“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”
—President Donald J. Trump
United Nations General Assembly
September. 19, 2017
Well, that certainly got everyone’s attention. Not as snappy as Trump’s almost Biblical threat to unleash “fire and fury” on Pyongyang, but considering this was Trump’s first address before the UN, definitely impressive.
We have been here before. Whether Trump knows it or not—and he probably doesn’t—in the early 1960s, the US also weighed preventive war against an Asian Communist nation which had the temerity to acquire nuclear weapons.
China joined the nuclear club when it tested a bomb on October 16, 1964. From the very beginning of his Presidency, John F. Kennedy sought ways, including possible military action, to stop China from getting the bomb.
Kennedy turned first to diplomacy. So has Trump. Trump has tried to get China to rein in Kim Jong-un. Trump has had only limited success in enlisting Beijing in the US/UN regime of crippling economic sanctions directed against Pyongyang.[1]
Where Trump has turned to China, Kennedy turned to Russia. Kennedy believed that a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviets would marshal world opinion against China and cause Beijing to abandon its nuclear project.
Kennedy thought he had good reason to believe Khrushchev would cooperate with the US in bringing…