The big story in the US last week was about a missing armada. A few days after Donald Trump declared that an armada was on its way to North Korea, the carrier group turned out to be heading in the wrong direction, en route to Australia. The other big story was about the power of a stern look. That one belonged to Mike Pence, the vice-president, who donned a black leather jacket, flexed his muscles, and took a step into the demilitarised zone on the border between North and South Korea. He wanted, as he put it, the North Koreans to see his face.
To be fair, the armada debacle was more communications cock-up than policy conspiracy — it was a matter of time before the strike group would turn in the right direction towards the Sea of Japan. The vice-president’s bravado is harder to explain.
Most worrying is that between his posturing and the president’s loose rhetoric, the US sounded like it could be talking itself into war with North Korea. Although Mr Trump seems unaware, words and symbolism matter in politics. They matter more when the enemy is a mercurial dictator like Kim Jong Un, who could easily pick up the wrong signal and act on it with devastating effect.