A nuclear attack on North Korea: how likely?

Over the prior three entries, I've been talking about Donald Trump's threat to "totally destroy North Korea."  When I first heard that he had said that, I simply assumed that he was referring to a large-scale nuclear attack.  Then I found out that a friend understood him differently.

So I set myself a task of finding out how a wider range of people understood the same threat.  I make no claim that there was anything scientific about this "research."  For what it's worth, most people seemed to understand it the same way I did.  Most of those people, in turn, seemed to treat the nuclear interpretation as I had originally done: as obviously correct, with no need to even think about other possibilities.

I did find a few other people who had understood him differently.  They thought, like the friend mentioned earlier, that Trump was talking about a military response, but not one using nuclear weapons.

All of these people (in my absurdly small "sample") had two more things in common with each other.  All of them (like me) did not want a nuclear attack.  They indicated that they would not approve of a nuclear response on our part, at least not as a response to a non-nuclear provocation on the part of the North Koreans.

On the other hand, all of these same people (unlike me) generally approved of Trump's performance in office.  In particular, they did not share my perception of the man as unstable, in the sense that his actions are often ruled more by the emotions of the moment than they are by reason.

I then raised the question: are these people kidding themselves?  Are they irrationally holding on to their favorable view of Trump, by refusing to believe that he was making a nuclear threat, as everyone else understood him to be?

My answer to that question was "not necessarily."  Alternative explanations are available.  As to why their favorable overall view of Trump could not be overthrown by hearing about the "totally destroy" threat: perhaps that doesn't represent a failure of rationality on their part.  It need not, because it can, instead, be explained by supposing that their belief about him is based on a different set of facts.  I had already, before that fateful day at the United Nations, read a lot of things about Donald Trump that already had me doubting his stability.  Perhaps they were simply not aware of those things.  Perhaps, also, they knew things about Trump that I did not know, things which would tend to support a more benign picture of his character.

That's a brief summary of what I've previously written on the subject.  Now, I need to repair an omission: I never explicitly said whether I, after all this study of other people's thought processes, had undergone any change of my own opinion about what Trump meant by that phrase.

The short answer to that one is: not much.  My original opinion was that he was talking about a massive nuclear attack.  My revised opinion is that he was probably talking about a massive nuclear attack.  Or, at the least, that he was willing to give that impression.  I'm almost sure about that much.  (And even if I'm wrong -- if he wasn't even aware that people would understand it that way -- then surely he knows by now that many did, in fact, understand it that way.)

Now let's switch over to talking about what President Trump actually will do.  Is there a nuclear war in our future?

I already called your attention, two entries ago, to the fact that that is a separate question.  I could have added then, but didn't, that it is a question of more direct concern.  Of overwhelming concern, maybe even.

It's a momentous question, which makes it regrettable that we don't know the answer.  In fact, on this question, I don't see any basis for offering even a "probable" answer, let alone an "almost certain" one.  We just don't know, full stop.

In fact, our state of ignorance is even greater than that, because "what Trump will do" (or, "Will he order a massive nuclear attack?") is not one question, but many.  I will cite just a few of the many forms it might take.

Has he already decided on such an attack, so that he knows (but we don't) that it's just a matter of time?

Now suppose that's not true: that he will unleash the nukes only in response to some further provocation by North Korea.  If so, what sort of provocation would it take?  Would he rain fire and fury on them in response to ...

... another nuclear test?

... another test of a long-range missile?

... their firing an anti-aircraft weapon at one of our planes?

... some North Korean infantryman accidentally firing his rifle, which just happens to be pointed across the Demilitarized Zone?

And if any of those things happens, is it already predetermined what President Trump's response will be?  Or might that also be influenced by logically extraneous factors, like what the mayor of San Juan had said about him the previous day?

We don't know the answer to any of those questions, either.

Which is kind of too bad, because we, as American citizens, might want to say something about the prospect with which we are faced -- if only we knew what it was.  During this "calm before the storm" (an even more recent quote from our presumpident), if we knew what kind of storm he was promising us, we might wish to express how we felt about it.

But don't worry!  In my next journal entry, I shall come to the rescue.  I will explain one weird trick which will allow us to escape from our paralysis, despite the fog of ignorance in which we are being kept.