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Credit to Author: Brian Barrett| Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 11:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n President Trump regularly <\/span>demonstrates a great capacity for playing fast and loose with the truth. By one calculation, he publicly lied or exaggerated<\/a> at least once daily during the 40 days following his inauguration. Politicians routinely bend reality or, in some cases, break with it entirely. But there is no precedent for applying such casual disregard to nuclear weapons, as Trump did this week. For good reason.<\/p>\n Trump garnered international headlines Tuesday when he declared that any further threats from North Korea would prompt "fire, fury, and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before." His bluster followed a Washington Post<\/em> report that the Hermit Kingdom had developed a nuclear weapon small enough to deploy on a missile. Lest anyone doubt the president's intentions, he followed up Wednesday morning with a tweet calling the US nuclear arsenal "far stronger and more power than ever before" and unjustifiably crediting himself with its renovation and modernization.<\/p>\n Alarming, yes. More troubling is how Trump arrived at his heated rhetoric. The Weekly Standard<\/a><\/em> and The New York Times<\/a><\/em> reported that the extemporaneous \u201cfire and fury\u201d line caught senior aides off guard. And the arsenal tweets are misleading at best, and at least in part demonstrably false. In other words, Trump opted to discuss nuclear escalation with the same reckless abandon he's shown for crowd sizes, voter fraud, and phone calls from foreign leaders or the Boy Scouts. Presidents have spoken with force before\u2014George W. Bush, for example, vowed to capture Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." But when it comes to national security and nuclear weapons, presidents typically choose their words with extreme care. To do otherwise invites potentially catastrophic consequences.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with Trump\u2019s off-the-cuff promise to rain military might upon North Korea should it make another threat. While the strong phrasing worries observers, harsh words in and of themselves don\u2019t necessarily mean calamity ahead. In fact, they often serve a strategic purpose, especially against a country that has stymied all efforts to curtail its nuclear ambitions. \u201cI may not have used those exact words, but I'm glad he spoke forcefully,\u201d one GOP national security aide says. \u201cNothing has gotten through to them\u2014maybe this does.\u201d<\/p>\n One needn\u2019t look too far back in history for parallels. US General Curtis LeMay famously threatened to bomb North Vietnam \u201cback to the Stone Age," for example. \u201cI think it\u2019s important not to overstate the rarity of the language,\u201d says Scott Sigmund Gartner, director of the Penn State School of International Affairs. What's unusual here, however, is the instinct to improvise so loaded a decree. While that strategy often plays well for Trump when discussing domestic issues, it carries far greater weight when discussing an existential threat.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to nuclear weapons, a whole other level of deliberation and careful selection of language is implied,\u201d Gartner says. Though, in this case, seemingly not attained.<\/p>\n Wednesday's presidential tweets compound the issue. \u201cMy first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before,\u201d Trump wrote, apparently referring to a legally mandated review of US nuclear posture that he signed on January 27. Beyond the fact that it was not actually his first order\u2014that distinction<\/a> goes to his Day One kickoff to repeal Obamacare\u2014it grossly misrepresents Trump\u2019s role in revitalizing the nation's nuclear stockpile.<\/p>\n \u201cThe professionals of the nuclear security enterprise are incredibly dedicated to their mission, and they will dutifully execute any direction from the president agnostic of political ideologies. However, we've simply yet to receive them,\u201d one Department of Energy official says. \u201cAs such, the idea that the president has delivered on some grand vision for nuclear modernization is extremely exaggerated and misleading.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s shenanigans didn\u2019t trigger an international incident, even if they did prompt Kim Jong-un to threaten Guam. But his lack of precision worries close observers of North Korea. While Americans may have long since learned not to read too much into Trump\u2019s more outrageous statements, the rest of the world has not\u2014especially those on the receiving end of his pronouncements.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously the question is whether there is a strategy behind the president\u2019s rhetoric. That\u2019s always important. As you ratchet up your rhetoric, there\u2019s always the possibility that your adversary will call your bluff,\u201d says PJ Crowley, former assistant secretary of state and author of Red Line<\/em>, a look at US foreign policy in the context of failing states. \u201cIt remains unclear if the Trump administration really has a clear path forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Two issues intertwine when Trump spouts off nuclear weapons without much strategic thought: escalation and credibility, both of which seem to be heading in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n \u201cA lie is a lie, and he\u2019s proven to be the master of lies. But we\u2019re not playing tiddlywinks here,\u201d says John Tierney, a former congressman and the executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. \u201cThis is serious stuff and an existential threat. His pathology here puts us at great risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Understanding the nature of that risk requires understanding how North Korea sees itself in the world. \u201cIt\u2019s very reckless and very dangerous for Trump to be making off-the-cuff comments,\u201d says Jenny Town, managing editor of North Korea watchdog 38 North and assistant director of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS. \u201dNorth Koreans already feel that the US is a threat to them.\u201d<\/p>\n That context makes it harder for North Korea\u2014or US allies in the region, like South Korea and Japan\u2014to dismiss Trump\u2019s statements as mere bluster, or to believe Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he offers reassurances to that effect. (Remember, too, that several government positions that might help mitigate these conflagurations remain vacant<\/a>.) A country that fears an existential threat can\u2019t afford to brush off statements from the source of that perceived threat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe primary danger is not that Kim Jong-un is going to take a suicidal act. It\u2019s that something that this president says precipitously or unknowingly, or something that he does, is going to make Kim Jong-un believe he\u2019s in a situation that he may have to respond,\u201d Tierney says.<\/p>\n 'A lie is a lie, and he\u2019s proven to be the master of lies. But we\u2019re not playing tiddlywinks here.' \u2014 John Tierney, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation<\/p>\n That Trump\u2019s statements implied the possibility of preemptive attack underscores that exact danger. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary James Mattis issued a fiery statement of his own when he clarified that North Korean "actions," and not "threats," would provoke a US response. The distinction makes all the difference.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Trump\u2019s rhetoric does push North Korea toward miscalculation,\u201d Towns says. \u201cThe miscalculation is, if they really believe that the US is about to attack, what might they do to preempt that attack? That\u2019s the last thing we want.\u201d<\/p>\n Crowley credits the Trump administration with prioritizing the North Korea issue and with successfully pressuring China to take a harder line toward its neighbor. Rather than building on that hard work, though, inexact speech and prevarications threaten Trump\u2019s credibility, and by extension the credibility of the US. \u201cIt\u2019s unlikely the Trump administration has been able to think its way through all of the difficult questions that surround the North Korea problem,\u201d Crowley says.<\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t, though, stopped Trump from making broad proclamations about it.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the big concern here,\u201d says Gartner. \u201cThe president says something. It\u2019s pretty clear that it would never happen, but North Korea doesn\u2019t have a full understanding of the American national security establishment, and takes the president at his word.\u201d<\/p>\n That, then, is where Trump's rhetoric has brought the world: The biggest threat might be that someone actually believes what he says.<\/p>\n