Is President Trump’s Nuclear Button Tweet a Sign of Insanity?

Guest Post by Scott Adams

On CNN yesterday, Jake Tapper described President Trump’s recent behavior — including the President’s tweet about having a bigger nuclear “button” than North Korea — as abnormal and unstable. In other words, crazy.

Is it?

One folksy definition of “crazy” is that it involves trying over and over again a solution that has never worked while hoping it works next time. President Trump is doing something closer to the opposite of that. He’s doing something new, both strategically and verbally. To be fair, new things can be crazy too. But usually only if they don’t work. When a new and unexpected thing works out well, we call it genius. And that begs the question: Is President Trump’s approach to North Korea working?

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We’re seeing economic sanctions on North Korea that have the support of the UN Security Council. That part is working, and it took diplomatic skill to make it happen.

But we also see satellite images of tankers smuggling oil into North Korea. The sanctions looked as if they were not effective until South Korea detained two tankers involved in smuggling oil to North Korea. Grabbing two tankers doesn’t do much in terms of limiting supply, but it does dramatically change the perceived economics of being a smuggler. And if grabbing two tankers doesn’t get the message across, South Korea can keep detaining tankers until the economics do change. North Korea would be willing to take big risks to break the sanctions, but the shipping companies on which they depend will not. Shipping companies will only participate in wrongdoing when they are confident they won’t get caught. That calculation changed when South Korea detained two tankers.

I told you months ago that the United States was going to war with corporations that trade with North Korea. We’re seeing that with the detained tankers. Whoever owns them is bleeding cash while they sit unused. And I speculate that our intelligence services are making life difficult for other CEOs and corporations involved in violating the economic sanctions. President Trump knows he doesn’t need to stop all of the smuggling and cheating — he only needs to increase the risk until it is uneconomical for the companies involved. We’re heading in that direction.

For the first time I can recall, time is on our side with North Korea. Every passing day sees North Korea’s economy shrinking while South Korea and America thrive. We’re effectively already at war and winning hard. The longer North Korea waits to get serious about negotiating, the weaker their hand.

A recent statement out of North Korea said, in effect, that they need their nuclear weapons as a deterrent because the United States is performing war games along its border. The way I interpret North Korea’s statement is that they are getting flexible. This is the first time I’ve heard North Korea speak of their nukes as conditional on what we do. In other words, they are open to denuclearizing if we reduce their perceived military risk. They haven’t said that directly. But that’s how I read it.

North Korea recently made friendly gestures toward South Korea, offering to participate in the upcoming Olympics and opening cross-border communications for the first time in a year. The trend we are seeing is that the tougher the sanctions and rhetoric from the United States, the more flexible North Korea is becoming.

But let’s talk about President Trump’s latest tweet about North Korea. Here is the text:

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

Here we see President Trump “pacing” (or matching) the hyperbolic rhetoric of Kim Jung Un. The two leaders are trash-talking each other like sports rivals. But what is missed in the hysterics over wording is that President Trump and Kim Jung Un are negotiating personally, albeit in public. And I think it is safe to say both players know they are being over-the-top with their trash-talk. The odds of a nuclear miscalculation based on anything said so far is effectively zero. And if the rhetoric ratchets up to a new level of hyperbole, I would still see no additional risk. President Trump and Kim Jong Un have demonstrated they know the difference between trash-talk and action.

The Persuasion Filter says this public trash-talking probably lowers our risk of a nuclear accident. If you don’t share the kind of personality we are seeing displayed by both leaders, you might miss the biggest variable in play here. What I see is two unconventional leaders already in conversation, getting a feel for the other, and on some level enjoying the exchange. You know President Trump loves this sort of verbal battle, and he’s good at it. Now keep in mind that North Korea is a tiny country that would normally be below America’s radar. But Kim Jong Un has the full attention of the President of the United States and is trash-talking with him in public. I have to think he enjoys the verbal jousting on some level, same as President Trump.

So while it might look to many observers as two crazy leaders heading for a nuclear showdown, to me it looks like two colorful characters who probably have a weird kind of respect for each other. Let me put it another way. Which of these two situations carries a greater risk of accidental nuclear war?

  1. Two nuclear foes who have no communication and are trying to interpret the actions of the other.
  2. Two nuclear foes trash-talking each other (with humor) in front of the world

I’ll take option two every time. When Kim Jong Un and President Trump are trash-talking in public with hyperbolic humor, they’re talking. The only risk is that one of them doesn’t understand the other is being over-the-top for effect. And I see no real risk of that. They both know what they are getting with the other.

I’d be worried if I saw Kim Jong Un yammering about the latest round of economic sanctions being an act of war. But instead he’s talking of participating in the Olympics in South Korea. That sounds like a leader who is trying to avoid war.

If you are a literal type of person who doesn’t recognize hyperbole or humor, I can see how this situation looks scary. But I promise you neither leader has a physical “button” on his desk, of any size, to launch a nuclear attack. And I feel confident that both leaders understand humor and hyperbole when they see it.

My view on all of this is that we are closer than we have ever been to a peace deal that results in a non-nuclear North Korea. Everything I see suggests President Trump is successfully “setting the table,” as he likes to say, for productive talks. Can the hundred-year plan for reunification be far away?

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xrugger
xrugger

Yet another case of Dilbert fellating the President via the written word. This time, however, he is doing a twofer with Trump and that fat little Nork.

Reading Dilbert’s take on this is like watching a porn movie with The Donald starring as Dirk Diggler. Kim Jong Un as Ron Jeremy with a goofy haircut and Dilbert as the starry-eyed slut-o-the-day! We could call it, “Dickbert Does Donald-A Gay, Weird, Political Love Story. “What’s next, a gang-bang with Vlad, Xi, and most of Congress. Throw in Angela Merkel as the granny and Justin Trudeau as the pizza delivery guy and you’ve got a winning porn parody.

Oh, and Stucky, in case you or anyone else is wondering how I came by all this knowledge of porn? I did a research paper on the industry back in college. Yeah…that’s the ticket.

hardscrabble farmer

If making jokes is a sign of insanity than I guess he’s insane.

If people having absolutely no ability to discern reality from levity is a sign of gravitas then Jake Tapper is the Dick Cheney of journalism.

Francis Marion

Or quite likely, he knows something we don’t.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Was Reagan’s statement about outlawing Russia and saying the bombing would begin in five minutes a sign of insanity?

It seems to me Trump is just giving fair warning about our relative strength to some little dictator thinking he can threaten and bully us when no one thinks he has the ability to actually win if he tries anything.

Standing up to a bully is less likely to result in ongoing violence than backing down to one.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

Libs were certain Reagan was crazy. We’ve seen this movie before.

hardscrabble farmer

1) NK is not nor has it been a threat to the USA, EXCEPT when we invaded their country.

2) NK is a foil for our illusory “Freedom on Democracy” stage show.

3) There is never going to be another war with them. We need them as the bad guy in place more than we need to “liberate” them from the “little dictator”.

4) The kind of hubris needed for the US to refer to anyone as a bully is nigh on incomprehensible to me, but apparently it still works on other people, so I guess that’s part of the “we’re the good guys” schtick.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Hardscrabble,, my knowledge of history seems lacking.

When did we invade North Korea?

A quick timeline of where, when and what major battles we fought in North Korea would be helpful.

hardscrabble farmer

KOREA, We invaded KOREA. The nation was broken in two because WE invaded THEM. THEY did not attack US.

I don’t mind criticism in the least, but deliberate misinterpretation is a sign of bad faith.

Please don’t do that.

TIA

Anonymous
Anonymous

So give the details.

All of them, they should be readily available on the internet.

If you can’t do at least that I’ll assume you are talking out the wrong end.

hardscrabble farmer

When you wrote “All of them” what do you mean? You have the same access to Internet search engines that I do.

I don’t even know what your contention is, other than the fact that America was not the aggressor in the Korean conflict.

Lard Lad Lenny
Lard Lad Lenny

You make it sound like there was some kind of “war” in Korea. A “Korean War” or some such. In all seriousness, do schools even teach 20th century history anymore?

Gilnut
Gilnut

Bad faith semantical arguments = trolling.

Fuck off.

GilbertS
GilbertS

Bully!

comment image

nkit
nkit

A time to rend .. A time to sew..

GilbertS
GilbertS

yeah, then we never left.

22winmag - ZH refugee who just couldn't take the avalanche of damn-near-hourly Bitcoin and doom porn stories
22winmag - ZH refugee who just couldn't take the avalanche of damn-near-hourly Bitcoin and doom porn stories

Every time I read Scott Adams I puke in the mouth a little.

Hollywood Rob

Maybe this will help. It’s hard to say since we are discussing the rant of a stoner who makes his money on comic strips.
comment image

hardscrabble farmer

There you go again with all your fact thingies.

EDIT TO ADD: For those of you who do not understand sarcasm, the above comment was meant to be humorous. Facts are very important when discussing anything of importance and the map above is a factual document that proves the point that some people deliberately wish to misunderstand.

Thanks to HR for posting this important data point.

Anonymous
Anonymous

What facts are people unwilling to understand?

That North Korea started the Korean war by invading the South with 75,000 troops on June 25, 1950?

That America, under the authority of the UN along with other countries, responded by entering in July under the reluctant orders of Truman (who did it mostly to protect and boost the authority of newly formed U.N.)?

That the nation became divided because Japanese rule ended with their defeat in WWII and the Soviets claimed the North?

There are a lot of facts available if you bother to research them, and none of them put the blame for starting the war on the US.

Hollywood Rob

Oh sorry mous. I thought that we were discussing your comment from above where you explicitly asked if the US ever invaded NK. Well yes, the US did get quite a way into NK. So now do you want us to reorient our discussion into some other random thought that has entered you brain or would you prefer that we change the discussion to your current blaming the US for starting the war? I am just getting a bit confused about what you would like us to discuss.

Thanks for the help.

Gilnut
Gilnut

Anon,
What you purport is directly contradictory to what the man who intentionally placed US forces in harms way in Korea said. President Truman’s doctrine (i.e. the Truman Doctrine) was directly responsible for the Korean Conflict (War).

22winmag - ZH refugee who just couldn't take the avalanche of damn-near-hourly Bitcoin and doom porn stories
22winmag - ZH refugee who just couldn't take the avalanche of damn-near-hourly Bitcoin and doom porn stories

It seems like everyone is suddenly a geopolitical commentator:

Comic strip guys
Health rangers
Doom porn artists
Hollywood idiots
The list goes on an on…

unit472/
unit472/

Truman said he would begin ‘ A rain of ruin from the sky the world has never before seen’ or something close to those words.

General Lemay spoke of ‘shoving a nation back into the stone age’.

Both men were considered blunt but effective leaders. Trump is in the same vein. Letting Kim Jong Un know there is a new sheriff in town!

Centurion44
Centurion44

Well, seeing that I consider CNN (Clinton Negative News) and Jake Tapper by extension to be “abnormal and unstable” I consider the source.

Stucky

Adams asks if the Trump button thingy means Trump is insane.

I ask you, honestly, did you actually need to read his article to know what he would say? Did you need to read that Trump is the master persuader?

Adams is so one dimensional. One trick pony. And he commits one of the worst things a writer can do …. being PREDICTABLE.

Just my opinion, but reading him is a waste of time.

Unbigoted
Unbigoted

Here’s how I see it:

The snowflakes fear a world where Trump could be president. Their cognitive dissonance is apparent. They also fear nuclear war and the unpredictability of the North Korean cabbage patch doll. The asian babyface feeds on this fear and therefore intimates to the world how easy nuclear armageddon could occur; via a little push-button on the diminutive gook’s desk.

So Trump tweets that his button is BIGGER. This is true and everyone knows it’s true.

But that’s not all…

Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

In one tweet, the Ooompah Loompah man points out how the slope’s country is “depleted” and “food starved” due to the zipperhead’s embrace of the communist ideology. But Trump didn’t want to say that himself. No, he wanted the kimchee’s countrymen to say it in addition to the FACTS that Trump has a “BIGGER & MORE POWERFUL” button and that, unlike the impotent optic-slot-machine’s premature exploding missles, Trump’s radioactive phalluses WORK.

Adam’s is persuading the snowflakes. He is soothing the infants. Convincing the toddlers to understand things that any child could see. Don’t be afraid, snowflakes. I draw cartoons and I’m here to help.

Tom S.
Tom S.

I think Adams makes a good point. All of the people who seem to be ready to shit themselves over this thing clearly have no experience dealing with people like Trump.

I have said from the beginning of his candidacy – and it continues to this day – that the “educated” classes simply don’t understand him because no on they have ever experienced is anything like him as far as his argument styl, bombast, and shit-talking. Anyone who has ever and been in heated argument while huddled around a set of blueprints in a construction-trailer-office should feel right at home with Trump, because that’s how he operates. No real time for bullshit, just an unceasing drive to get on with the job. Any over-the-top bullshit statement is understood as a hyperbolic method of both establishing your position and establishing the seriousness with which you view that position. Out in the hinterlands, in that dirty world of actually building things, that’s how it’s usually done.

I remember an interview with Donald, Jr. during the campaign, wherein he talked about how the old man forced him to get away from the MBA crowd, go out to construction sites, and work with the people on the ground actually building things. If this isn’t an example of that mentality, then nothing is.

KeyserSusie
KeyserSusie

I too agree with Scott and HSF. The navy widow I dated for many years had been married to someone who had lived in NK. He ponied up to the Admiral’s niece at my suggestion and fathered two children with her before his hawkeye went down in front of the USS Kennedy. His step father Claude van Muyden was the Swiss diplomat/banker who brokered the NK armistice. I have learned a bit about him from some of his personal possessions and family stories.

I heard Kissinger say one time that NK is just a way for us to act out negotiations with China. That is, NK is a puppet. Makes sense to me. We can always gang up on China’s whipping boy to keep the MIC happy too. And both China and US save face without having to square off directly. And when we are looking at NK, Henry said we should actually be looking at China as they are up to something.

At any rate, I sort of imagine ancient Egypt was set up like NK. We all should benefit from the horrors of that political totalitarianism as something to avoid.

But the thought does occur of the $avings from quickly executing those you wish to purge. Give me Gitmo, not death, any day.

Operation Paul Bunyan in 1976 where US soldiers were bludgeoned and axed to death as they tried to chop down a popular tree in the DMZ is an interesting story.

https://timeline.com/north-korea-poplar-tree-bcee4d72332f

GilbertS
GilbertS

I agree, he does bang the Trump drum a lot, but I think his reasoning on this one is right. What’s wrong with a little crazy? We’ve done pussy with soetero. We did Al Dente with Bush the Younger. We did pussy with Klinton. Why not try crazy and see if that works?

overthecliff
overthecliff

This is exactly what will happen concerning the “Korean Crisis”. The USA, with the approval of the communist media, will enter negotiations with the NORKS. There will be an agreement with big financial incentive for the NORKS. They will lie and cheat and develop more and better nuclear weapons with which they will further blackmail the USA. The communist media will blame the USA for failure of the agreement. Rinse and Repeat. Sound Familiar?

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