President Trump loves to talk about his deal-making prowess and, as he meets with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, he’s most certainly looking for a deal to claim as a victory.
From a political standpoint, that makes a lot of sense. The art of talking about the deal is often more important to winning elections than are the fine points of what an agreement actually says. But with denuclearization, the substance of the deal matters, not just how well it works as part of a 2020 campaign platform.
The Cold War offers the clearest historical example of the problem of rising tensions among nuclear-armed states, but there’s another conflict playing out in real time.
After a Pakistan-based terrorist group claimed credit for an attack that killed at least 40 Indian troops in the disputed border region of Kashmir, India responded with a strike against the group in Pakistani-controlled territory. Since then, tit-for-tat retaliation has most recently resulted in the Pakistani air force claiming it shot down two Indian warplanes and captured a pilot.
With smoldering planes, dead troops, and dropped bombs, the risk of a new, violent escalation to a decades-old dispute is high. But as Pakistani Prime Minster Imran Khan warned, there is little room for miscalculation as both countries have nuclear arms.
I ask India,given the weapons capability on both sides, can we afford a miscalculation? It will neither be in my control nor Modi’s.We are ready to come on the table and talk about terrorism that affects both the countries. We are ready. #BetterSenseShouldPrevail @ImranKhanPTI pic.twitter.com/KybAdtTfRR
— PTI (@PTIofficial) February 27, 2019
This should come as a wake-up call for Trump. Nuclear arms must not be treated like just another deal. Indeed, if the precipitous spiral of events between India and Pakistan is any indication, the spark of a conflict with an even less stable state like North Korea could just as easily escalate to a real threat of a nuclear strike.
The stakes for ongoing talks with North Korea are not the same as tariffs on soybeans or negotiating to get more U.S. cars on European streets. As the conflict in Kashmir and the threat of nuclear weapons demonstrates, a winning deal in North Korea requires a single-minded focus on denuclarization without worry about anyone’s deal-or-no-deal television commentary.
