Without North Korea’s credible threats to destroy American cities, there would likely be no current crisis on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea could have continued to quietly build its nuclear arsenal and missile technology, as it had for decades. South Korea would have accepted their bad brother, who it considered full of bluster but harmless, per Presidents Roh Moo-hyun, Kim Dae-jung, and the narrative on the street. China, the perfect enabler, would have continued to look the other way, happy to have a neighbor worse than their government to show their people the greatness of communism. And the United States would have eventually just shrugged its shoulders, as it eventually did with Russian Soviet, Chinese, and Pakistani dictators and their nuclear weapons.

The shrugs to the Russians began with detente, when Soviet dictators showed they were rationale nuclear players who didn’t want nuclear war, and in fact wanted to reduce the threat. The Chinese were never threatening and the Soviets eclipsed them as the American existential threat. And Pakistan neither threatened the US nor had the missile capability to do so, though they were obviously American adversaries with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. This shows that the United States can accept rationale dictators with nukes. But irrational dictators with credible threats are casus belli, or reason for war.

It was irrational Kim Jung-un who eventually drove American patience to the breaking point. Trump threatened to rain “fire and fury like the world has never seen” upon the peninsula if North Korea’s increasing threats to rain fire and fury on Seoul, D.C., US bases, and Guam, continued. An irrational president was for once acting rationally to real threats. A dictator who appeared thoroughly unhinged was a credible threat. Obama had warned Trump of this pre-eminent menace upon taking office. And daily, the American media began beating the drums of war, as it had in the lead-up to war with Saddam Hussein.

Kim Jung-un expressed his irrationality in so many ways. He was a world leader that no one could reason with. He wouldn’t talk with anyone. He wouldn’t meet with anyone, except Dennis Rodman. He threatened destruction to the imperialists and their allies by launching missiles as soon as they could be put on the pads and testing nukes as soon as the tunnels could be re-dug. He threatened those who warned against his madness. And in killing his family members, not to mention his starving people, he showed madness in abundance. Even the Chinese began to call him out for being a fat boy bully. Dictator Xi and wannabe dictator Trump even came to agreement that this bullying had to end, perhaps with the understanding that it would come in the form of an American punch in the Kim nose.

Surprisingly, President Roh’s protege, President Moon, couldn’t take it either. He threw the North Koreans (and South Korean experts) a curve ball by not taking Roh’s road to appeasement but by siding more closely with Washington and calling for a final end to the Korean War through denuclearization. At the same time, he held out his hand to the North if they would begin to act rationally by discussing the problem they had created. Discussion could begin with a children’s trip to the amusement park of the Olympics. Moon was entreating the dictator’s cadre on their level.

Just as children often act reasonably when positively encouraged to do so, Kim Jung-un has now surprised the world by drawing on his Swiss, international education to do a flip – prodigious for a man weighed down by such bulk. He entertained the South’s diplomatic mission with aplomb. He understood the need for South and US military exercises. He recognized his country as poor.

He has now civilly met Xi, with wives, for dinner, venturing as far as Beijing. And he is slated to meet soon with Moon and then Trump to discuss denuclearization and a return to the family of nations. Kim is turning on the charm to show he is a rationale actor. Is it timely, or too late for his ends, whatever they may be?

The rough draft of peninsular history is now being penned with rapidity. And as we write it, a primary questions becomes, at what level will the bar be set? Will the parties concerned settle for nothing less than denuclearization? Or will Kim Jung-un come to be recognized as a rationale dictator with nukes?

Around these questions, the fate of the peninsula may swirl. Don’t leave your seats. 


Keenan Fagan
Keenan Fagan is assistant professor, Dongguk University, Dharma College Foreign Language Center. -- Ed.