INTELLIGENCE shouldn't be confused with intelligence, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan reminded us, but who else are We the People going to trust when it comes to national security? Even when America's spooks get it wrong--see the causes of the Second Iraq War--we must trust that they have the most vetted information on Earth. That they are giving their superiors and commander-in-chief their best guesses. And that they know there are things they don't know, and point that out in briefings, too.
So ... we'll take their word for it.
We'll take their word that Lil' Kim in North Korea is, as the spies put it, a "rational actor." That news came out when CIA director Mike Pompeo addressed a security forum in California a few days back.
Apparently the thinking in Washington, and Langley, is that Kim Jong Un isn't as much as a madman as some might guess. That is, he knows the difference between life and death, or at least his own life and his own death.
"We in the intelligence community," said Director Pompeo, "have said that Kim Jong Un is rational, but it is also the case today that we don't think he has an understanding about how tenuous his position is--domestically and internationally."
Another agent in the know told the papers: "The fact that we are leaning on China says that we think [Kim] is someone who can be bartered with. If we had no faith in that, why would we bother to ask China to do more? We may have even done something pre-emptively by now."
So Lil' Kim is immature and slow on the uptake, and brutal and provocative, but ... rational enough to understand he risks all by launching a war against South Korea, or its major ally, the United States. Which is oddly reassuring. His army might be starving and sick, but it doesn't take much muscle to pull a lanyard. And there are thousands upon thousands of artillery pieces pre-sighted on Seoul and the American barracks nearby. Not to mention a handful of nuclear bombs that might even be deliverable by now.
So we'll take the word of the professionals.
And we'll also remember the scene from Field of Dreams, and Shoeless Joe's advice to Moonlight Graham: Look for low and away--but watch out for in your ear. That was the baseball version of Trust But Verify. And it works.
Editorial on 12/15/2017