After several days of befuddlement, I’ve finally coined a term for President Trump’s North Korea policy: strategic incoherence.
How else can one describe the Trump administration’s rhetoric on the North Korean nuclear issue? Pinpointing a single approach to the problem is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Except this time, those of us who study politics or foreign policy for a living are left with digging through the hay on a fool’s errand, coming away with nothing to show for it.
In many cases over the first 100 days, the Trump administration has operated more like a disjointed multinational business where the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. It certainly isn’t the “well-oiled machine” that Trump has proclaimed in public, because that would imply that the entire organization has a clear hierarchy and a modus-operandi for how to conduct its business.
Talking points in this White House don’t seem to exist, and if they do exist, they’re quickly thrown into the shredder and rendered meaningless after a few television interviews. A top national security aide says one thing, and Trump says something completely different (sometimes on the same day), thereby nullifying what his employees have said. North Korea, one of the most serious national security issues that is on Washington’s docket right now, isn’t immune to the chaotic messaging. Depending on who you ask, you get a different answer about what the United States’ policy is.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a measured, almost reassuring, approach when he’s asked to describe Washington’s strategy. It’s not about regime change, it’s not about human rights, and it’s not about going to war, Tillerson says, but about one thing and one thing only: denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula through diplomatic means, and leveraging China’s economic power to bring Pyongyang to the table.
If Tillerson is a more media-shy version of John Kerry, Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley is the female-Dick Cheney, threatening the full weight and power of the U.S. military if Pyongyang does anything at all that is perceived to be foolish. “If you see [Kim Jong-un] attack a military base if you see some sort of intercontinental ballistic missile,” then military action becomes a very clear possibility.s
Vice President Mike Pence is too busy posing for the cameras, looking tough and resolute in his black bomber jacket to say anything much at all beside the usual platitudes, so let’s go to Trump himself.
Well, we may need to skip the president too, because he hasn’t exactly been a beacon of clarity on the issue either. On one day, he raises the scary prospect that the U.S. and North Korea may very well be on the cusp of a nuclear war. But then he broaches the possibility days later of perhaps meeting Kim Jong-un directly if the circumstances are right. What those circumstances might be is anybody’s guess, but it’s probably best not to assume one way or the other, because they too could change about as quickly as Trump’s finger hitting the red Coke button on his desk.
Like a lot of people, I’ve gotten tired of pulling my hair out, trying to discover what exactly the Trump administration hopes to accomplish, how it hopes to accomplish it, and whether its goals are even possible. Either the White House is playing this like a Svengali, or the entire national security team could use a sit-down meeting in order to get everybody reading from the same script.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a fellow at Defense Priorities. His opinions are his own.
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