The escalating situation on the Korean peninsular should be a matter of concern to most rationally minded persons especially as this is coming on the heels of the coming to office of America's most intemperate President ever. When the Republican party presented Donald Trump as its candidate for President in the 2016 Presidential elections it was gambling the hope that Donald Trump's particular and peculiar approach to making America great again will resonate with voters and win them the White House even in the face of the obvious fact that his temperament made him peculiarly unsuitable for the White House. The Republican gamble succeeded in not only winning the party the White House but it brought them complete control of both Houses of Congress.
The fact however remains that the President of the United States however is also Commander in Chief of the world's largest military and controls the world's second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. At about the same time a young man by the name of Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea after the death of his father Kim Il Sung. The new North Korean leader has shown himself to be similarly highly temperamental, unpredictable, mean and utterly ruthless with an ego to match or outmatch Trump's impulsiveness. With two out of control leaders in Pyongyang and Washington, North Korea succeeded in launching an ICBM that has range over all of the Continental USA and at the same succeeded in testing a nuclear weapon suspected to be a hydrogen bomb because of its unmatched destructive power .
President Trump meanwhile had promised or threatened that he will never allow North Korea while he is in office to build an ICBM that can threaten the continental USA. Within the first year of his administration all his fears concerning North Korea are realised as they actually launch missiles which are seen as capable of reaching Washington. The only doubt remains as to whether North Korea has perfected the technology for a successful re-entry of the warhead into the earth's atmosphere without being burnt up while trying to re-enter the atmospheric realm from outer space. At this point Donald Trump is genuinely concerned that he is failing to keep his long and oft-repeated campaign promise not to allow that happen including his threat to unleash a fire and fury on North Korea of an unprecedented scale in the world
With his multiple threats and promises unfulfilled, Trump is now obliged as far as his ego or strategic thinking is concerned to do something to show he is not a whimp nor is he bluffing where his threats are concerned even though his military leaders who are far more experienced and rational try to warn him that there are no good options available when it comes to a military strike on North Korea. All options presage bloodshed on a scale deemed unacceptable in the circumstances including subtle moves by the new North Korean born South Korean President that the South is not willing to sacrifice the lives of its citizens in other to appease Trump's fears concerning North Korea's intentions
The two Koreas have even gone a step further to defuse tensions between them by organising joint Korean team participations in the winter Olympics coming up in South Korea. All these no doubt are subtle signals by the two Koreas the chief protagonists in any ensuing conflict that they are not willing to sacrifice the lives of their citizens on the altar of Donald Trump's ego trip. The peace moves coming from even the willy North Korean leader has rather infuriated the American leader who rather sees it as an attempt by North Korea to drive a wedge between the US and South Korea and also buy time to enable him complete the development of his missile program.
There is no doubt that Donald Trump believes he has a genuine mandate to protect the American mainland from a North Korean Nuclear attack, but the North's leader has repeated many times that the North's weapons program is designed as an insurance against any attempted US attack on the regime in Pyongyang and that he has no intention of ever initiating an attack on the US unless he is actually attacked or threatened. What is therefore unfolding to befuddled spectators is a dangerous chess game between two unpredictable leaders with outsized egos who both feel they have a point to prove and none is ready to back down.
In this context however the North Korean leader is outwitting Donald Trump by making peace moves with the South howbeit in very cautious terms. He is labouring assiduously to present himself as the more rational and pragmatic leader and trying subtly to paint Trump as the protagonist who is bent on setting fire to the Korean Peninsular. Unfortunately for Trump he is winning this war of attirition especially in the light of the divisions among the Trump senior officials over the move to give the North Korean leader a bloody nose by launching a limited strike aimed at what i do not understand strategy of showing Kim that Donald Trump means business.
Considering Donald Trump's limited military experience, coupled with his outsize ego he does not appear to understand the danger of trying to bloody the nose of a man who is not even willing to be threatened or outmanouvered in the first place. Kim has shown that he is not willing to lose even a shouting match talk more of a shooting war no matter how limited Donald Trump may consider his objectives to be. A man that is as quick on the draw even in a verbal exchange as Kim has shown he can be is not the kind of man you can pull a trigger on, without expecting a corresponding barrage whose eventual consequences no man can foresee.
That fate has destined that Donald Trump's sparring partner on the global stage is Kim Jong Un is a reminder that fate and providence can deal you a cruel hand when you least expect many times. The sobering fact US planners must consider right now with the tension building up on the Korean Peninsular including its Asiatic neighbours and Russia inclusive is that anyone drawing his gun right now from his holster is calling for a new full fledged Korean war with all the devastating consequences predicted by all analysts in the build up to this highly preventable narratory and ultimately trajectory.
No US planner or military leader should be deceived by Donald Trump or Nikky Haley or any other hawk in Washington into thinking that you can initiate military action incrementally without unleashing the much feared and much talked about Second Korean war which even the US with all its military might is not guaranteed to win inspite of the millions of lives that will be at stake and the horrendous damages and casualties that will ensue in the event of a war. It is the responsibility of all in Washington to ensure that proper adult supervision is given in overseeing the conduct of Donald Trump's foreign policy on the Korean Peninsular in a way that does not endanger the Republic that the constitution has entrusted him to protect.
