Some thoughts on this @dandrezner piece on Trump and North Korea. I have been, and am, a strong critic of the Trump admin's FP but I do think their view is somewhat misinterpreted here & elsewhere 1/10 washingtonpost.com/news/postevery…
Dan says, accurately, that the Trump admin believes Kim Jong Un cannot be deterred & his goal is to use his nuclear capability to reunify the peninsula on his terms. This sounds crazy b/c Kim is not irrational & terrifying b/c it cld excuse preventive war 2/10
However, the Q is what does it mean to say Kim is undeterrable. Some analysts believe Kim wants NW for survival only. He is a security maximizer. Others think he believes that they will give him leverage to puruse broader goals. The Trump admin falls into the second camp 3/10
Let's look at the 2nd camp closely. Kim cld use the nuclear umbrella to engage in conventional aggression against the South, as the DPRK did twice in 2010. He may calculate the west wld never respond for fear of escalation (a version of the stability instability paradox) 4/10
He may also believe that NW wld allow him to drive a wedge betw the US and South Korea. Maybe not right now but over the 30 or 40 years he expects to rule. He cld initiate a crisis w/ the US & then offer terms that weaken the alliance in exchange for backing down 5/10
When people say Kim may not be deterrable they often mean this 2nd scenario-- that he will not be a status quo player once he has nukes-- not that he will use them. This is not self evidently wrong & cld be right. 6/10
The Q then is how to respond to a Kim that wants to use the capability as leverage to further his expansionist goals. Preventive war wld be catastrophic-- it wld cause massive casulaties & even if Kim was removed it cld destroy the US led regional order in East Asia. 7/10
Minimal deterrence (just deterring use of the nukes) wld also likely fail. There's no provision to respond to conventional agression. The answer imo is a proactive containment policy that seeks to ensure his nukes are useless for anything other than basic survival 8/10
Based on conversations w/ admin officials I think they basically believe in the 2nd scenario but some of them have been inartful about how they express it, leading people to believe they think Kim is crazy and might use nukes. Also, Trump himself has no idea of the nuances 9/10
So I am a little less alarmed than @dandrezner but only a little. I cld be wrong about the NSC team but I worry most about inadvertent escalation/ miscalculation and erratic, volatile leaders. 10/10
