Big Rocket Man?

As with any informed discussion, facts are important in the political debate.  But, all too often, the facts are submerged by the spin put on them by the politicians – and what we hear in the end is the story about the facts, rather than the facts themselves.

A classic instance is the meeting organised to take place in Singapore next month between President Trump and President Kim Jong Un of North Korea.  To hear the way Donald Trump tells it, the meeting is a triumph for his brand of “diplomacy” – his insults and threats of nuclear attack and trade embargos have, we are told, forced a reluctant North Korean dictator to the negotiating table where he will make a number of concessions.  Trump is able to parade as both a tough leader, “putting America first”, and as a peace-maker.

But it is worth pausing for a moment to consider the narrative that Kim Jong Un has no doubt put before his own domestic audience – and an attentive international audience as well.

My focus on developing a nuclear capability has paid off big-time, he will say.   The strategy has meant that the leader of the most powerful country in the world has asked to meet me and seek a deal. I am able to meet him as an equal – I also head a nuclear-armed state.  And he will need me to help him, so that he can tell his people at home that the meeting was a success – there will be no more patronising insults.  “Little rocket man” has become “big rocket man!”

And Kim can go further.  Now that I have established this elevated status for my country, he can say, I have been able to show how magnanimous and far-sighted I am.  Now that we have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that mean that our rockets can reach America, I do not need further nuclear tests and rocket trials, so I will happily offer a “concession” to this effect; I already have all the capability I need to make sure that no one pushes us around.

I am happy to give assurances not only to the Americans, but also to the Japanese and other countries who are nervous about our ability to attack them that we have no intention of doing so.  And I can demonstrate our peaceful intentions by making new overtures to our brothers in South Korea, as I have done, crossing the border and bringing an end to the state of war between us, showing Koreans in both the North and the South that we are one people and that I am the one person with the strength and vision to unite them.

Not only do I know that this vision of the future commend itself to Koreans, but it also has the support of our backers and sponsors in China (who are much more important to us than are the Americans) and who will continue to help us to lift living standards and improve civil liberties at home.  We do not need democracy to show that my popularity at home has grown in leaps and bounds in response to the initiatives I have taken.

It is not a bad story, is it?  It provides a persuasive alternative to the American account of what has happened and will happen.  Like the Trumpian story, it is of course designed to identify the teller as the hero, and to place him centre-stage and to show him in a good light; but, tellingly, it has the additional virtue of corresponding quite closely with the facts and that is no doubt how it will be seen around the world.  Donald Trump, eat your heart out.

Bryan Gould

13 May 2018