 Joe Honick |
President Donald Trump, in one more expression of his perception of international “leadership,” has dispatched our VP Mike Pence to go forth and frighten an already frightened world with a declaration that North Korea has “gotta behave”….or else…or else what we can only imagine.
Trump, who could fire anyone he pleased on his old TV program, threw out these verbal bombs as if those in other nations will wilt from fright or apologize for angering him. As I wrote a few days ago there is the absolute need for a “therefore” when you decide to threaten or otherwise assert yourself.
First, it is not out of the question that more than a couple of nations have the ability, desire and money to produce nuclear power, whether for military of civilian use. In the case of North Korea, crazy as their own knee jerk leader threatens, he and those around him have to know that any nuke flung at this or any other part of the world would rapidly result in his own nation being flattened in a matter of hours.
However, the Trump-Pence team seem to have not the slightest understanding of Asian psychology or anyone else’s for that matter, but mainly of nations who really do not need any wars for the moment, even though they sputter and do some militaristic chest thumping.
Next, it was President Obama who also dispatched one of his top operators, John Kerry, to running about the Middle East to sign up “partners” for the war on ISIS. At that time, I raised key questions that put Kerry’s mission in perspective, asking:
-What did he have to promise to get anyone to sign up?
-How would we know when or if the campaign would be a success?
-How could we prove it?
There were of course other questions, but the unreported reality remained there was not much success in Kerry’s campaign.
Now, as Pence goes forth to beat the Trump drum about his leader’s leaky valve of patience, there are many questions as to just who would join the army of supporters simply because the American president has spoken….or, rather ranted.
After all, unlike Obama, it was a very shrill Trump on the campaign stump who not only declared he knew ISIS better than all the generals, but, if elected, he would see to it that ISIS was gone and gone fast….hardly understanding that ISIS did not and does not function in conventional fashion but recruits over telephones and the Internet and does not confront land armies and air forces.
Our president did not even question whether it could have been ISIS and not Syria who launched that gas on so many innocents since there was no advantage for either Russia OR the Syrian dictator to do so.
Of less than praiseworthy reality, not one single major press operation or commentator has pointed to the fact that a calm and cool Vladimir Putin, major advocate for Syria, has determined NOT to join in the rhetoric except to say, “It wasn’t us…and might not have been Assad.”
So, now, having tossed scores of missiles and bombs that made lots of noise without any sense of capitulation from anyone, Syrian or otherwise, Trump has turned his public fury to the North Koreans, virtually asking for a reason to dispatch more shows of power no matter whom such blasts might take with them or even explaining why our uniformed men and women should be so committed in all those far-flung places.
Even more dangerous, whom could Trump confidently declare would join any such effort? After all, he has hardly expressed proper respect for the leader of the hugely powerful nation of China, speaking only as a teacher handing its president an assignment to “take care of things with North Korea.”
It is now that President Trump must prove his capacity for the “art of a peaceful deal” rather than the threat of war.
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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications. He can be reached at [email protected]
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