Korean Powder Keg: What It Will Take for Trump to Push the Button on Pyongyang
SputnikNews.com
11.04.2017
Immediately after its attack on Syria, Washington decided to send a carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson to the Korean peninsula. Russian observers, whose country shares a common border with North Korea, are rightfully concerned about what the move will mean for security in the region.
Commenting on the carrier group’s deployment, and on whether the Trump administration really has the audacity to attack Pyongyang and launch a full-blown military conflict, Radio Sputnik commentator Vladimir Filippov suggested that the question worth asking now is “is Trump’s policy really that unpredictable?”
Last week, top-ranking US intelligence and military officials told NBC News that the US National Security Council had presented Trump with a series options for responding to the North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, including the assassination of Kim Jong-un and other senior North Korean leaders, the sending special forces into the country to sabotage key infrastructure, and even the deployment of American nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Now, Filippov wrote, “everyone is waiting to see what will happen next. Will Trump repeat the Syrian scenario? That option includes several components: the strike itself, a loud media campaign [supporting it], ‘demonstrations of solidarity’ among the US’s NATO allies, statements in the UN Security Council, and support from the US Congress. All but the last have already been assured.”
“How unpredictable is Trump’s policy? If one were to ignore US realities, it may indeed seem that the president is eccentric and unpredictable,” the journalist noted. “In reality that’s not the case. Trump’s actions betray a dependence on the opinions of the Washington establishment. As a result, he will be forced – on some issues partially, in others completely, to approve decisions which have been imposed on him. The king’s entourage makes the king. And Trump does not want to be king for a day.”
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