President Trump and his national security team are meeting North Korean bluster with bluster as saber-rattling escalates between Pyongyang and Washington. As diplomats and analysts wring their hands, it is worth remembering that this is not the first time the United States has sent carrier strike groups toward the reclusive communist regime.
As President Gerald Ford’s administration wound down in 1976, North Korea attacked American soldiers who were working legally in the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea.
As American Cpt. Arthur Bonifas supervised a crew trimming a tree that obstructed an American observation post, North Korean soldiers demanded the tree trimming stop. When Bonifas refused, some 20 North Korean soldiers knocked Bonifas and Lt. Mark Barrett to the ground and hacked them to death with axes. The murders shocked Washington but, for North Korea, the incident simply topped off a propaganda campaign which Pyongyang had initiated months before.
While the North Korean regime sought diplomatic advantage, blaming violence on American presence, the brutality of the axe murders repulsed pretty much everyone, including Pyongyang’s traditional backers in Moscow and Beijing. If the murders were a gambit to undercut the U.S., the net effect was opposite.
The U.S. neither offered a humiliating apology for Pyongyang to broadcast repeatedly nor did it bomb North Korea, as Secretary of State Henry Kissinger proposed. Rather, the U.S. launched Operation Paul Bunyan, a full-scale operation to cut down the tree, backed not only by U.S. Army engineers, combat troops, and South Korean Special Forces, but also with squadrons of jet fighters, B-52 bombers, and the USS Midway strike group on full alert.
Military bluster might not have been American style in the Korean Peninsula, but the outgoing Ford administration decided it worthwhile to play by Pyongyang rules. It worked. Not only did North Korea stand down, but Kim Il Sung subsequently offered regrets.
Back to the present day: American intellectuals like to self-flagellate, but it’s important to remember that responsibility for the current crisis lays with North Korea, which has shredded commitments and repeatedly launched ballistic missiles.
Kim Jong Un’s logic is easy to understand: Since President Jimmy Carter’s administration, every North Korean temper tantrum has won Pyongyang reward rather than punishment. The U.S. has also showered China with concessions in order to get it to play middle man. Beijing pocketed these — preferential trade, licenses on dual-use technology and others — but never delivered. Fool me once, fool me twice, fool me 17 times might have become the mantra of U.S. diplomacy, but mantras can change.
Make no mistake: The situation is dangerous. Seoul, South Korea’s capital, is within easy artillery range of North Korea — the North does not need a nuke to inflict heavy casualties, although South Korea should have an Israeli-style anti-missile system in place.
But, North Korea’s progress toward a nuclear weapon and its support for terrorism — most recently on display in Malaysia — show that this is no longer a problem that can be ignored. Engineers can learn as much from a failed missile test as from a successful one. A White House policy of procrastination will not protect the American homeland. If North Korea threatens to nuke the U.S. now, what will they threaten when they have more advanced nuclear weapons and missiles?
Trump is right: It is time to stand up to North Korea. Let North Korea’s allies tell the hermit kingdom’s boy king in no uncertain terms what he risks if he does not stand down.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official.
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