Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please (Niccolí² Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, 1532).
This point from the famous Italian political philosopher of the medieval era seems to hold true not just for wars previous to 1532, but also for those afterwards to this present day. Take, for instance, World War 1 at the beginning of the 20th century, known back then as The Great War. One day in 1914, a group of Serbian irredentists succeeded in assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir-apparent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I’m sure that starting the first world war wasn’t part of their plot. Nonetheless, they did.
In quick succession, Austria declares war with Serbia, which causes Russia to side with Serbia, which causes France to side with Russia and Serbia, which causes Germany to side with Austria and invade Belgium, which causes Britain to war against Germany. And all this in just the first year of a four-year war. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand is regarded as the point of singularity that sets off the events constituting The Great War. It had just the right impact to upset enough of international relations to bring the world into conflict. And today, we are looking at another possible fire-starter: North Korea.
Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s supreme leader, third to be so after his father and his grandfather, has a dream of putting a nuclear weapon atop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the west coast of the United States. The New York Times published an article dated 24 April 2017 entitled, “As North Korea Speeds Its Nuclear Program, U.S. Fears Time Will Run Out”. In stark detail, it recounts the progress of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions since the 1950s, and estimates that, absent any intervention or supervening cause, Kim Jong Un could succeed at developing his own intercontinental nuclear missile by 2020. It also discusses how Russia and China have in the past given technical and technological support to North Korea’s nuclear program.
This matter is made worse by the fact that the Kims as a family are venerated as divine in North Korea, under pain of government punishment. This could help explain the current supreme leader’s well-known paranoid and megalomaniacal behaviors. Historically speaking, persons born into great power and privilege or thrust thereto at a very young age often develop grave psychological problems. And his refusal to integrate his country with the rest of the world only emphasizes the despotism and oppression with which he rules.
All this to say that Kim Jong Un is uniquely impervious to diplomatic and international pressure. His godlike self-image renders him unable to have the strategic patience of Vladimir Putin, the practical calculations of Xi Jinping, or the democratic accountability of Donald Trump. If Kim Jong Un launches a nuclear missile targeting anywhere from South Korea to the United States, no amount of public outcry will matter to his mind. And in the face of defeat, much like Hitler in World War 2, he will drag his people into destruction with him.
Of course, in a one-on-one war between North Korea and the United States, there is no real challenge. But if North Korea achieves its goal of being able to launch a nuclear missile, it might be capable of destroying millions of lives before it itself will need to be destroyed. Moreover, if war does result therefrom, the current Syrian civil war gives clues as to where alliances are likely to fall: those supporting the Syrian government being Russia, Iran, and China, while those supporting the rebels being the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, and Jordan. As for the Philippines, if such attack is launched against the US, we will be bound by treaty to wage war on America’s side.
I say this not to be a kind of fearmonger, but many wars have erupted in history for smaller things than nuclear strikes. Nay, I bring this up to encourage us to keep one eye on current geopolitical events, thereby hopefully informing our politics and, more importantly, our prayers.
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Author’s email: micahdagaerag@outlook.com
