OpinionTrump’s nuclear standoff with North Korea: why this is no Cuban missile crisis

South Koreans, always sitting under the shadow of North Korea’s long-range artillery, are going about their daily business with little or no concern about Kim Jong-un’s recent threats; they have learned to take them with a huge grain of salt. The people of Guam, sitting at ground zero, seem more concerned about the impact on tourism than about impacting missiles. In my hometown of Honolulu, a few civil defence officials are talking about training citizens about disaster drills – I’m old enough to remember when we used to practise getting under our desks in grammar school (but, alas, too old and too heavy to fit under my desk nowadays) – but few are really worried.

Meanwhile, on the US east coast, still safely out of range, pundits are talking about Armageddon and an impending new Cuban missile crisis. My advice to all: take a deep breath, count to 10, and then relax! We are not on the brink of disaster. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, another Cuban missile crisis – recall that the United States and the USSR were capable of destroying the earth multiple times over; few really believe North Korea can today put a nuclear warhead on a missile and deliver it anywhere, much less against the US. If it tries to do so, it risks being rapidly removed from the face of the earth, a fact Pyongyang’s leaders clearly understand. The whole point behind their acquiring nuclear weapons is to enhance their survival, not to bring about certain destruction.

Breathless headlines to the contrary, the probability of conflict actually breaking out remains low. While the headlines cry out that “Trump escalates rhetoric” or “doubles down” on his threats to Pyongyang, in truth he went from threatening “fire and fury” if they said bad things to if they did bad things against the US or allies. “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded,” Trump warned, “should North Korea act unwisely.” The operative word is ‘act’. This brings Trump squarely in line, not only with recent comments made by Defence Secretary James Mattis, among others, but also with longstanding US policy – the US has no intention of initiating hostilities but to respond with great force (“like the world has never seen”) if it or its allies are attacked.

The official US position is that “all options are on the table” in dealing with the North Korea nuclear and missile challenge. This is as it should be, but timing is everything. While the day may come when a pre-emptive attack or a preventive war is the only way to ward off an attack on the US homeland, we are clearly not there yet. Military action should and must always be the last resort. The lives of millions of South Koreans (not to mention tens of thousands of Americans based, living in, or visiting Seoul on any given day) will be put at severe risk, even if victory is eventually assured.

While there are dozens of variations on the theme, when it comes down to it, there are really only four categories of options in dealing with Pyongyang. The two extremes – regime acceptance (agreeing to the North’s outlandish demands) and regime removal (via preventive or pre-emptive military action) – need to be set aside, at least for now. These are last resort options. This leaves regime transformation – “bringing Kim Jong-un to his senses, not to his knees”, as one American admiral put it, or regime destabilisation, or regime change through non-military means.