Rule No. 1: Don’t Mock Somebody With Nuclear Weapons

Sunday morning, Donald Trump came up with a new nickname for Kim Jong Un.  As he did during the campaign last year (remember “Little Marco,” “Lyin’ Ted,” and “Crooked Hillary,” etc.), President Trump has decided it is somehow a good idea to give Kim Jong Un a nickname: Rocket Man.  Except this is a little different.

Maybe President Trump thought the nicknames during the campaign were cute or funny.  Maybe he thought they were a way to get under the skin of his opponents and get them to make a mistake.  Maybe he was just trying to get publicity and free media.  I thought it was disrespectful and lowered both him and the office he was seeking.

But regardless of what may work for a candidate in a campaign, things are different once you get in the White House.  Getting under the skin of a political opponent is one thing.  Getting under the skin of somebody with a gun is different.  While Democrats will probably think that this kind behavior is something new with Donald Trump, it isn’t.  Barack Obama did it, too.

He famously claimed that ISIS was a “JV” operation.  He later tried to deny that he had said it, though even The Washington Post agreed he had.¹  Still, ISIS leaders probably didn’t get the U.S. sports reference, so maybe it didn’t matter.

His mocking reference to Russia as a mere “regional power” was different.  Vladimir Putin knew exactly what President Obama was saying and the disrespect he was showing Russia.  Given the feelings that President Putin already had regarding the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s position in the world, rubbing President Putin’s face in it was dumb.  President Obama should have known better.  It was a clear violation of Rule No. 1: Don’t Mock (or Disrespect) Somebody With Nuclear Weapons.  But at least Vladimir Putin is no fool.

I don’t know if the same can be said about Kim Jong Un.  I don’t know if anybody knows very much about what can be said about Kim Jong Un.  Except that he either has or soon will have nuclear weapons.  And that he is worried about staying in power.  So why would anybody think it is a good idea to mock somebody who is worried about people trying to overthrow his regime, who is an unknown quantity, and who has nuclear weapons?

War is not something to be threatened or talked about lightly.  In August, The Economist had a “future history” of the next Korean War.  The one thing that stood out was how poor predictions are about what the other side will do in once fighting starts.  And how little we know about what North Korea might do in certain situations – and how little North Korea knows about what we might do.

And yet, President Trump somehow thinks it is a good idea to come up with a mocking nickname for Kim Jong Un.
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¹ PolitiFact agrees with the WaPo.