Trump blows a lot of smoke and looks foolish, and Kim probably got exactly what he wanted. That’s how I read Robert Carlin’s post on 38 North concerning the dangers of a war breaking out a few weeks ago between North Korea and the United States:
The real question, the important question, the one that could be answered was: what were the North Koreans doing from August 9-14 while the US was huffing and puffing over Pyongyang’s threat about Guam?
The answer, it turns out, was easy: almost nothing. There were rallies in Pyongyang and the provinces. (The two laggards held their rallies yesterday.) There were reports of youths and students rushing to declare their willingness to enlist in the army. But for the rest of the country, the message was that the way to defeat the Americans was: Stay at work! Produce more!
In other words, there was no mobilization of the population in preparation for a military confrontation. Even more telling, although Western media were fixated on Guam during this period, North Korean media barely mentioned it after the initial statements appeared announcing the planning. None of the reports on the rallies mentioned Guam. The focus, instead, was on the August 7 DPRK Government statement issued in response to the new UN Security Council sanctions resolution passed just a few days before.
And does the mainstream media have access to that sort of data? I don’t know. But certainly actions say more than incoherent bluster. Trump might have done better if he’d just said, Oh, did Kim say that? Maybe he needs a little pat on the fanny. Although that might have given us all a lot more heartburn.
