, dollars, not to mention officials to run many wars at once.  Right now, the US is fighting wars of varying sizes in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan (the drone war is still a thing, right?), and some others that I am probably forgetting.  None of these are at the levels of the simultaneous campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq that quite nearly broke the US Army.  The costs of that particular situation, two wars at once, are still being felt today in terms of readiness (how many planes and ships are crashing these days?) and will be felt for the next seventy years in terms of costs for taking care of those served and were wounded.  The question is not whether the US spent a trillion dollars but how many trillions thus far and how many left to spend. 

Yet the Trump administration seems to be moving towards not just one more war but two.  The new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has issued a list of demands for Iran that kind of resemble the ultimatum given to Serbia before World War I--a list designed to be rejected (h/t to Ben Dennison).  We knew Pompeo to be a hawk on Iran, we knew Bolton to be one as well.  Given that the Iran deal is better than what we could possibly expect for a NK deal, their idea of "fixing the deal" seems incredibly insincere and actually a step towards war,  And, yes, this war would be harder than Iraq--a much bigger population, much greater spaces for the US military to cover, more support for the government the more the US tries to impose itself, and on and on.  Low hanging fruit this is not.  Yet, if the US had to have a new war, I would prefer a war with Iran than one with North Korea.

Yes, the diplomacy pre-summit is turning into a shitshow.  All of the traits of the Trump administration are in full display: a lack of seriousness and preparation, Trump being baited by tweets and by meetings that are as substantial as tweets, the influence of warmongers (NK is not the only ones who feel repugnance towards Bolton), and on and on.  Robert Kelly explained this all very well in a series of tweets and then another one--Moon, South Korea's President has been desperately seeking a way of out of war, which led to this moment of hope and then wildly inflated expectations over de-nuking, and now Trump feeling betrayed.  Which means war is back to being in play in a big way.

The US military is not ready for either an Iran war or a North Korea war.  Either one would disrupt the global economy with oil skyrocketing in price if there is another war involving the Persian Gulf and the destruction of one of the 11 or so biggest economies in the world and maybe the third if Japan gets hit hard if the latter war happens.  The American people are not ready either as either would produce more casualties than they have grown to expect.  A war with North Korea would kill more Americans in the first days than all of the troops lost in combat since Vietnam.  Oh, and the civilian casualties will be unlike anything the US has experienced since .... I have no idea.

Either of these words would explode the deficit even further than the misbegotten tax cut, and each one would wreak such damage as to make us forget that the US is already involved in a half dozen wars (or more).  So, not only are we already above the war cap, this government is contemplating adding one or two super-expensive yet unproductive stars to our team of wars (I am thinking of the Washington football team's free agents, but I will take nominations for other disasters).

All of this is awful and going to get even more so.  Good thing the GOP is getting what it wanted (more bad SCOTUS decisions) when it sold its soul and sold out the country.  All I know is that I wish we could fire the general manager, the coach, and the entire staff of this team.  Alas, it ain't gonna happen.

Korean Epiphanies

Fun times in Korea, eh?  I was really struck during my two weeks there of a split in opinions--most of the folks I met were "cautiously optimistic" about the situation, that the Trump-Kim summit might lead to a significant improvement in regional tensions, while other folks were in the "ruthlessly pessimistic" camp.  And I was a member of the latter.  Why?  Because TeamRP just could not see anyway for North Korea to "denuke" in any meaningful way when the US had, ooops, done some regime change on Libya.

So, I get back to North America and notice that Bolton has been talking about the "Libya Option" seriously, which did ultimately send the desired signal (if Bolton does not want peace) to the North Koreans.  So, the North Koreans have said that they had no intention of trading their nukes for economic assistance.  That, along with the earlier announcement that that they were skipping a meeting since the US and ROK were not cancelling a key military exercise, reminded us that North Koreans have always been the most obnoxious trolls in International Relations (sorry, John and Stephen). 

So, folks are having an epiphany--negotiating with North Korea is hard, and they aren't giving up their nukes.  I had a bit of a different Korean epiphany thanks to some sharp outsiders (Canadians and Americans who took me out for drinks and bbq:

American troops have long been based in South Korea to do two things: deter the North Koreans and reassure the South Koreans.  Standard tripwire type stuff.  Now, things have flipped as smart South Koreans want the Americans to stay to deter an American attack on North Korea.  Yeah, that seems backwards, but the idea is that Trump would not attack North Korea with so many Americans in harm's way (is that wishful thinking rearing its ugly head again?).  That Trump would have a freer hand if the Americans were no longer down range of North Korean artillery....  

  Before I left for South Korea, I thought that the likely outcomes from a KJU-Trump summit would be in decreasing likelihood:

1. A modest agreement, such as NK agrees not to test any more nukes (its test area is broken and other new nuclear powers tested six nukes, so a convenient time to give away this chip) and US promises to de-escalate a smidge.  Trump would come home, declaring he solved the Korean problem, and the pundits/press would buy it, but not much would have really changed.  Woot!
2. NK agrees to give up its ICBM capability, Trump agrees to reduce or even eliminate US forces in South Korea, so NK gets not only recognition of being a nuclear power but decoupling of South Korea and Japan from US.  
3. Trump and KJU yell at each other as each is upset that they don't have a common understanding of "denuclearization."  So, the road to war is a bit clearer, and John Bolton does a happy dance.

Now?

1. No meeting as NK does not want to signal that it gave in to "massive pressure" from US.
2. No meeting as Trump realizes he can't get the Nobel Prize. 
3. A meeting with much reduced expectations--perhaps freezes of NK's weapons in exchange for US promising not to regime change (which is believed by none).
4. War.
5.  A meeting, then war.

So, yeah, not great.  Are things clearer now than two weeks ago?  Not sure.  I do think Team Relentless Pessimism is feeling pretty good about feeling pretty bad. Woot?

What Do I Think Before Going to Seoul

At the end of this week, I head off to South Korea to do the next case study in the Dave and Phil and Steve project.  The project is not about North Korea or nuclear weapons, but about how democracies oversee their militaries.  I am not an expert on nuclear proliferation or on North Korea, but as a scholar of international security, I am sure I will be talking about and thinking about the current crisis as I wander along. So, I thought I would write now about my views on the upcoming summit and the various declarations before I go since it might be fun to compare with my views after I come back--I might learn something or change my mind (or not).

A Blogging Gap: Grants, Conferences, Taxes and Exhaustion

I haven't blogged in a week!  No, I am not dead. But it has been a long time that I have gone that long without a desire to semi some spew.  Part of this is that I was crunching on the latest iteration of a Canadian Defence and Security Network grant application.  I thought I was done with that for a while after submitting the latest SSHRC Partnership Grant application, and then the Department of National Defence issued a call for a proto-network.  The good news is that I could use the structure and partners of the SSHRC grant for this application; the bad news is that I had a month to re-direct it towards DND's priorities and for much less money and time ($100k for one year as opposed to $2.5m over 7).  The bet is that if we get this money and do it well, then we can compete for the big enchilada down the road.  We shall see--I am definitely hoping that my +5 Hammer of Diligence means that we get a decent enough result on the 20 sided die to get the proto-money. 

The ISA is next week, so I have been revising a paper, preparing for a roundtable and trying to open up sometime to read the papers that I will be discussing.  Look for a post in the next day or two about ISA prep.  

I have also been working on several sets of taxes--US, Canada, NY (my daughter), etc.  And I got a fun gift from the IRS yesterday: a letter saying we owed heaps from last year's taxes.  So, had to clean that mess (resolved quickly and with much good customer service) just in time to fix my tax return for this year.  Good times. 

So, no blogging.... because there has also been no news, right?  What has happened in the past week?  Here's some quick hits on the news de la semaine (du jour x 7):

• Go Team NATO! I was very surprised that Trump's US managed to coordinate with many (not all) friends to react to the Russian use of chemical weapons on a British village. Sure, the Russians have retaliated, but the reaction was proportionate and justified and surprisingly well-coordinated.  There must be someone still manning the European and Canadian desks at State?  Of course, this speaks to the tyranny of low expectations: this is something that should not be that unexpected.  Still, some credit to folks within the Trump administration for making this work.
• Um, Bolton?  Aw, FFS.  There might be a worse person to become Trump's National Security Adviser, but it is hard to imagine.  As my US Foreign Policy class studied this spring, the person in this role can vary from coordinator (Scowcroft) to advocate (Kissinger) to out of the loop (Condi Rice)* and Bolton is very much an advocate.  He shades intel to support his arguments, he kicks down and kisses up, and is unlikely to present Trump with a complete picture.  Oh, and he is a first class warmonger.  So, whatever the odds were for a Second Korean War, they shifted at least five percent in the more likely direction.  NOT GOOD.  Bolton may very well be the last person to talk to Trump before he makes a decision, and that is NOT GOOD.
• Xi and Kim Jung Un?  I have no idea as I am not an East Asia security expert yet (once I come back from a two week trip to Seoul in May, then I can be an exert).  But I don't think this is KJU being vulnerable nor do I think it means that China is constraining him.  I think they were probably trying to figure out how best to play Trump.  After all, it was Xi who had a Mar-lago dinner conversation with Trump that changed how the latter viewed Korean history.  So, hmmm is all I can say.

So, if you have any suggestions for topics for new Semi-Spews, you know where to find me.

Decoupling and the Alliance Dilemma: Get Out!?

As Glenn Snyder and then Patricia Weitsman so clearly identified (as well as Jack Snyder and Thomas Christensen), alliances always pose two threats to those who join: that they might be abandoned despite reassures to the contrary AND that they might get dragged into a war they do not want to fight.  So, abandonment vs. entrapment are the dual horns of the alliance dilemma.  So very relevant today as the story du jour is of "Decoupling" South Korea from the US.

It has long been a concern that North Korea would maneuver to separate the US from South Korea, and they have made a heap of progress lately.  This morning there are reports of talks leading to more negotiations between North and South Korea.  The concern is that South Korea might sign some kind of separate peace, giving into North Korea and leaving the US out. 

For much of the cold war and post-Cold War period, the South Korean concern would be that the US would abandon it.  Jimmy Carter proposed and then reversed himself on pulling the US troops out, as this undermined the credibility of the US commitment to South Korea, for instance.  Just like the Europeans, the South Koreans worried that the US might not show up, that it would be very costly for the US to defend South Korea.  The advent of the North Korean ICBM with the capability to hit the US gave the South Koreans the chance to re-visit all of the "would the US sacrifice Chicago for Bonn or Paris" debates.  So, yes, the South Koreans still fear abandonment and perhaps even more so with an uncertainty engine in the White House who confuses North and South.  You would think that this fear would lead them to focus on tightening the alliance, not decoupling.

Ah, but here's where the other horn of the alliance dilemma gets super-pointy: the US has been making noises about a new Korean war, that a punch in the nose or whatever effort to disarm North Korea, would be harmful to South Korea but not the US.  Indeed, Lindsay Graham has recently agreed with the White House rhetoric of, well, burning South Korea to save American lives.  The South Koreans know only too well that the opening shots of a new Korean war would lead to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dead South Koreans.  So, with all of the war talk in DC, they have good reason to fear being entrapped in a war they do not want.

So, I can't blame the South Koreans for seeking an alternative path, away from the races up the escalation ladders.  The problem, of course, is that if South Korea is decoupled from the US, that the alliance is broken, then North Korea can break its promises to South Korea and the US will find it hard to respond to a fait accompli in the aftermath of US forces being expelled from South Korea (the possible result of decoupling).  Where does Japan fit in all of this?  Completely screwed but that is an alliance that will be broken via other means (trade wars)....

In sum, Trump has made a difficult problem far more challenging.  The no good policy options problem is now far more likely to be all the worst policy problem.  Thanks, Trump.

Rooting for Bad Civilian-Military Relations/

Reading this story about Korea war planning is giving me chills. 

 But the Pentagon, they say, is worried that the White House is moving too hastily toward military action on the Korean Peninsula that could escalate catastrophically. Giving the president too many options, the officials said, could increase the odds that he will act.

 Are we supposed to be happy that the Pentagon under Mattis and Dunford are trying not to give an options to Trump that he might choose to use force?  Yeah, the tyranny of low standards means I am now rooting for the Pentagon to defy the White House.  Still, even if there is no war, lasting damage to American civil-military relations may ensue.  I mean, I am glad that there really are some adults in the room:

The Pentagon has a different view. Mr. Mattis and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., argue forcefully for using diplomacy. They have repeatedly warned, in meetings and on video conference calls, that there are few, if any, military options that would not provoke retaliation from North Korea, according to officials at the Defense Department.

 I want Mattis to push back against Trump's apparent desire for war.  So, woot, I guess.  But dumping Victor Cha still scares me.

I will be on the slopes tomorrow, so, um, good luck!

Is It Time to Panic Now? Um, Yeah

My favorite pics lately have been this

 and this









Recent events have moved from concerned and alarmed to frightened.  About what?
About war with North Korea.  The two bits of news that have increased my level of fear:

• Today's news story that Victor Cha, the man Trump chose to be Ambassador to the Republic Of Korea, was dropped because he was critical of war plans, such as punching North Korea in the nose.  Yeah, they wanted an expert, the expert said this was a bad idea, so they dumped the expert and not the bad idea.  Max Fisher indicated that he had thought the war talk was a bluff, but this suggested otherwise.  I indicated via twitter that the Trump WH will have a hard time finding someone who recommends war and is willing to move to Seoul, which is the primary target for a North Korean response.
• Trump mused that he'd really like a uniting event to help reduce the divisiveness in the US.  Putting aside how blindingly un-self-aware he is, that his entire campaign and Presidency are not just divisive but deliberately so, this raises the possibility of Trump seeking out a 9/11 or a Gulf of Tonkin or some other event that causes Americans to come together.  He didn't say wag the dog, but he seems familiar enough with the idea.  

Put those two things together, along with Trump's belief that American ballistic missile defense (whose motto should be "Hope is Our Plan"), and, yeah, I am very, very worried.  A strike against North Korea will not end there--there will be a response and it will kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Koreans and then Japanese plus Americans in the region.  Oh, and it will cause tremendous turmoil in the world economy.... What Trump doesn't get is that if he starts this, there will be no rally around him.  He will get the blame for starting a war that is quite avoidable.

So, what should be my go-to pic now?

Because all is not well.

Update: Given that the Korean crisis got more play than nearly anything else and it hints at regime change (depraved character of the regime as the core issue), I am now thinking war is more likely than not.  Not good.

North Korea: Rational or What?

Some folks are arguing that a limited strike might send North Korea a message....  Um, for me, that message would be: welcome to nuclear war.  I have a hard time understanding the logics to these arguments--well, if North Korea is rational, they will understand that they should not escalate, and if they are not rational, we will have taken some of their capability away?  I guess?

I think it is far more sensible to start by assuming that North Korea is deterrable.  That way, one does not act in ways that trigger an unnecessary war, nuclear or otherwise (either of which would be devastating to South Korea, Japan and the international economy).  If North Korean leaders just care about staying in power, then:

• don't threaten to change their regime since that might cause them to attack.
• don't try to take away their ability to retaliate since that might cause them to attack.
• don't make them think an attack is imminent since that might cause them to attack.
• do make it clear that their regime will face much stress if they do attack--via retaliatory strikes by the US.

If they are irrational, then what?  Deterrence might not work, but any effort to denuclearize NK would lead to war.  First strike?  Only if you don't mind many thousands of dead South Koreans, probably many dead Japanese, and, yes, many dead Americans based in the region.  Plus that aforementioned economic catastrophe. 

Any hubris about taking out NK's capabilities to do massive harm to the neighborhood needs to confront the realities that:

• Past SCUD hunts by the US have gone poorly, so the idea that the US could nail all (and it would have to be all) of NK's missiles is wildly unrealistic
• Even if NK's missiles are blown up on the pads, NK has way too many artillery pieces aimed at Seoul (as well as various conventional missiles aimed at Japan) so that the opening hours of a war would kill many, many thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands.  Any effort to send the South Koreans to shelters before a war would signal to NK that a war was imminent and they would start firing, so not so much surprise.
• Probably at least one North American city would be hit by a nuclear weapon.  Missile defenses are wildly overrated so our best hope would be shoddy NK missiles.

 Just as most IR scholars opposed the Iraq war for all kinds of reasons (wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time by the wrong people, etc), most are opposed to the current march towards war.  Sure, there are a few voices calling for war and, lucky for them, HR McMaster is preparing his memoir (Dereliction of Duty--My Turn).  The good news is we probably won't have the blame game in ten years--where were the IR scholars--because we will be spending most of our time mourning Seattle or San Francisco or DC as well as Tokyo, Seoul, and so on.  Oh, that's not good.  Never mind.

Oh, and to make matters more fun, the North Koreans have to worry if Trump is sane and deterrable. I am not so sure.

As always:

Concluding Civ-Mil Class With Mushroom Clouds?

Today was the last day of my NPSIA Civil-Military Relations class.  For the past few weeks, the students presented their papers, asking a variety of interesting questions about the civil-military dynamics around the world.  The papers ranged from addressing 1st gen civ-mil questions--coup or no coup--to 2nd gen--why do democracies have trouble controlling their militaries--to 3rd gen--cooperation between civilians and military in the field.  I learned a great deal about many places, so, of course, I popped the joyful balloon of learning with the crisis du jour:
The lack of civilian control of the military in the US might get us all killed.

We have an active general serving as National Security Adviser, HR McMaster, saying time is running out on North Korea.  The last thing you want in a nuclear crisis with a country with vulnerable nuclear weapons is to tell them that they are in a "use them or lose them" situation.   That would be bad enough, but the US and South Korea have started an exercise with hundreds of planes including a simulation of attacking North Korea.  How will North Korea know this is not just this simulation is not actually the preparation or the start of a first strike?

Most of the civilian experts on this stuff that I am familiar with are very concerned about the combination of: fears of preemption, accidents, inadvertent escalation, and egos.  Who are the civilians in this US government who can put the brakes on these kinds of exercises?  Who can tell the President this exercise and McMaster's stances are BAD?  Tillerson?  Please, that amateur is not just the #worstsecstate but on his way out.  He has no wisdom and no sway.  Mattis?  Has anyone seen Mattis lately?  He is really well read, everyone says.  Has he read Schelling?  Jervis? Posen? The stuff on nuclear war near misses?  Oh, and he is not really a civilian, as his mindset has not had a chance to change (tis the anniversary of this post).  Oh and the key spots in State and the Office of the Secretary of Defense--Assistant Secretaries of State/Defense for East Asia--remain unfilled as far as I can tell. 

Which makes Trump the primary civilian responsible for making sure that the US military does not make any moves that might cause North Korea to launch its weapons because its leaders fear that a preemptive strike is on its way or is imminent.  I would never put "Trump" and "responsible" in the same sentence except as a question, and, yeah, we know the answer: not responsible.

So, I ended the semester scaring my students.  I guess I should not have seen Krampus recently.

Magic Lines and Escalation Ladders

A colleague asked me if there will be war between the US and North Korea.  I said maybe, which is pretty damned scary, given the likely consequences.  Why am I worried?  Basically for two reasons that intersect in bad ways, besides the Trumpiness and KJU-ness factors:

1. the US seems awfully confident that they knew where the line is between what North Korea will perceive as an exercise and what NK will perceive as the start of an attack
2. Escalation Ladders are finite.

This weekend, the US sent some bombers and fighters to fly near North Korea but not over it.  How do they know the North Koreans would not see this as the opening move of an attack?  Given that North Korea does not have MAD with the US--that a US first strike could possibly destroy NK's ability to hit the US, they are in a "use them or lose them" situation.  Not a great place to be in and why nuclear proliferation is so scary.  Mutual assured destruction is not great, but it is a least bad alternative and a stable one, mostly.  If it ain't mutual, it ain't stable, so Trump's threat to destroy NK is problematic, more so than I suggested last week.  So, my question is: how does the US now what will and will not trigger North Korean fears of preemption?  My guess is that we don't really know, and we need to remember that even under MAD, fears of attack and launch on warning were just a wee bit probelmatic (see the pieces about the death of the Lt. Colonel who prevented WWIII).

The second problem is that the flights are part of an escalation--the US is sending stronger and strong signals that it is not happy.  Likewise, the North Koreans have been escalating--more missile tests, missile tests flying over Japan, an H-bomb test.  What's next?  Maybe sending a nuclear-armed missile into the Pacific?  The US did that once a long time ago--not a great idea since much can go very wrong.  If North Korea does that, what does the US do?  If North Korea tries to or does shoot down a US plane over or near North Korea, what does the US do?  There are not infinite rungs (I originally typed infinite wrongs--Freud at work) on the escalation ladder--we are running out of steps between where we are and war.  And some of those rungs on the ladder are very war-ish and pretty slippery (can one slip up a ladder?).

So, combine those two--we are escalating and we may have more confidence than we should what will and will not trigger North Korea's first strike.  Yeah, I am deeply worried.  And then we get to considering that Trump's ego is involved.  I see folks are hoping for the US military to disobey Trump's orders if he goes too far.  So much for civilian control of the military.  Again, we are left potentially hoping for folks to make decisions that might avert disaster but undermine American democracy.

I think I need to find something to stress eat or stress drink.

The Worst Chicken Game: Trump vs Kim Jong Un

My feelings are thus:

Yes.  Yes, we can.

Trump seems determined to start two new ones on top of the several the US is already fighting (yes, way over the war cap).  First, the slightly less* catastrophic conflict would be a war with Iran after tossing out the nuclear deal.  After all, how does one stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons if one does not rely on diplomacy?  This is the war some folks have been seeking for quite some time, and Trump seems determined to start it.  While the Iran deal is not perfect and does not address all other kinds of bad Iranian behavior, thus far, they seem to be playing by the rules.  Which means that Iran is currently not on a path to become .... North Korea.

*  A war with Iran would cost the US trillions of dollars, probably break the US army, and close down the Strait of Hormuz, which, in turn, would lead to oil prices rocketing and, thus, recession, inflation, stagflation, etc.  And that is probably an optimistic evaluation that ignores Iran's ability to escalate elsewhere.

North Korea? Thanks to Trump's threats, Kim Jong Un has written his own letter, a first apparently, that has suggested he might test a nuclear tipped ICBM somewhere in the Pacific.  This would be really, really bad, and that might be my understatement of 2017.  Not only bad for the environment and for whatever ships that might be nearby, but something might go wrong, leading the missile to spread radioactive debris across a hunk of the Pacific and maybe near/over Japan. 

Worse, we are in the most dangerous stage of nuclear development--when one country has some nuclear warheads, some ability to deliver them but no assurance that these systems can survive a first strike.  Which means that North Korea is probably on a hair trigger and will launch on warning.  We know from the recent death of the Soviet official who prevented World War III that warning systems can provoke a response even when one is not needed.  To make matters worse, the President of the US is making North Korea feel as if an attack is imminent.  Use or lose?  That is the question that faces Kim Jong Un today.  He does not have to be irrational to be most concerned about Trump and his threats.  Hopefully, his Chinese friends are telling him that Trump is a paper tiger.  Oh wait, that's not good either. 

Is this the most dangerous moment in the world since the Cuban Missile Crisis?  Maybe not, but we can probably see it from here. We call it tomorrow or next week.  Trump is making this worse and worse because his ego is involved and he does not have the temperament to be President. Profoundly unqualified.  I forget what I said months ago about which war was most likely--Iran or North Korea.  I guess I would prefer the former to the latter, as the former would only push much of the world into recession and kill lots of Americans and Iranians.  The latter would be utterly devastating to Japan, South Korea and North Korea and push the world into a far deeper recession (much of the world's trade goes through the South China Sea). 

So, yeah, I am panicking now.  How are you?

Deterrence is Ugly

Sure, Donald Trump is so callous and crass that when he says stuff, it sounds awful BUT extended deterrence (or even regular deterrence) almost always threatens killing lots of civilians.  The whole idea is that if you do x, we will make you pay.  And the "you" in this is not just the leader of country A but all of country A.  Mutual assured destruction?  Kind of sounds like that destroy word Trump used.  So, the speech is not really a break in policy, as awful as it sounded.

Ethicists, moral philosophers and others have long consistently raised questions about the morality of nuclear deterrence because it requires holding innocents hostage.  I am not an ethicist or a philospher.  Instead, I focus on what seems to be the least bad alternative, and deterrence when it is successful is better than war.  So, I don't have a problem with Trump saying that the US will use heaps of force if North Korea attacks Japan or South Korea--the whole idea of the "nuclear umbrella" is that the US is potentially threatening utter destruction if someone attacks a country who is under the umbrella.  Who are those allies?  NATO + Japan + South Korea + Australia + New Zealand (maybe, the whole nuke free thing made that less clear).  That's it.  Baltics? Yes.  Sweden? No.  Mexico?  Hmmm... not quite although that kind of falls under the whole Monroe Doctrine of don't mess around with our neighborhood or else.

What is more disturbing about Trump and North Korea is that the US has made the other half of that promise problematic and Trump makes it even more so: that the US will not attack you if you don't attack its allies.  Qaadafi might have something to say about that ....  Talk of North Korean regime change is DANGEROUS because they might feel they are in a "use them or lose them" situation if they think the US is about to disarm North Korea.  Which gets to the McMaster McMess du month: saying that there are military options is reaaaaalllllllllly problematic when North Korea can kill tens of thousands of South Koreans under the best scenario and millions of South Koreans and Japanese and even Americans in the US under the worst scenario.  I would be assuring the North Koreans that the US is not going to attack unless North Korea attacks our allies.  But Trump ain't doing that, the US has a poor record on that score, and Trump cannot make a credible commitment--it is not in his nature.

Alas, deterring North Korea from developing nuclear weapons has proven to be a failure.  But deterring the development of nuclear weapons and deterring their use are two different things.  And, yes, breaking the Iran deal is a poor signal to North Korea if we want to deal with them.

So, yeah, I am worried.  I spent this afternoon giving a talk to a group of Asia-Pacific Ambassadors based in Ottawa.  I think I depressed them.  Damn.

Panic Du Jour: US Won't Protect Canada?

Today, some Canadian generals talked about the US Ballistic Missile Defence Program, and indicated that since Canada is not involved in it, that the US might not stop missiles headed towards Canada.  Oh my!  So, let me myth bust with a few caveats first:

A) I am not opposed to Canada joining the BMD program. There are good reasons to join--fear of North Korea attacking Calgary is not among them. Better situational awareness, some influence, less antagonizing of the US, and other reasons are better reasons than fear of NK nukes.  The Defence Policy Review should have addressed this head on and did not do so (if I remember correctly).
B)  I don't know much about the history of US-Canadian defence/defense commitments.
C)  I am not an expert on nuclear weapons or defenses.  I am just reasonably well read on that stuff, and have expertise on related stuff (see NATO stuff below).  More importantly, I don't really have anything at stake, unlike various generals....   It maybe that the Canadian generals are not the ones playing us, but rather, it may be the American ones who are apparently saying strange things to the Canadians. 

Ok, let's get to it:

1. Who is going to attack Canada and not the US?  Folks upset at the maple cartel?  
2. When ballistic missiles are in the air, those with fingers on the triggers of American defenses will not have hours to make the decision, but a few minutes (missiles from North Korea probably take less than thirty minutes, using the old Soviet ICBM flight time as an amateur guess).  So, are the Americans going to say, hmm, we have missiles inbound from North Korea, but they look like they are headed towards the West Edmonton Mall, so let's not worry about it?  Or will they say, missiles headed in our direction, let's launch our counter-missiles, just in case we are wrong about their final destination?
3. I used West Edmonton deliberately because any missile headed towards most of Canada's population--within 100 miles of the US border--is going to get an American response.  No American general is going to say, hey, Vancouver, not our problem when Seattle is not far away.  
4. On the other hand, what about NATO and Article V?  What about it?  There is no automatic invocation of A5 before an attack.  If an attack occurs, NATO reps must meet and agree that an attack has occurred.  This happened after 9/11 but not after a cyber attack on Estonia nor after Syrian artillery hit Turkey.  And note, this is after, not during, not before.  So, not helpful for responding to missiles in the air.  Also, Article V says that once an attack has been recognized, each country responds as each deems necessary.  Not hypothetical at all as we found out when writing our book.
5. Whatever the legacy of US-Canadian defense agreements, the US will defend Canada.  It is in its own interests to do so.  Indeed, the usual Canadian concern is that the US would be too helpful and violate Canadian sovereignty as the US protects itself.
6. Oh, one last thing: the idea that Canada is defenseless against nukes?  That has been the case since the Soviet Union developed its own nuclear-tipped ICBMs because.... the US never had an effective system for shooting down missiles.   And, guess what.... it still does not. The US system is unproven.  Indeed, when North Korea launches its tests, the US does not try to shoot them down because it would really suck if the US tried and failed.  Better to be uncertain. 

So, what are these generals doing, scaring Canadians?  I can't help but think of threat inflation.  That the threat is being played up .... because American or Canadian officers want Canada in the ballistic missile program.  While I agree with the ends mostly, I don't agree with the means.

The reality is that there is NOTHING Canada can do about North Korea.  Canada does not trade with North Korea, so sanctions are not applicable.  Canada is not able to bully China into doing anything. If the US can't get that to happen, Canada can't do it.  Canada has no ability to stop missiles from North Korea.  So, yeah, Canada is powerless and vulnerable.  That sucks, but there it is.  Canada can take some solace that North Korea does not give a rat's ass about Canada.  North Korea does not have enough nuclear armed ICBMs to waste any on Canadian cities.  It needs to have one or two so that the US is deterred from regime changing.  Maybe North Korea is aiming to create a stability/instability paradox dynamic where the US and North Korea are deterred at the strategic level, which then allows NK to mess around with South Korea at the conventional level.  That would not be good, but, again, not much Canada can do about that. Indeed, the story for the past twenty years or so is that there is precious little the US can do about North Korea.  If the US can do little, Canada can do even less.  Sorry, but let's be humble about Canadian capabilities (and US BMD capabilities).

Certainly Uncertain: Nuclear Logics Are Still In Play in Northeast Asia

Reading Andrew Coyne's piece on North Korea and the need for Canada to join the American Ballistic Missile Defence System reminded me of lots of old deterrence theory stuff.  The piece raises good questions about the reliability of the key actors, especially Trump, but confuses what is necessary for deterrence.  Still, there are some problems that we need to think about.

The big problem in the piece is that Coyne thinks that the American commitment to defend its East Asia allies is now largely unbelievable with the North Koreans developing the ability to strike the continental US (and Canada).  It is true that the US, under several Presidents, has failed to deter the North Korean effort to develop both nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them.  But deterring their effort to develop some deterrence and deterring an attack on allies are two different things.  Coyne is right to point out that extended deterrence (don't attack my allies or else) is less believable than regular, vanilla deterrence (don't attack me or else).  The threat to start or expand a nuclear war is problematic in either case, but seems a bit more believable if it is in retaliation for a big attack on the homeland.

The key is that for deterrence to work, the side being deterred (North Korea in this case for the moment) does not need to be certain that a counter-strike would happen.  They just need to think that there is some possibility of such a response.  Why?  Because the costs of nuclear war are so very high, if one does the probability math (probability of x times value of x), the prospective costs of attacking first are simply too high compared to the status quo (.01 times infinity = infinity) .... as long as the status quo is bearable (which is why we have to stop threatening regime change).  We do not have to convince North Korea that a retaliatory strike is certain if North Korea attacks South Korea and/or Japan, but that it could happen.  The placement of US troops in South Korea is far more about being a tripwire to raise the probability of the US responding than actually defending South Korea in a conventional attack. 

Again, one might say that this is not sufficient, but the key to nuclear threats is that classic Schelling phrase: a threat that leaves something to chance.  One does not have to threaten, for instance, total nuclear annihilation of North Korea crosses the Demilitarized Zone--one just has to threat to start a process that might lead to things getting out of hand and ultimately leading to nuclear war.  This was the old extended deterrence logic for Europe and Asia during the cold war.

Certainty?  That is for allies.  That is, the tripwires and all the rest over the years are mostly aimed at reassuring allies.  The enemy is deterred by a modest chance of the US responding, of sacrificing Chicago for Bonn or now Seattle for Seoul.  The allies?  They are very nervous and require a great deal of assurance.  Ballistic missile defense both in the region and in the US might assure them somewhat--that the US can stick around and meet its commitments knowing that it is protected.

Except for one thing: BMD may be at best a coin flip.  We have lots of uncertainty about whether the efforts to invest in destroying missiles in flight have produced anything remotely reliable.  Again, that is ok from a deterrence perspective--uncertainty is not bad.

While I think that joining the US BMD program makes sense, my reasons do not center on the NK nuclear threat.  The US would try to stop an attack on Vancouver or Toronto since they are very close to American cities whether Canada is in or out of the BMD program.  And North Korea is not going to be gunning for Calgary or Edmonton.  North Korea barely notices Canada, and, given its small supply of nuclear arms, it will not be aiming at Canada.  The BMD arguments I buy have more to do with building a robust NORAD that addresses a variety of threats in the 21st century, and strengthening a key US-Canadian institution in these uncertain times.

While we should all doubt Donald Trump, I am far more worried about his starting a process that leaves something to chance via a small strike at North Korea's missiles or at its leadership than I am about his not responding to a North Korean attack.  Yes, we are now deterred from attacking North Korea, but that has been true since it developed the capability level Seoul with its artillery.  Yes, we have much to worry about, but then so does Kim Jong Un.  If he wants to survive, he will avoid a process that might lead to escalation.  The costs of being wrong are just too high.

North Korea, ICBM's and Lousy Policy Alternatives

The toughest thing for folks to accept is that there are often no good policy solutions to a key problem.  North Korea has been that problem for at least two decades.  With the new test where North Korea has proven it can build and launch successfully intercontinental ballistic missiles, there is now greater pressure to do something.

But what is that something and what are the risks?  This is where the Trump administration scares me the most.  Talk of regime change and denuclearization are seriously alarming (see this thread)..  Why has North Korea pursued nuclear weapons? For status, maybe.  Because it fears that outsiders want to change who rules?  Absolutely.  What use are nuclear weapons?  To deter attacks, of course.

Could the US launch a strike to disarm North Korea's limited missile force?  Maybe.  But that would not eliminate North Korea's ability to do much harm--via artillery and maybe even invasion of South Korea.  Whatever mistakes the US makes, South Korea will pay.  There are just too many artillery batteries too close to Seoul for the US to expect any conflict not to have potentially huge risks.

Even the most limited strike risks staggering casualties, because North Korea could retaliate with the thousands of artillery pieces it has positioned along its border with the South. Though the arsenal is of limited range and could be destroyed in days, the United States defense secretary, Jim Mattis, recently warned that if North Korea used it, it “would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetimes.” NYT

And, of course, there is no guarantee that a first strike would eliminate North Korea's small nuclear capability, which would put Tokyo in play as well.  So, a first strike might risk hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of South Koreans and Japanese.

This puts us back into a familiar and uncomfortable reality--nuclear deterrence.  We are deterred from attacking North Korea, and North Korea, as long as it believes a first strike is not imminent, is deterred from attacking the US and its allies. But if it fears a first strike, it may launch first because it might fear the US could decapitate the regime and eliminate much of its arsenal.  This "use or lose" situation is very, very dangerous.  This makes talk of denuclearization and decapitation destabilizing.

I was called a coward last night on twitter by someone who thinks nuclear disarmament is the preferred option.  Is it cowardly to be realistic?  We are not going to get North Korea (or China or Russia or France or Israel or India or Pakistan or the US) to give up its nuclear arms. Believing otherwise, especially in the age of Trump, is foolish.  Also foolish is thinking that using force will produce a good outcome.  It sucks that we do not have good policy options, but this is nothing new.  For twenty years, the US has wanted to strike North Korea and has been deterred by the threats it poses to the neighbors.  For the entire cold war (and to this day), we have had to tolerate the reality of mutual assured destruction--that threatening each other is the worst policy option except for all of the others.  I'd love to find a way out, but I can't see one.

So, when it comes to North Korea, we must focus not on denuclearization but on deterrence and containment.  Unfortunately, the US is currently led by amateurs with no empathy, which means they have a hard time understanding how their signals will be received.  Which means I am scared.

North Korea?

I was asked by a student about what the death of Kim Jong-il means.  Other than more South Park references, I have no idea.  I am not sure the specialists have any clue about how son #3 will govern and whether the various folks will put up with him.  So, we get to watch and wait and see what happens.  Change at the very top of a very totalitarian society can mean "change" but it took something like thirty years to get from Stalin to Gorbachev.  It took a couple decades to get from Mao to significant change in a still authoritarian China.  Oh, and Egypt is not looking that terrific these days. 

So, right now it is shoulder-shrugging time.  And then going to youtube for some more  South Park fun.

Somebody Is Planning Ahead

“Reunification will definitely come,” Mr. Lee said in a speech marking the 65th anniversary of the Koreans’ liberation from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule. “I believe that the time has come to start discussing realistic policies to prepare for that day such as a reunification tax.”

 Stunning.  Raising taxes is never popular, but to propose them for a possibility that is pretty far down the road is amazing.  And the neighbor is not going to like either:

Analysts expected an angry North Korean response.
“North Korea will take a unification tax as the expression of a South Korean attempt to prepare for a sudden collapse of the North Korean government,” said Kim Yong-hyun, an analyst at Dongguk University in Seoul.

 So, of course, the big question is: why now?  Is this part of the tit-for-tat after the North Koreans sank a South Korean Ship in May?  Perhaps.  Is this a domestic political ploy?  Probably not as tax increases never play well, especially when the benefits go to someone else.  Could this be a sincere effort by a politician to pay now for something that is going to be costly down the road?  Oh my, this could utterly shake my belief system.  Bears further observation.

Trouble at Sea

I recently declined to appear on radio as I am not an expert on North/South Korea, although I know enough not to be surprised by small but significant acts of violence initiated by the North.

So, it is a good thing that Fred Kaplan can summarize the situation.  One of things he summarizes is how little we know about North Korea:

The fact is, Pyongyang is the most cloistered capital in the world (North Korea's widespread nickname is, after all, the "hermit kingdom"), and nobody on the outside—including U.S. and allied intelligence agencies—knows much of anything about its political machinations.

 And what we do know is discouraging:

So we're back to the perennial question about the pygmy tyrant of Pyongyang: What to do? Kim Jong-il, like his father before him, is a master at parlaying his weakness into strength. He has no economic resources, no allies (except China), and probably a teetering power base at home. But he does have enough nuclear fuel to build a few A-bombs (whether he's built any, beyond the two exploded in tests, is unknown), and he has thousands of artillery rockets that are a few minutes' flying time from Seoul (as well as some ballistic missiles that could hit Tokyo).

The reigning metaphor is Chicken:

He's like the daredevil in a game of highway chicken who visibly throws his steering wheel out the window, forcing the saner players to accommodate and veer off the road.

Drezner concurs, referring to my favorite depiction--the tractor chicken game in Footloose.  Drezner suggests that NK be banned from the World Cup, as that kind of sanction will target North Korean elites (is that an oxymoron or just an incredibly small set?).

So, we are left with few choices.  As the player in the game of Chicken most sensitive to the costs of a crash, we are likely to swerve again.  This is a problem, as playing Chicken over and over again does not lead to cooperation like it does for Prisoner's Dilemma.  Indeed, if you know you are stuck in an repeated game of chicken, that simply increases the incentives to make the other guy swerve the first time.

To finish on a very dour note, this game between North and South Korea is one where war is not impossible at all--just something we do not want to imagine.  I am not saying war is likely, but sixty years of peace have not made it as "impossible" as it is between the French and Germans.  The stakes are simply very high, the options are very few, and the possibility of something escalating is real.

I Don't Understand North Korea

But Fred Kaplan does.  Apparently, the latest NK ploy is to exclude South Korea from the talks.  Kaplan does a great job of laying out the various twists and turns in all of this, at least as far as I can tell.

In an excellent article in the November/December 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Lankov, a Russian émigré who teaches history at Kookmin University in Seoul, calls this approach "subversive engagement." The Pyongyang regime, Lankov writes, is "remarkably immune to outside pressure." But it's potentially quite vulnerable to "radical transformation" from within, if enough well-placed North Koreans are exposed to—and thus realize the possibilities of—attractive alternatives to their system.