North Korea won’t escalate—both sides surprisingly good at preventing escalation

Dan Reiter, "Analysis," Washington Post, 5-24-2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/11/should-you-worry-about-a-u-s-war-with-north-korea-not-really/-- 嘉玮

North Korea, the United States and South Korea are actually pretty good at preventing miscalculation

Could low-level provocations escalate to war? The bad news is that potentially spiraling incidents happen frequently on the Korean Peninsula, such as the December 2017 defection of a North Korean soldier leading to gunfire across the demilitarized zone. The good news is that these events happen so often that both sides are very practiced at avoiding escalation.

A Congressional Research Service report listed 163 provocative actions North Korea took from 1958 to 2007, including sinking South Korean ships and assassination attempts on the South Korean president. None of these incidents escalated to a broader shooting war.

The escalation risk decreased further this month when North Korea reopened a hotline with South Korea designed to facilitate communication and prevent minor events from escalating. In October, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed that Washington has a number of direct channels of communication with Pyongyang.

Conversely, the United States routinely takes provocative actions against North Korea that do not spark war. War games in South Korea involving thousands of U.S. troops are routine. Twice last year, American bombers flew over North Korea itself.