The taunts over nuclear buttons between North Korea鈥檚 Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump聽galvanised efforts to get the two leaders to agree to meet in Singapore next week. They also had an unanticipated consequence.
Not long afterwards, Russia鈥檚 Vladimir Putin, ranking second on the world鈥檚 nuclear political stage, announced a new type of intercontinental rocket. A simple animation showed a weapon that would supposedly renew the nuclear arms race as it sped across the globe presumably to kill millions of Americans.
It seemed slightly pointless, given that mutually assured destruction has been with us for over half a century.
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But what Putin understood, viscerally, was that if you wanted to keep your hand in politically, you had to make the same sort of chimp-like alpha-male bluffs that preceded the announcement of the historic summit between Trump and Kim.
The US stands willing to pay for a huge military budget, with its close nuclear allies Great Britain, France and Israel. Russia, China plus India and Pakistan make up the rest of the nuclear group.
Kim has been watching these players. He understands there is a dominant elite and surely wants to join it. But he also recognises that to do so, he needs to deal with Trump鈥檚 nuclear dominance by being able to dispel any doubt that he could hit聽US cities.
North Korea鈥檚 track record might suggest that he thinks he can buy time to fully develop that capability 鈥� even if his bluffs suggest it is already there 鈥� through insincere negotiation tactics, perhaps dragging his feet over implementing any post-summit deal.
Trump for his part has been standing by, watching Kim and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea do a reunification dance that has stunned the world and raised the noble idea of ending a bitter and nasty war on the Korean peninsula. But while Trump uses the upcoming meeting with Kim as a photo-op to make his standing less unfavourable at home, Kim may be building up his arsenal while hawkish US National Security Advisor John Bolton is relegated to the wings.
Psychologist Steven Pinker, best known for his book on the trajectory of human aggression as our species has advanced, called The Better Angels of our Nature, has identified lessening violence as a tendency, even if the risk of nuclear conflict has the potential to undo such progress.
Kim and Trump, with Putin trying to cut in, have introduced a new degree of risk in a precarious world, and the high stakes stage where this is played out must be watched. Active nuclear bluffing is now a public tool, and escalating toward such behaviour carries real risks.
The better angels of our nature just might come to the fore in Singapore on 12 June, but it is far too soon to tell if they will.
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