A proposed summit between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump has created a sense of progress toward resolving the dangerous crisis enveloping the Korean peninsula. After all, negotiations are clearly the preferred alternative to war.
But these negotiations, rather than preventing armed conflict, may be simply the prelude to war.
The United States is approaches the meeting with a depleted diplomatic corps, bereft of senior Korea experts. Worse, Mr. Trump appears to have decided on impulse to proceed directly to a summit without any clear plan for the meeting or any broader strategy for resolving the crisis.
This snap decision may have created a trap without exit. After agreeing to meet with Kim—granting the North Korean leader a victory his dynasty has sought for decades—Trump announced that the summit should focus on the denuclearization of North Korea. While Kim has indicated he is willing to discuss denuclearization, most observers doubt he would be willing to give up the nuclear program he deems vital to his regime’s survival.
So, what happens if Trump says “Disarm” and Kim says “No”?
Enter John Bolton, the latest would-be Trump whisperer. Bolton, the President’s new national security advisor, argued in a February Wall Street Journal op-ed that “It is perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current ‘necessity’ posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons by striking first.”
Enter John Bolton, the latest would-be Trump whisperer.
In the wake of a failed summit, Bolton would almost certainly argue that diplomacy had failed and we have no choice but war. And Trump, ever terrified of looking weak and possibly looking for new ways to deflect attention from the Mueller investigation, might agree. And, of course, there is a significant chance that, in any war with North Korea, nuclear weapons will be used.
The relatively muted nature of the attack that Trump ordered against Syria after Assad’s latest use of chemical weapons suggests he might try similarly restrained military action against North Korea. But Syria does not have North Korea’s ability to strike back, and Trump might feel compelled to order a much larger attack designed to assure that North Korea could not retaliate. Such an attack might well require the use of U.S. nuclear weapons, possibly many of them.
Even if the United States tried a more limited, “bloody nose” attack, the North Koreans might perceive it as the beginning of a larger assault, and the conflict could rapidly escalate.
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The Defense Department estimates hundreds of thousands of fatalities from a conventional war between the United States and North Korea. If there is even limited use of nuclear weapons, the casualties could be in the millions.
Extensive use of nuclear weapons could precipitate worldwide climate disruption and famine. Studies have shown that one hundred Hiroshima-sized bombs over urban targets could trigger a global famine endangering up to two billion people.
It is possible that this crisis will pass, that some formula will be found that both Kim and Trump can accept. But the world’s vulnerability has been exposed.
It's possible that this crisis will pass, but the world’s vulnerability has been exposed.
We have become comfortable with nuclear weapons, tolerating their existence because we assume their very destructiveness would deter nuclear armed states from ever using them. The crisis in Korea has shown that sense of security is unwarranted. Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat.
During the nuclear weapons era, there have been many times when nuclear powers were prepared to use their arsenals. In the past, we have been lucky, and perhaps this time we will be lucky, too. But our luck will not last forever.
We can and must force a fundamental change in nuclear policy. Nuclear weapons do not make anyone more secure; they are, in fact, the greatest threat to our security, and, if we are to survive, they must be eliminated. And there are steps that we can take in this direction.
A broad campaign titled “Back from the Brink,” for example, calls on the United States to declare it will never use nuclear weapons first. It also demands that the United States take its nuclear weapons off hair trigger alert; end the unchecked authority of any President to launch nuclear war; abandon plans to spend $1.7 trillion enhancing our nuclear forces; and enter into negotiations with the other eight nuclear powers for an enforceable, verifiable, timebound agreement to dismantle the world’s remaining nuclear weapons.
The campaign seeks to build a national consensus for this policy by securing the endorsement of civic groups, labor unions, peace, environmental and social justice organizations, faith communities, professional associations, and state and local governments.
Abolishing nuclear weapons will not be easy, but if these arsenals continue to exist, someday they will be used. Either we eliminate them, or they will eliminate us.
Ira Helfand is past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.