What Does Trump's Fire & Fury Signify?

President Trump's declaration that North Korea's threats to the United States will be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen" evokes images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All the more so as he made the remark the week of the 72nd anniversary of President Truman deploying nuclear weapons.

President Truman's decision to drop the bomb resulted in the deaths of nearly a quarter million civilians. If President Trump is promising "fire and fury like the world has never seen" what does he have in mind? Half a million deaths? A million? Ten million? More?

Let us keep in mind that President Truman and President Trump face very different circumstances. Truman & the Allied Powers were mired in a three and a half year global conflict which cost the lives of more than 30 million people, both civilian and military personnel, in the Pacific Theater. If  Truman hadn't dropped the bomb, he faced the likelihood of millions more deaths.

Trump faces no such choice. Although we have troops in the Korea Peninsula, we are not at war with North Korea. His threat is based entirely on a DIA report regarding North Korea having developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead. This report might very well be true. But what if it isn't? After all, our government and those of our allies and adversaries alike sincerely believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. When that turned out not to be true, few voices were louder than that of Donald Trump's who repeatedly claimed the Bush Administration lied about WMDs.

Let us also remember, Trump has been less than enamored with U.S. intelligence. When the CIA concluded that Russia had intervened in the election on his behalf in December 2016, his transition team issued the following statement, "These are the same people who said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Needless to say, Trump is selective about which intelligence he chooses to believe.

And now Trump is telling us his rhetoric isn't tough enough. All of this could just be bluster and North Korea will call Trump's bluff and this will be his red line in Syria. Or this is a man who wants to use nuclear weapons because he can and looking for any reason to do so. If it's the latter then God help us all.