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Finessing The Nuclear Addict

Howell Hurst Defense vs Diplomacy, Defining Trump, People Politics, Trump

FROM MY CORNER

Kim Jong Un is an emotionally insecure person.

His nuclear ambition is the primary consequence of this insecurity. America’s leadership is entirely missing the opportunity that exist right now by responding to his threats with the dual-sided sword of:  A. Military Might and B. The Willingness to speak with him, “if he will stop his nuclear initiatives.”

Our true opportunity is to use this present psychological situation to move toward some form of mutually beneficial agreement between North Korea and the United States.

America’s present tactic of positioning our military ships and planes physically close to North Korea simply increases Kim’s deepest fear: that the US. may indeed use its nuclear weapons on his country.

The president countering Kim’s threats with our threats is the game of two insecure little boys pretending to be adult leaders. Our president devoting seventeen days to “A working vacation” while this situation simmers toward a boil is not leadership.

Leadership in this situation has an example from the past to guide the president. Anwar Sadat, the former president of Egypt, faced with a similar situation, got into an airplane and in an unprecedented move flew to Israel to speak directly with its leader.

If Mr. Trump would set his golf clubs aside and make the same flight to Kim Jong Un, it is highly likely that a new tone could be established in communication between our two countries, and with the entire world.

Kim needs emotional recognition to bolster his ego and bring him to his senses. Trump needs to dare to make a bold, intelligent, sensitive move to prove his long-asserted claim that he is a supreme deal maker.

On a similar note, Secretary of State Tillerson has offered to talk with North Korea, if and when it will agree to halt its nuclear ambitions. That may be the kind of leadership that played well in his oil company position. It will not win him an Academy Award in his dealings with Kim.

The entire point to be understood by Trump and Tillerson is that our massive nuclear capability is the over-riding fear paralyzing Kim’s attitude. He will not drop his one bargaining chip to initiate talks with us.

This nuclear standoff, however tenuous, is a serious matter. But the two imbalanced nuclear capabilities of the two countries is not the severest inherent danger of the situation. The real problem is the self-centered and fragile egos of the two leaders.

America exhibiting the magnanimity a great and powerful nation can always afford, and offering the first implied glimpse of a feather of peace to Kim, symbolized by a flight by our president, is what will gain us the upper hand in our negotiations with this adversary.

This is going to be seventeen wasted days in New Jersey on the golfing greens by the alleged deal maker if he does not pull his head out from under his massive self-centered, fragile ego and step up to the plate.

His seventeen days are likely to end up like baseball’s famous Casey – by his striking out if he cannot drop his gold clubs and instead get a grip on his bat.

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