President Trump's negotiating strategy has often involved the taking of an extreme position, in the hope that the other actor in a test of wills will be thrown off enough to move in his direction. Doug Mills/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — It was only a few hours after his secretary of state cracked open the door on Thursday to negotiating with the North Koreans that President Trump stepped in with exactly the kind of martial-sounding threats against the country that the White House, until now, had carefully avoided.
"There is a chance we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea," he said to Reuters during a round of his 100-days-in-office commemorations. "Absolutely."
Viewed in the most charitable light, Mr. Trump was, in his own nondiplomatic way, building pressure to force the North into a freeze of its nuclear and missile tests, the first step toward resuming the kind of negotiations that Rex W. Tillerson had spoken of earlier in the day. Or, perhaps, he was engaging in a bit of the "madman theory" that he and many of his aides reportedly admire about Richard M. Nixon, who tried to convince Ho Chi Minh, the wily North Vietnamese leader, that he might be crazy enough to drop "the Bomb" if they couldn't find a way to end the Vietnam War.
But the most likely explanation is that Mr. Trump, who until now has largely avoided taking the bait that the North Korean propaganda machine churns out with its own warnings of imminent war, simply reverted to an old habit: sounding as tough as the other guy. The problem is that it clashes with the message his administration has been sending out for in recent days that no pre-emptive strikes are planned, that there is plenty of time and space for diplomacy. Mr. Trump's aides talk of an "integrated strategy" of escalating military and economic pressure to force diplomatic engagement.
The objective, Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who heads United States Pacific Command, told Congress earlier this week is to "bring Kim Jong-un to his senses, not to his knees," a reference to the insecure if absolute leader of North Korea.
That also seemed to be Mr. Tillerson's message. In an interview with NPR, he tried to sound reassuring, he said: "We do not seek a collapse of the regime. We do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula. We seek a denuclearized Korean Peninsula." He even held out at least the possibility of direct talks.
Mr. Trump missed an opportunity to reinforce that effort to reassure the North Koreans that the United States is not looking to topple their leader. Instead, his message could be taken as the opposite.
Mr. Trump's negotiating strategy has often involved the taking of an extreme position, hoping that the other actor in a test of wills will be thrown off enough to move in his direction. That's one thing when it means threatening to pull out of Nafta, the gambit Mr. Trump floated, then retreated from, earlier in the week. But it can be a far riskier bet when exchanging signals with Mr. Kim, who has survived so far – like his father and grandfather before him – by employing a similar playbook of extreme rhetoric, often followed by acts of violence.
So far, Mr. Trump has directed one operation to bolster his claim that he is perfectly willing to use force in an unpredictable manner: his decision a month ago to conduct an intensive, brief attack on a Syrian air base where American intelligence agencies say the Syrian government launched a chemical weapons attack on its own people. It had no follow-up.
But for North Korea, lashing out to send a message is an art form, practiced since the days when Mr. Kim's grandfather ordered the seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo in 1968, followed by the shoot-down of an American reconnaissance plane, killing 31. Then, seven years ago, came the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel – most likely by a North Korean torpedo, though the country denies it – that took 46 lives.
The young Mr. Kim, who took over the following year after his father's death, has worked to burnish his own madman credentials. He is believed to have ordered the cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment that wiped out the company's computer systems in 2014, and the killing of his half brother in Malaysia earlier this year, part of a sustained campaign to eliminate potential rivals. More than a few have been executed with antiaircraft guns, just to make a point.
The fear is that small acts and mutual threats of war can lead to miscalculation. Only hours before Mr. Trump spoke, the North released a propaganda video showing the White House shattering apart in what looked like a nuclear blast. No one takes those videos seriously, but they indicate a state of mind in which every action has to have a reaction.
"That's what I worry about the most," Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said recently. "Rapid escalation."
Past presidents have recognized the risk. It's notable that the shoot-down of the American spy plane in Nixon's time, one of the largest losses of Americans in a Cold War military attack, did not result in retaliation, in part for fear of rekindling the Korean War.
Behind the scenes in the Trump White House, officials are just beginning to debate how to react to potential North Korean acts. One of the most active debates is what to do if the North attempts a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Should it be destroyed on the launchpad? Should the United States attempt to intercept it in midflight, with all the risks of escalation if that succeeds, and the risks of embarrassment if it fails?
Such questions are still being debated, as recently as a meeting at the White House on Thursday, just as Mr. Trump and Mr. Tillerson were sending what sounded like uncoordinated messages.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delivered a stinging speech in the European Parliament Wednesday, asserting Hungary's right to self-governance and defending its actions regarding immigration and against American financial speculator George Soros.
"I know that the power, size and weight of Hungary is much smaller than that of the financial speculator, George Soros, who is now attacking Hungary," Orbán said.
"Despite ruining the lives of millions of European with his financial speculations, being penalized in Hungary for speculations, and who is an openly admitted enemy of the euro, he is so highly praised that he is received by the EU's top leaders," he said.
The Prime Minister's address built upon comments he made in an Easter interview with Magyar Idők, in which he stated the motives behind Hungary's diffidence toward George Soros.
"There can be no special privileges, and no one may stand above the law – not even George Soros's people," he said.
Through his organisations in Hungary, and hidden from the public gaze, Orbán said, "George Soros is spending endless amounts of money to support illegal immigration."
"To pursue his interests he pays a number of lobbying organisations operating in the guise of civil society. He maintains a regular network, with its own promoters, its own media, hundreds of people, and its own university."
"I believe that George Soros must not be underestimated: he is a powerful billionaire of enormous determination who, when it comes to his interests, respects neither God nor man," he said.
In his address before Parliament Wednesday, Orbán said that the basic stance of the government is contrary to the intentions of the European Commission regarding immigration.
"Our position is clear: we do not want, and do not think it is in accordance with the founding treaties of the Union, to settle migrants in our country in a mandatory way," he said. "The decision on who we live with can only be made by the Hungarian citizens."
The Prime Minister said it is important to note that "George Soros and his NGOs want to transport one million migrants to the EU per year. He has personally, publicly announced this programme and provides a financial loan for it. You could read this yourselves."
"We reject this," Orbán said. "We do not want to lose the right of national ratemaking for public utilities, because we fear that this would increase the burdens of the people and once again lead to drastic price increases, from which Hungarian families have suffered enough.
Regarding the regulation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Orbán said that the Hungarian proposal "follows the American example."
The "complicated question," he said, is "how we can make the operations of financially strong foreign external lobbies, willing to influence democratic decision-making, transparent to everyone."
"The Hungarian legislation builds on the principal of clarity and transparency. We want nothing else but to be able to know of NGOs what kind of money and what kind of interests are behind them. This does not undermine their constitutional rights to have their voices heard, represent their interests and be able to organise themselves freely," he said.
Orbán said that Hungarians are in favor of "straight talk" and reject attempts to beat around the bush or hide behind diplomatic language when discussing important issues.
"We talk clearly and unambiguously, so everyone can understand, even if we know that this may not appeal to everyone," he said. "We on the other hand are irritated by the restrained political language, unable to name things for what they are, that has become widespread in European public life nowadays."
Rebelion. Los 10 objetivos de EE.UU. en tres escenarios bélicos
Siria, Afganistán y Corea del Norte han sido elegidos por la Administración Trump para mostrar músculos y dientes y anular el poco cerebro que había exhibido hasta hoy. Esta alta tensión se debió principalmente a varios cambios en el Consejo Nacional de Seguridad de EE.UU. marcados por el triunfo de la facción hostil a Rusia e Irán y la derrota de los "antichinos":
1) el cese de Steve Bannon, que en la línea de Trump consideraba a Pekín el principal enemigo de EEUU y abogaba por una agenda aislacionista.
2) El despido de la Consejera Kathleen McFarland, por ser "prorrusa"
3) El ascenso del intervencionista y estratega militar, el general HR McMaster (ignorado por Obama), que reemplaza al destituido general Michael T. Flynn, acusado de tener contacto con Moscú. Este equipo, al que se integra el jefe del Pentágono, el "Perro Loco" James N. Mattis", ha tomado las riendas de la política exterior de EE.UU.
Siria: el primer escenario
El 4 de abril EE.UU. lanzaba con pompa y flauta 59 misiles a la pista de aterrizaje de la base Al Shayrat sin dañar los aviones rusos allí estacionados. Moscú tampoco utilizó sus misiles S300 y S400 para impedírselo. Seis militares sirios perdieron la vida por esta agresión ilegal realizada para "castigar a Bashar Al Assad" acusado, sin prueba alguna de matar a civiles en un ataque con armas químicas tres días antes. La última versión del confuso incidente es del periodista que destapó el escándalo de "Irán-Contra", Robert Parry, quien señala a la base de las operaciones especiales de Arabia Saudí e Israel en Jordania como el lugar del lanzamiento de aquellas armas. La agresión de EE.UU. había sido planeada antes del incidente químico para que coincidiera con la visita de Xi Jinping a la Casa Blanca, asestando un duro golpe al presidente chino estando en territorio hostil.
¿Por qué EE.UU. no castigó a los grupos terroristas que el día 16 de abril asesinaron en Alepo a 126 civiles chiitas, 68 de ellos niños?
2. Realizar una pequeña exhibición de fuerza antes del viaje del 11 de abril de Rex Tillerson a Rusia, quien pide a los rusos elegir entre Assad y EE.UU., mientras el general McMaster cuestiona la autoridad del Secretario de Estado (que insiste en que la prioridad de EE.UU. es eliminar a ISIS, no al presidente sirio) y sin dejar opciones a Moscú sentencia: "derrocar a Assad ya es inevitable". Si no es con un acuerdo con el Kremlin, será a través de un ataque militar. Las dos facciones del gobierno de EE.UU. coinciden en no alterar la actual dinámica de la guerra de desgaste siria, alargándola durante años, con o sin Assad.
3. Crear una fractura entre Rusia y China. Al parecer, EE.UU. había informado al presidente Xi del ataque, pero no a Putin.
4. Enviar "un mensaje a Irán" decía el jefe de lCIA Director Mike Pompeo. Pretenden provocar a Teherán para que rompa el acuerdo nuclear y así obtener un pretexto poder atacar las instalaciones militares iraníes.
Afganistán: segundo escenario
El 13 de abril Washington probaba en la provincia afgana de Kandahar su bomba "seminuclear" GBU-43, que costó 14,6 millones a los contribuyentes de EE.UU., matando a un centenar de personas. El pretexto fue destruir los túneles de los terroristas de ISIS, cuando en realidad estos hombres armados con lanza y daga no se encuentran en Afganistán, donde EE.UU. cuenta con 11 bases militares y decenas de miles de efectivos. Según The New York Times, dichos túneles habían sido construidos por los yihadistas afganos financiados por la CIA en la década de los ochenta.
Entre los objetivos de EE.UU., estaban:
1. Impresionar a los vecinos de Afganistán: China, Rusia e Irán, la posición geográfica lo convierte en el país centroasiático más estratégico del mundo para la OTAN.
2. Mantener a raya a Teherán. La "madre de todas las bombas" se fabricó para lanzarla sobre la instalación nuclear iraní de Fordow en octubre del 2009, bajo el santo y seña de TIRANNT (Teatre Iran Near Term).
3. Una advertencia a Rusia en su regreso a Afganistán y también a los viejos aliados, los talibanes, quienes se acercan a Moscú: "Roma no paga a los traidores", es el mensaje.
4. Un ensayo general de la bomba, que contiene 11 toneladas de explosivos, sobre éste desamparado país, antes de su uso en otro país a destruir.
5. Encargar más bombas de destrucción masiva de este tipo a los fabricantes que están haciendo su agosto.
Corea del Norte: Tercer escenario
Tras las provocativas maniobras militares conjuntas de EE.UU. y Corea del Sur el 11 de abril, cerca de Seúl, la República Popular Democrática de Corea (RPDC), que las considera un ensayo para la invasión de su territorio, anunció nuevas pruebas de misiles y la sexta prueba de su bomba nuclear. El día 16 EE.UU. fingía estar muy enfadado. Y para mostrar el fin de su "paciencia estratégica" dijo haber enviado el portaviones Carl Vinson y un submarino nuclear a la península de Corea. Otra mentira, también en este tercer escenario.
Bueno, Pyongyang es inmune a las amenazas de EE.UU. Al contrario que los estadounidenses cuya memoria histórica se estanca en el 11-S de 2001, los coreanos tienen muy presente que hace 64 años EE.UU. lanzó 32.000 toneladas de napalm sobre su país, matando al 20 % de su población (cerca de 3 millones de personas) cuando aquella pequeña nación no representaba ningún peligro para el imperio.
EE.UU. no tiene plan para atacar a RPDC, porque:
1. Este país no tiene petróleo y, por ende, carece de interés económico.
2. Las armas de Pyongyang pueden convertir a Seúl y Tokio en cenizas, por lo que Corea del Sur y Japón, que temen más a Trump que a Kim Jong-un prefieren la diplomacia a la guerra.
3. Trump no puede empezar una guerra relámpago a miles de kilómetros de su tierra.
4. EE.UU. puede sacar de los jeques árabe los costos de la guerra contra Siria. ¿Pero cómo financiaría su hazaña contra RPDC?
5. El hecho de estar ambas partes armadas con bombas nucleares reduce la posibilidad de una confrontación. Nota que otros países que están en el punto de mira de Washington tendrán en cuenta.
El objetivo principal de EE.UU. aquí es aumentar la presión sobre China armando a sus aliados de la región y militarizar todavía más la zona.
La relación entre Pekín y Pyongyang es complicada: China apoya las sanciones de la ONU a RPDC por sus ensayos nucleares, ha paralizado desde febrero las importaciones de carbón y acaba de suspender sus vuelos al país. Y en esta crisis, sin condenar a EE.UU., ha pedido contención a ambos países. Es cierto que la aparente imparcialidad de China le da la posibilidad de mediar entre ambas partes, pero los lideres norcoreanos aun no han recibido al enviado especial chino Wu Dawei para tratar el tema.
Trump ha ofrecido a Xi Jinping un "buen acuerdo" comercial si colabora en detener la próxima prueba nuclear de Kim Jong-un. Quizás pensaba en aquellas décadas de la Guerra Fría cuando ambos países se unieron para debilitar a la Unión Soviética. Pero a China, más que acuerdos comerciales, lo que le interesa es que EE.UU. desmantele el escudo antimisiles THAAD instalado en Corea del Sur que apunta a China y es capaz de disparar 48 misiles de forma simultánea. RPDC es para Pekín un "Estado barrera" al proteger el noroeste del país y Manchuria de posibles ataques de EE.UU.
Pyongyang ha ofrecido a EE.UU. firmar un tratado de no agresión y suspender las pruebas nucleares a cambio de que el país occidental suspenda las maniobras que simulan su aniquilación.
Trump ahora sí que es el presidente de EE.UU.
Sólo necesitaba este dantesco clima de guerra y el espectáculo de muerte y destrucción para ser aceptado como presidente de la superpotencia. Trump, al mostrar que es capaz de bombardear a naciones débiles como sus antecesores, ha conseguido pasar de ser un personaje ridículo y odiado en EE.UU. a ser aplaudido incluso por el Partido Demócrata. ¡Recibió el apoyo del Congreso tras atacar la base siria, sin haberlo solicitado!
Donald Trump abandona su idea de "deconstrucción" del sistema para continuar con la línea que representó Hilary Clinton, convirtiéndose en el portavoz de quienes le criticaban. Así exporta la crisis interna de la Casa Blanca, entregando el poder a los militares con la frase de "La OTAN ya no está obsoleta" y desdibuja el "Rusiagate" que ha afectado incluso a su yerno Jared Kushner por tener contacto con los rusos.
Tras el fin del orden "antiguo" en 1991 por la desaparición de la Union Soviética, el capitalismo triunfante no ha conseguido crear un orden nuevo. Siria, Irán o Corea del Norte son lugares donde se sigue librando esta batalla para diseñar un nuevo equilibrio entre las potencias mundiales.
Is China the Solution to the North Korean Problem?
Based on the completed review of Washington's North Korea policy, the U.S. administration has no plan to respond to Pyongyang's next nuclear test with military might. But U.S. President Donald Trump has taken every opportunity to show that he still considers all options — including a military strike — to be on the table.
This won't, however, do much to change North Korea's own calculations. Pyongyang no longer sees its nuclear weapons program as a chip to be bargained away for economic and security concessions from Washington. Instead, developing a credible nuclear deterrent has become a matter of national security, and a crucial one at that. North Korea will forge ahead with its nuclear program undeterred, bringing it one step closer to its final stage — and bringing the country closer to a clash with regional powers intent on stopping it.
In this, at least, the United States and China have found a common goal. But as the two embattled administrations have discovered, the mutual need to rein in North Korea can be as much a divisive force as a uniting one.
Sanction, or Be Sanctioned
The United States has both dangled carrots and brandished sticks in trying to secure China's cooperation on North Korea. On one hand, Washington has begun to soften its tone on trade issues causing contention with Beijing in an apparent show of goodwill. On the other, the White House hasn't been shy about issuing a clear ultimatum: Work with us to press North Korea into abandoning its nuclear program or suffer the consequences when we act alone. (This would likely take the form of secondary sanctions against China or a buildup of missile defenses in the region, each of which would create headaches in Beijing.) Washington's message hasn't fallen on deaf ears; China has already taken clear steps to cut down on cross-border trade, particularly in coal, and limit financial transactions with its unruly neighbor. Beijing has vowed to ensure that oil supplies flowing into North Korea will dry up if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear test.
Despite their seeming alignment, though, the United States and China have widely diverging objectives on the Korean Peninsula. By putting pressure on Pyongyang, Beijing is seeking to preempt a unilateral intervention by Washington, boost the remote prospects of Chinese-led negotiations and hedge against future trade friction with the United States — but not to sever North Korea's economic lifelines. Washington, however, has made it clear that dialogue with Pyongyang will arise only if its purpose is to dismantle the North's nuclear program. To that end, the United States relies on China's economic leverage against North Korea as a primary means of altering Pyongyang's behavior.
Washington's decision to enlist Beijing against its neighbor and ally makes a good deal of sense. After all, China is North Korea's primary source of economic support, which means its participation in any sanctions against Pyongyang is critical to their success. Washington has long seen Beijing's lax enforcement of sanctions and exploitation of loopholes in previous sanctions regimes, as well as the access many Chinese banks and businesses maintain across the border, as acts of complicity in North Korean misdeeds.
Same Goal, Different Motives
It isn't clear precisely what actions the United States will take against North Korea (whether unilaterally or through the United Nations), or by extension, what it will demand China do. That said, those demands will likely fall into two broad categories: stricter enforcement of U.N. Security Council trade resolutions, and the prevention of cross-border financial transactions and illegal arms smuggling.
No doubt, neither strategy will be easy to execute. For one, the U.N. resolutions banning imports of North Korean coal, copper, iron ore and fuel supplies make exceptions for "humanitarian purposes." Pyongyang has made liberal use of this loophole to skirt the sanctions and continue sending its commodities to countries such as Russia. For another, slapping secondary sanctions on China to ensure better compliance with sanctions regimes will likely have a minimal effect on the Chinese companies doing business with their North Korean counterparts, since they have little exposure to the U.S. financial system. The move, moreover, could risk backlash from Beijing if major Chinese banks are caught up in the sanctions net.
Given its desire to avoid antagonizing the United States, China may well be willing to more closely enforce existing sanctions — and comply with new ones — anyway. Yet even then, Beijing will only cooperate to the extent that it does not jeopardize the North Korean economy's survival in the process. China would almost certainly view a complete cutoff in Pyongyang's access to oil, food or international aid as a bridge too far, and a measure that would fly in the face of Beijing's own imperative to maintain stable buffer states on its borders. This need explains why, despite China's rising frustration with North Korea over the past few years, trade between the two has continued. (Even under the recent ban on coal imports, Beijing's purchases of North Korean iron and other minerals have climbed sharply to compensate for the cutbacks.)
One of the greatest challenges to adding sanctions against North Korea, then, will be the difference in Washington and Beijing's estimates of just how much pressure China can apply before North Korea collapses or lashes out. Of course, this also gives rise to a bigger question: Given the North Korean government's resilience, would new sanctions even be enough to persuade Pyongyang to set aside its nuclear program? Decades of sanctions have hiked up the costs of developing its arsenal, to be sure, but they haven't managed to halt or even slow its progress. There is also always the risk that exacerbating North Korea's economic problems would push Pyongyang away from its only ally — Beijing — and toward tactics of last resort.
Beijing's Bottom Line
That the United States has once again turned to China to solve its North Korean problem speaks to its lack of viable alternatives. But Beijing's choices for dealing with the pariah state are no less constrained. For decades, China has based its North Korea policy on several, often contradictory, goals: to ensure the existence of a pliable and stable buffer state on its doorstep; to keep the United States from expanding its security role in Northeast Asia; and to block the re-emergence of a unified peninsula.
So, China's historical tolerance toward Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions is hardly surprising. From Beijing's perspective, the controversial program has been a necessary means of safeguarding the North Korean government's grip on power and preventing a security vacuum that might invite U.S. interference. But as the prospect of a nuclear North Korea has shifted from a distant possibility to an impending threat, China has had to come to terms with a number of new and uncomfortable realities. South Korea, Japan and possibly Taiwan are eager to build a regional ballistic missile defense system led by the United States, perhaps even someday seeking nuclear weapons programs of their own. Meanwhile, as China has found itself less able to restrain the recalcitrant government in Pyongyang, the threat of military conflict on its border — or negotiations with Washington that exclude Beijing — has grown.
There is always the risk that exacerbating North Korea's economic problems would push Pyongyang away from its only ally — Beijing — and toward tactics of last resort.
Faced with its own constraints and challenges, China will have to decide whether its long-standing strategy on North Korea is sustainable, and whether it is willing to accept another nuclear power in its backyard. Beijing is not without options; it could throw its full weight behind either Washington or Pyongyang, or do neither and preserve the status quo. But each path is riddled with potential pitfalls, and the time to choose one of them is running out.
The Least-Bad Option
Finding a diplomatic solution to the North Korean problem continues to be China's best bet. Under ideal circumstances, Pyongyang would agree to suspend its nuclear program and join Beijing in bilateral or multilateral negotiations. China hasn't given up on this outcome just yet: It has repeatedly called for the resumption of stalled peace talks. But with North Korea showing no interest in trading away its nuclear program, and the United States refusing to engage in negotiations without it, the likelihood of Beijing striking its grand bargain is low at this point.
Other avenues toward North Korean denuclearization would present even greater perils than those China currently faces. Intense debates are underway within Chinese policy circles to determine Beijing's choices for addressing Pyongyang's nuclear program, giving rise to proposals from offering North Korea a security guarantee to supporting a decapitation strike against the government of Kim Jong Un. The former, a substantial reversal of Beijing's long-held policy of non-interference abroad, would not sway Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear project, while the latter would scarcely appeal to Beijing. Because ultimately, there is no guarantee that removing the obstinate leader would yield better results than simply leaving him in office, or that the United States would not seize the opportunity to extend its reach in China's neighborhood.
