Turn it into a three body problem. Missile based warfare is not a two body problem – it’s at least three, often more. (The gods help us if Pakistan, Iran and India start trading missiles.)
Let’s say Kimmy-boy gets his birthday wish and manages to fire off an ICBM headed at some US territory. Just one, because that’s all they can manage to rig, and it doesn’t even have to have a warhead. Just getting the missile onto radar is enough to trigger US based interceptors. That’ll probably be 4 or 5 missiles heading back towards the missile.
Look at the globe. Those interceptors launch from Alaska or Montana, and they’re going shortest route – great circle arc, which looks like it’s coming over the pole. Follow that trajectory, because it’s pretty likely that at least one interceptor does the job, if not two… but that leaves at least two or three still flying, and we cannot call interceptors back home like they’re Lassie. That trajectory goes straight into Russia.
Let’s say that Russian radar misses the NK launch, or they don’t believe it (that system is fairly new, so has bugs), or they say they don’t believe it. They see American interceptor missiles from American launch trajectories headed at their own sovereign soil. Where the interceptors will hit or explode in air and shower some podunk village in Russian sovereign terrority with a rain of fire and metal. Let’s assume that NK also did manage to get something fissile up in that missile, so it’s even more likely Russia sees something hot coming from American launch trajectories. From the Russian (or Chinese – because there are trajectories that could also look like an attack on China) perspective, the useful idiot has decided to quit playing the game, and is attacking without provocation. Why bother even picking up the red phone? For all they (either one) know, there’s been an extremely abrupt coup in DC and the idiot is “sedated” or imprisoned or dead, and they have no idea who could have issued the order.
Meh, that scenario is as likely today as it was yesterday. In fact, it’s less likely: I bet Trump will get on like a house on fire with the NK fatboy, bonding over spoiled-brat upbringings and the superiority of Lambos over Bugatti.
No, I’m still not convinced. For all the damage Trump will do, nuclear holocaust (and dealing with crazy strongmen in general) is less likely to happen than it was at any time since Putin’s rise. And I say that out of experience: Berlusconi had a great feeling with every nutjob out there, from Vlad to Gheddafi. Where he’ll struggle is in dealing with more reality-based leaders, like Europeans, Chinese and certain Iranians - the sort of serious people he can’t engage with, but also the sort of people who won’t launch ICBMs for the hell of it. The nutjobs will be fine.
That’s not how narcissists work. Kimmy has nothing to offer. Tiny little country, no economy, starving, and true faith… and nobody takes NK seriously (which is a mistake), so why would someone who craves approval go against type? He needs his base telling him he’s wonderful, and the base has no interest whatsoever in goofy NK.
Yes, this has been possible, but lower probability, for a long time. But we have just lost metric tons of institutional memory and skill in diplomacy, intelligence and international communication. We have literally thousands of unstaffed positions that are critical to keeping the dialogues running. And we have chimp with a machine gun on Twitter. It’s still improbable, but less improbable every day.
