Hi again. I promised you another analysis of President Trump's principled stand against North Korea, and here it is. It's already been published in the
Olean Times Herald, but I don't have a link for it as yet. Enjoy!
Trump: The Last, Best Hope for Peace
To those who
consider President Trump a belligerent buffoon, the title to my
article will naturally come as a surprise. What these Trump critics
fail to realize, however, is that adopting a threatening and forceful
posture, as Trump has done in recent days with North Korea, is a
time-honored tactic of diplomacy and negotiation, and President Trump
is nothing if not a skilled deal-maker. He understands, as the press
seems not to, that sometimes the only way to avoid war is to convince
others that you are prepared to fight. This maximizes the pressure
on your enemy to make concessions. And, I would argue, at this
juncture concessions on North Korea's part are the only way that
peace can be maintained in East Asia.
A history lesson
is in order. President Richard Nixon is now regarded as one of the
most brilliant and accomplished Presidents in terms of his management
of foreign policy. During his Presidency, however, he was routinely
derided (by sanctimonious liberals) as a madman and a warmonger. An
excellent case in point would be the “Christmas Bombings” of
December 1972. With tremendous difficulty, earlier in 1972 Nixon's
National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, had negotiated a peace
agreement with communist North Vietnam to end the Vietnam War. By
the end of the year, however, the North Vietnamese were wavering. In
mid-December, President Nixon ordered a massive bombing campaign
against the North, involving waves of B-52 bombers. His aim was to
pressure the North Vietnamese to resume talks and accept a compromise
settlement. His actions were roundly criticized as bloodthirsty and
callous. Weak-kneed leftists around the world rallied to defend the
communist North Vietnamese. President Nixon's bold gambit succeeded,
however: the North Vietnamese returned to the negotiating table, and
the peace agreement was signed in January 1973. The Vietnam War
ended, and on terms largely favorable to the United States. (It was
only after President Nixon's resignation that the North Vietnamese
resumed their campaign to conquer the South.)
What can we learn
from this Nixonian parable? The enemies of the United States are
tough customers. They do not respond to mealy-mouthed platitudes.
They respond to force, and to the threat of force. They act out of
self-interest, and therefore an America that is unwilling to threaten
the vital interests of its enemies is an America that those enemies
will surely not take seriously. President Trump may now stand
condemned in the mainstream media as a loose cannon, and as a
swaggering fool, but he should know that great Presidents that have
come before him, like Nixon and Reagan, have borne the same type of
abuse, and for the same reasons, and with the same scant
justification. President Reagan's Cold War strategy of “Peace
Through Strength,” which sought to build up U.S. military forces to
counter Soviet aggression, was a legendary success. Many historians
believe that it paved the way for the West's victory in the Cold War
a few years later. But where would the world be today if President
Reagan had listened to his over-refined leftist critics – if he had
curtailed the U.S. defense buildup and gone hat-in-hand to the
Soviets, begging for mercy? The mere thought is chilling.
Because North
Korea's possession of nuclear weapons, and the capacity to deliver
them to the United States, is utterly unacceptable, this means there
is only one way to avoid confrontation between our two countries:
North Korea must relent, and it must give up its ICBMs and its
nuclear arsenal. The only way this can happen, though, is if the
North Koreans become convinced that the alternative to capitulation
is obliteration. In other words, U.S. threats of military action
must be credible, and they must be credited by China and North Korea,
in particular. That China recently voted in the U.N. Security
Council in favor of the toughest ever sanctions against North Korea
proves that they take U.S. threats seriously. That, at least, is a
start. It is also, incidentally, a victory for the U.S. at the
United Nations that the pusillanimous Obama administration never
could have achieved.
The next time
President Trump brandishes the sword against North Korea, therefore,
and the next time he promises “fire and fury” to anyone who
attacks or threatens to attack us, our allies, or our interests,
Americans of all political persuasions should not criticize him; they
should praise him. We should all pledge our full support to
President Trump and to the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who may be
called upon to implement a military response to North Korean
aggression. We should do so not only because it is the right thing
for patriotic Americans to do, but also because a united front
against North Korea, and a demonstration of our granite resolve, is
the only way to convince Kim Jong-un and his henchmen to come to
their senses. We must be ready for war, in short, because it may
well come, but also because our very readiness for battle may be the
only hope we have to avoid it.
President Trump
understands these foreign policy truisms better, it seems, than many
of the “experts”. Let us hope and pray that he will stay the
course and apply whatever pressure is needed to safeguard the
American people from North Korea's nuclear weapons.
