Illustration by Tom Bachtell

In 1969, Richard Nixon, about eight months into his Presidency, grew frustrated with the North Vietnamese leadership. The President wanted to negotiate an exit from the Vietnam War, but his adversary’s terms were unyielding. Nixon thought that he needed the Soviet Union to pressure North Vietnam; he also believed that Leonid Brezhnev would act only if he was convinced that the U.S. was about to do something crazy. In late October, Nixon ordered an operation code-named Giant Lance. B-52 bombers loaded with atomic weapons took off from bases in California and Washington State and headed toward the Soviet Union, then flew in loops above the polar ice cap. Nixon’s hope was that Soviet intelligence would interpret the action as an immediate, and utterly insane, threat of nuclear attack. The “madman nuclear alert,” as the political scientist Scott D. Sagan and the historian Jeremi Suri called it in a 2003 article, remained secret for years. H. R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, recounted in his memoir how his boss described the tactic. “I call it the Madman Theory,” Nixon once told him. “We’ll just slip the word to them that ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he is angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button.’ ”

Last week, about eight months into his Presidency, Donald Trump, while addressing the United Nations General Assembly, denounced Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea: “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission.” The President said that, while the United States has “great strength and patience,” if it were “forced to defend itself or its allies” it would “have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Kim replied in kind. “I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” he said.

Never before have two leaders in command of nuclear arsenals more closely evoked a professional wrestling match. It is unsettling that with both men it is hard to know where performance ends and personality begins. Trump rages publicly at Kim, but, then, he rages at everyone, from his staff to Meryl Streep. Kim may not be suicidal, but he has executed his uncle and is reported to have ordered the murder of his half brother.

In the history of nuclear diplomacy, no nation-state has ever given up atomic weapons in response to shrill threats. In a number of instances, however, countries have been coaxed to mothball their nuclear programs in exchange for political and economic returns. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus voluntarily gave up their nuclear weapons or abandoned advanced programs. In 2003, Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator, agreed, in exchange for economic opportunities, to surrender his uranium-enrichment equipment. Nearly twelve years later came the landmark accord in which Iran agreed to freeze its nuclear-weapons program and dismantle parts of it, in exchange for relief from sanctions.

Sometimes leaders hold on to nukes because they fear that without them as a deterrent their countries might be invaded or destroyed. (That largely explains why Israel and Pakistan have kept theirs.) Kim Jong Un may well worry that if he gives up his nuclear weapons his regime will be overthrown. In 2011, NATO members and other nations intervened to protect a popular uprising against Qaddafi, which led to his being removed from power and killed. As Evan Osnos heard repeatedly in Pyongyang in his recent reporting for The New Yorker, the lesson for North Korea was clear: if you surrender a nuclear deterrent, you embolden your enemies.

It is not Trump’s fault that North Korea has crossed ominous nuclear thresholds this year. Three previous Administrations have tried and failed to alter Pyongyang’s calculus. Since North Korea may have the capacity to reach American cities with nuclear-tipped missiles, it is crucial that we deter Kim by warning him that if he strikes first his country will face devastating retaliation. Such understandings have composed the framework for nuclear deterrence for decades. The U.S. may have to live with a nuclear North Korea indefinitely, but history shows that, with sufficient patience, economic pressure, and negotiation, nuclear states will sometimes disarm.

To apply some version of the Madman Theory to the North Korean problem, however, as Trump seems inclined to do, is foolish. The nuclear alert that Nixon attempted in 1969 was “ineffective and dangerous,” Sagan and Suri concluded in their article. It is not clear if Brezhnev even understood what Nixon was trying to communicate. Also, the nuclear-armed American planes involved in Giant Lance risked crashing into one another. Trump and his advisers talk loosely about preparing for a “military option” against North Korea. By this they seem to mean a preëmptive war, even though military analysts believe that such a conflict would claim more than a million lives in South Korea in its opening phase, while also exposing American cities to the possibility of a nuclear attack. If Kim Jong Un believes that Trump is rash enough to initiate a first strike, he may accelerate his missile and nuclear-bomb tests and deployments. North Korea’s missile-testing binge this year has increased the odds of an accident. One of Kim’s rockets could veer off course and kill civilians in Japan or elsewhere. The result of such a calamity could conceivably be a war.

Trump’s other gut-instinct foray into global nuclear diplomacy—his apparent intention to tear up or to unilaterally renegotiate the Iran nuclear accord—is no wiser than his strategy in East Asia. Iran is abiding by the agreement’s terms. There is no new “crisis” to address. An American withdrawal from the Iran deal would not only encourage the worst elements in Iranian politics; it would also undermine U.S. relations with Russia, China, and European countries just when their coöperation is needed to pressure North Korea. “To overcome the perils of the present,” the President said at the U.N. last week, “we must begin with the wisdom of the past.” If only there were some evidence that Trump knew what that was, or how to use the power of his office to forge a less dangerous world. ♦