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War With North Korea Not Imminent, Officials Say, but U.S. Would Still Win Deep Divisions Emerge in Trump Administration as North Korea Threatens War
(about 5 hours later)
A day after President Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” his top diplomat and defense chief sent a more nuanced message on Wednesday, reinforcing the capacity of the United States to win any war while reassuring Americans that they did not think it would come to that. BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — Senior American officials sent mixed signals on North Korea on Wednesday as President Trump’s “fire and fury” warning rattled allies and adversaries alike, a sign of his administration’s deep divisions as the outcast state once again threatened to wage nuclear war on the United States.
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, returning from a trip to Asia, said he saw no reason to believe that war was imminent despite the heated exchange of warnings between Mr. Trump and Pyongyang, emphasizing instead the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the standoff over North Korea’s efforts to build long-range nuclear weapons. The president’s advisers calibrated his dire warning with statements that, if not directly contradictory, emphasized different points. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson stressed diplomacy and reassured Americans that they could “sleep well at night,” while Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said North Korea risked “the end of its regime and the destruction of its people” if it did not “stand down.”
“I think Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days,” Mr. Tillerson said as his plane stopped on the way back to the United States to refuel in Guam, the very island that North Korea threatened to target with an attack. He added: “Nothing I have seen and nothing I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours.” North Korea gave no indication that it would do so. In a statement late Wednesday, the North Korean military dismissed Mr. Trump’s fire-and-fury warning on Tuesday as a “load of nonsense” and said only “absolute force” would work on someone so “bereft of reason.” The military threatened to “turn the U.S. mainland into the theater of a nuclear war” and added that any American strike on North Korean missile and nuclear targets would be “mercilessly repelled.”
Hours later, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued a written statement that, while not as colorful as Mr. Trump’s comments on Tuesday, repeated the suggestion that North Korea risked “the end of its regime and the destruction of its people” if it did not “stand down” from its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The statement also said that the North Korean military would finalize a plan by mid-August to fire four midrange missiles into the waters off the Pacific island of Guam, a United States territory used as a strategic base, to create a “historic enveloping fire.”
“While our State Department is making every effort to resolve this global threat through diplomatic means, it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth,” Mr. Mattis said. Using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, he added: “The D.P.R.K. regime’s actions will continue to be grossly overmatched by ours and would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates.” The spiral of fighting words left the Trump administration debating how to handle a standoff that has defied three presidents and only grown more ominous in recent weeks as North Korea successfully tested intercontinental ballistic missiles for the first time. Neither Mr. Tillerson nor Mr. Mattis had reviewed in advance Mr. Trump’s threat on Tuesday, when he said North Korea “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” And the dissonance in their own follow-up statements reflected the struggle inside the Trump administration.
The two secretaries made their comments a day after Mr. Trump warned of “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” choosing language that neither had seen in advance. The stark words, evoking the horror of a nuclear exchange between the world’s most dominant superpower and the upstart outlaw nation, sent ripples throughout the United States and Asia. “I don’t think there is a single policy at work,” said Ellen L. Frost, a longtime Asia specialist at the East-West Center, a Honolulu-based research organization. “I’m not even sure that Trump cares about having a consistent policy on any subject.” Instead, she said, the president’s fire-and-fury threat was a play to demonstrate toughness to his political base “followed by more nuanced cleanup operations on the part of Tillerson and Mattis, who are walking a political tightrope.”
Mr. Tillerson and Mr. Mattis were left with the task of ratcheting down some of the heat of the moment without undercutting the president. In the process, each emphasized different elements. Mr. Trump remained out of public sight on Wednesday at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he is spending most of a 17-day working vacation. But he posted a link on Twitter to a news report on his threat, and followed up by boasting that he had ordered the modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal.
In speaking with reporters traveling with him, Mr. Tillerson said that the threats emanating in recent days from the North Korean government have come as a result of growing international condemnation and sanctions. “Hopefully we will never have to use this power,” he wrote, “but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”
“What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong-un would understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Mr. Tillerson said. American allies in Japan and South Korea were caught off guard by Mr. Trump’s threat, as were other regional players like China and Russia. Analysts reported deep anxiety in the region over the prospect that a war of words could easily turn into a real one.
Mr. Tillerson continued: “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime that the U.S. has unquestionable ability to defend itself, will defend itself and its allies, and I think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part.” But some discounted Mr. Trump’s comments as the sort of bombast they have become accustomed to from a president who has publicly assailed not just enemies, but even allies like Germany, Canada and Mexico. The difference is that Germany is unlikely to respond to a presidential tirade with an attack on Guam, as North Korea threatened after Mr. Trump’s warning.
North Korea’s ballistic missile program has advanced remarkably during the Trump administration, with the regime testing two intercontinental ballistic missiles in recent weeks, prompting experts to warn that the nation now may have a missile capable of reaching the United States. Mr. Tillerson took on the role of soother, telling reporters as he returned from a trip to Asia that he saw no reason to believe that war was imminent. He urged North Korea to engage in talks about its nuclear program.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that American intelligence agencies had concluded that North Korea had miniaturized a warhead that could fit on top of one of its missiles. The Japanese government also said in an annual threat assessment on Tuesday that “it is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has acquired nuclear warheads.” “I think Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days,” Mr. Tillerson said as his plane stopped to refuel in Guam, the very island that North Korea threatened to target. He added, “Nothing I have seen and nothing I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours.”
But experts said the main problem for North Korea is not miniaturization; the bombs are already judged small enough to fit on a ballistic missile, as a famous picture of Mr. Kim with an odd warhead resembling a disco ball seemed to make clear. The real test is whether a warhead can survive the intense heat of re-entry as it plunges through the atmosphere from space, a hurdle North Korea is not believed to have overcome. Mr. Tillerson said Mr. Trump simply chose the sort of attention-grabbing words that Mr. Kim would use. “What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong-un would understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Mr. Tillerson said.
Mr. Trump weighed in on Twitter Wednesday morning, promoting the strength of the United States nuclear arsenal, even though he has previously called it obsolete. The president said because of steps he has taken during his administration, the arsenal is now “far stronger and more powerful than ever before.” Hours later, Mr. Mattis issued a written statement that, while not as florid as Mr. Trump’s comments on Tuesday, still held out the possibility of a massive retaliation that could destroy much of North Korea.
In fact, the modernization of the nuclear arsenal began under President Barack Obama, and while Mr. Trump has pledged to overhaul the nation’s collection of bombers, submarines and land-based missiles, no substantial changes have been made since he took office. Mr. Trump faces a decision on whether to continue the 30-year program initiated by Mr. Obama even as cost estimates have grown by an additional 20 percent, bringing the price tag to $1.2 trillion, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. “While our State Department is making every effort to resolve this global threat through diplomatic means, it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth,” Mr. Mattis said. North Korea’s military, he added, “will continue to be grossly overmatched by ours and would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates.”
The White House’s proposed budget called for big increases in research and development for new weapons, but it does not yet grapple with the ultimate budget-busting cost of producing a new fleet of delivery vehicles. At the urging of the Trump administration, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions against North Korea last Saturday. But even as China and Russia supported the measure, it was unclear how hard they would work to enforce it. Some saw Mr. Trump’s message as aimed at providing an incentive to Beijing to do more to avoid war, although it also risked disrupting the very alignment he had been trying to forge.
At the urging of the Trump administration, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions against North Korea on Saturday, but even as China and Russia supported the measure, it was unclear how hard they would work to enforce it. Some saw Mr. Trump’s message as aimed at providing an incentive to Beijing to do more to avoid war. Mr. Mattis, in his statement, stressed the international solidarity against North Korea: “Kim Jong-un should take heed of the United Nations Security Council’s unified voice and statements from governments the world over, who agree the D.P.R.K. poses a threat to global security and stability. The D.P.R.K. must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
Mr. Mattis, in his statement, stressed the international solidarity against North Korea. “Kim Jong-un should take heed of the United Nations Security Council’s unified voice and statements from governments the world over, who agree the D.P.R.K. poses a threat to global security and stability. The D.P.R.K. must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons.” While the State Department insisted that the administration was speaking with “one voice,” analysts said that voice was not necessarily a consistent one.
The Trump administration has sent mixed signals about whether it would entertain direct talks with the North Korean government, with Vice President Mike Pence saying no such talks are being considered, while Mr. Tillerson has said they could happen as long as the North Koreans demonstrate their sincerity by pausing their missile tests. How long such a pause needs to last he refused to say. “Clearly there is not a coordinated messaging strategy,” Evan Medeiros, the managing director at the Eurasia Group and a former Asia adviser to President Barack Obama, said by telephone from Tokyo. “This is being put together incrementally and of all the countries and all the issues you deal with, North Korea is not the one to be kludging together statements by the president and cabinet secretaries because the risk of miscalculation is so high.”
Mr. Tillerson emphasized that he is engaged in an ongoing diplomatic effort and that “our telephone lines remain open, certainly to China, Russia as well as our allies.” Alexander Vershbow, a former ambassador to South Korea, said the Trump administration “policy seems incoherent” and the threat of military action “will likely harden the North Koreans’ stance” and make it more difficult to get China to follow through on its support for the United Nations sanctions.
Mr. Tillerson’s remarks came as he flew home from four days of talks in Asia, including meetings with his counterparts from Russia, China, South Korea and Japan at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, in Manila this year as well as talks in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. “If denuclearization is still the goal, the only way to get there is through increased Chinese pressure,” Mr. Vershbow said. “Since there is no viable military option, the only other course of action is to develop a long-term deterrence and containment strategy — but that means accepting the unacceptable,” North Korea as a nuclear power.
The growing menace from North Korea was Mr. Tillerson’s top priority, although he also discussed China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea as well as what the United States perceives as the growing threat of the Islamic State in Asia. That, so far, is one thing Mr. Trump has made clear he would not accept. His administration has sent conflicting signals about whether it would entertain direct talks with the North Korean government. Vice President Mike Pence has said no such talks are being considered, while Mr. Tillerson has said they could happen as long as the North Koreans demonstrate their sincerity by pausing their missile tests. How long such a pause needs to last, he has refused to say.
Mr. Tillerson said that his strategy of gradually increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on the North Korean government is working. Mr. Tillerson emphasized on Wednesday that he is engaged in an ongoing diplomatic effort and that “our telephone lines remain open, certainly to China, Russia as well as our allies.”
“I think in fact the pressure is starting to show,” he said. “I think that’s why the rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang has gotten louder and more threatening.” Mr. Tillerson said that his strategy of gradually increasing the diplomatic and economic costs for the North Korean government is working. “I think in fact the pressure is starting to show,” he said. “I think that’s why the rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang has gotten louder and more threatening.”
But he added that “whether we’ve got them backed into a corner or not is difficult to say. Mr. Medeiros questioned whether Mr. Trump’s warning, combined with sanctions, would prompt North Korea to return to the negotiating table. “That’s the big strategy question here,” he said. “Trump has clearly calculated that it will. But that’s a huge gamble, and it’s one that it’s not clear to me that the Chinese would necessarily agree with.”
“But diplomatically you never like to have someone in a corner without a way for them to get out,” he said.
The way out for the North Koreans?
“Talks,” Mr. Tillerson said. “Talks with the right expectation of what those talks will be about.”