Canada hates us. Our former NATO allies no longer trust us. But at least we still have our good, old, 70-year ally in the Pacific, South Korea, providing us with a home base to stand as a bulwark against Chinese and North Korean aggression, right? Oh crap.
This, apparently, popped into Trump’s head all by his lonesome.
The Pentagon was taken aback by Mr. Trump’s sudden announcement, according to a senior U.S. military official. Just last week, an official with U.S. and South Korean Combined Forces Command told reporters that the exercises would simulate combat against North Korean troops, who have gained crucial experience while fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Col. Ryan Donald, director of public affairs for the Combined Forces Command, United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea, said in a news conference with the South Korean military last Monday that the exercises reflected the changing character of war, including the growing use of unmanned systems, electronic warfare and cyberoperations.
One week ago, the United States military understood the critical value of both these military exercises and the relationship between the United States and South Korea in the region. With one twit, Trump murdered that relationship, built upon 70 years of trust and reliance between our nations.
“DPRK soldiers have deployed and fought in Ukraine, and they’ve taken those lessons they’ve learned there and brought them back to North Korea,” he said at a news conference in South Korea. He was referring to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“That changes the DPRK capability, and our training accounts for that threat,” he said.
While the military understood Kim Jong-un, who called Trump a “mentally deranged dotard” in 2017, until he realized that it was far easier to play Trump by pretending to befriend him given Trump’s desperate desire to be loved, Trump was more concerned that his North Korean bestie wouldn’t like anymore if the United States continued to prepare for the threat.
But North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday had reiterated its condemnation of the drills, branding them “a rehearsal for an aggressive war.” In response, the country conducted two ballistic missile tests off its east coast this month, vowing to “respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent.”
In the past, such a claim would have been laughable, given that the United States was hardly inclined to be embroiled in acts of aggression against sovereign nations. But in light of the war of choice against Iran, eventually claimed to have been started to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear bomb even though Trump claimed to have obliterated that capability months earlier, the same argument could have well applied to North Korea.
Except the Ayatollah didn’t pretend to be Trump’s buddy, like Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin. Of course, things haven’t turned out all that badly for Iran, given that it controls the Strait of Hormuz and now has the capacity to wreak havoc with the world’s oil economy.
One of the foremost factors in Trump’s “calculus” appears to be South Korea’s refusal to be dragged into Trump’s military foray. Like the NATO nations, Trump neither sought nor obtained its approval or cooperation before launching his war, and assumed afterward that his lesser fiefdoms would simply do as they were told when Trump came to the realization that he had managed to lose the war and squander the United States’ munition supply.
Why, oh why, won’t these nations that Trump insults, ridicules, treats as if they are captive territories constrained to do as he commands, rush to his aid with gushing adoration even though they were unworthy of being treated as sovereign nations? Go figure.
It’s hard to imagine that with a single twit, one person could cause the breadth and scope of antagonism and distrust Trump has managed to pull off. And yet, given what’s become of the United States’ relationship with our former allies, who now realize that the trust and faith upon which international relations rely are so fragile that one vulgar, deceitful, narcissistic ignoramus can put the world order at risk to serve his desperate need to be liked and respected by despots, the reality is undeniable.
What are the chances that Taiwan thinks the United States is the “hottest” country in the world? What are the chances that any nation does?