Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, last week called Kim Jong Un “at best ... unpredictable” and warned that the United States “could find itself in a state of war within a few days, with very little notice.”
The second half of that statement is true; the first part isn’t. Milley is conflating North Korea’s refusal to do what we want it to or think it should with predictability.
In fact, Kim is quite predictable — as was evident last weekend. Immediately after the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-South Korea Nuclear Consultative Group and the simultaneous port call in Busan of a U.S. nuclear ballistic-missile capable submarine, the North launched two ballistic missiles of its own and followed that by firing cruise missiles on Saturday. The provocations should have been expected: There was no way that Pyongyang would allow signals of U.S. resolve go unchallenged.