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🇰🇷 South Korea /Culture & Society

Ignoring Allies and Praising Rivals: Why Did Trump Adopt the “Madman Strategy”?

From Dong-A Ilbo · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Context piece
  • Jim Sciutto’s “The Madman Theory” examines whether Donald Trump’s unpredictable foreign policy reflected a deliberate strategy or emotional shifts.
  • The book compares Trump’s dealings with North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Syria and traditional allies with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s calculated use of the Madman Theory.
  • “Because We Lived, We Must Speak” gathers survivor testimony, victims’ belongings, archival documents and Korean poetry to remember civilian massacres during the Vietnam War.

Two books featured in Dong-A Ilbo’s weekly new-books section examine very different forms of memory and power: one analyzes Donald Trump’s foreign policy, while the other uses poetry to remember civilian massacres during the Vietnam War.

In “The Madman Theory,” CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto asks whether Trump’s unpredictable words and actions represented a calculated strategy or simply emotional swings. The theory originated with U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who sought to convince the Soviet Union that the United States was irrational enough to use nuclear weapons. They hoped that impression would help bring North Vietnam to the negotiating table.

Love letters

· Jim Sciutto, as described in the reviewThe phrase describes Trump’s exchanges with Kim Jong Un.

Sciutto argues that Trump followed a similar approach, whether intentionally or by accident. The book points to his exchanges of “love letters” with Kim Jong Un, the Singapore and Hanoi summits that produced no agreement, his open praise of Vladimir Putin, delays in aid to Ukraine and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. The latter, the review says, effectively allowed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to consolidate control in northern Syria.

The book also describes Trump disregarding advisers and intelligence reports while sidelining long-standing partners including Canada, NATO, Ukraine and the Kurds. Drawing on testimony from current and former U.S. administration officials, Sciutto concludes that the carefully designed strategy imagined by MAGA supporters did not exist. Unpredictability may have generated short-term attention, the review says, but harmed America’s long-term national interests. The book contrasts Nixon’s calculated strategy with what it calls Trump’s uncalculated chaos.

Calling a name is like caressing a body that is no longer there.

· Heo Eun-silThe poet’s line appears in the collection commemorating Vietnamese civilian massacre victims.

The second title, “Because We Lived, We Must Speak,” was compiled by the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation for its 10th anniversary. The poetry archive remembers civilian massacres committed by South Korean forces in Vietnam more than six decades ago. It brings together victims’ belongings, survivors’ accounts and Korean poems written from the 1960s to the present.

The collection includes works by poets who served in the war, new poems by nine later-generation poets confronting the massacre records, and experimental poems completed with public participation. Court records, memorial inscriptions and Defense Ministry documents supplied material for the poems. Poet Heo Eun-sil writes, “Calling a name is like caressing a body that is no longer there.” The collection presents poetry as a channel for facing the past and pursuing reconciliation between Korea and Vietnam.

Remember, remember, remember for sure!

· Unattributed line in the poetry collectionThe line emphasizes the collection’s demand that people confront and preserve the memory of those who disappeared unnamed.
About this summary

Originally published by Dong-A Ilbo in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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