Beware Kim Jong un cunning!

It looks like Kim Jong un may be as cunning as he is paranoid. After the back-and-forth slanging match between him and Trump, North Korea's miitary came up with a careful statement, clearly approved by Kim which toned down the tension down but without seeming to take a step back. The first threat had been to launch ballistic missiles AT Guam, following Trump's threat to hit Pyongyang with fire and fury. But the language subtly changed. Now North Korea, subject to Kim's approval, was going to fire four Hwasong-12 missiles TOWARDS Guam but landing 20 miles off the coast. Tricky one for Trump! If Kim goes ahead and launches the missiles but they land 20 miles away from Guam, how should Trump respond? It would clearly be a deliberate provocation but not an actual attack. No one dies. But Trump must ask himself: what if the next flight of test missiles land ten or eight miles from the coast of Guam? At what point does the leader of the only real superpower in the world say, enough is enough? You see the problem? It's the familiar "red line" ultimatum game. Trump cannot afford to issue an utimatum unless he means to act upon it. So will the firing of four ballistic missiles close to Guam be a provocation too far, and, if so, what does Trump do? Does the law of self-defence allow the president of the United States to launch an attack on North Korea that actually causes damage and deaths? Wouldn't that be seen as an inappropriate response? I think Kim has worked this out for himself and is taunting Trump. The president's "fire and fury" has unfortunately set him up for accusations of weakness if he does nothing as the North Korean missiles get closer and closer to Guam. But there's little point in Trump ordering the launch of, say, a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles to land just short of North Korea's coastline. A waste of Tomahawks for a start and a bit silly. But if the US hits a North Korean ballistic missile base to show Kim that the next time he fires off missiles towards Guam, the punishment will be much worse, it would be denounced by China and Russia (Crimea-annexing Russia!!). So it's very tricky for the golf-playing Trump. He will need to seek advice from all his generals, in and out of uniform, before he reacts or overreacts to the next Kim provocation. Nobody wants fire and fury, Mr Trump. But I reckon Trump is desperate to give that upstart North Korean dictator a bloody nose. With all the firepower at his disposal, however, it would be difficult to make Kim's nose bleed without setting off conflagration. Beware, Mr President.