What should obama do about north korea

At the same time, it hopes to strengthen its hand with China in the wake of the recent meeting of the North Korean and Chinese premiers. Pyongyang also casts a concerned glance at the recent improvement of long-strained U.

North Korea sees the test as a very public way to dampen speculation about a power vacuum after reports of leader Kim Jong Il's stroke last August. But the missile test could also mean that top military leaders are putting on a show while Kim remains at least partially incapacitated. If this is the case, we are likely to see a further ratcheting up of tensions, with the possibility of accidents or miscalculations as competing factions jockey for internal control.

These aspects of timing and motivation should condition the "stern and unified" response President Obama called for at the G meeting in London.

Accordingly: We should be careful not to overreact and to jump to conclusions about what the missile test really represents until all the detailed military assessments are in. We should resist a downgrade of the multilateral dialogue mechanism—which ultimately needs to be expanded beyond the denuclearization mandate to cover development, infrastructure, energy and the environment.

This implies an acceptance by the five other players in the six-party talks that differing, flexible tactical approaches may be need to achieve strategic objectives. We should also move toward full U.

A Chinese adage suggests that a "cornered dog bites. I was one of the kids who performed civil-defense drills in the s, ducking under my school desk while sirens wailed. During the Cuban missile crisis, the possibility seemed imminent enough that I plotted the fastest route from school to home.

The threat of nuclear attack is a feature of the modern world, and one that has grown far less existential to Americans over time. It is expensive to build an atom bomb, and very hard to build one small enough to ride in a missile. It is also hard to build an ICBM. But these are all old technologies. The know-how exists and is widespread. Preventing a terrorist group from acquiring such a weapon may be possible, but when a nation—whether North Korea or Iran or any other—commits itself to the goal, stopping it is virtually impossible.

Persuading a nation to abandon nuclear arms depends less on military strength than on the collective determination of the world, and a decision made by the nation in question. It is hard to imagine Pyongyang making such a decision anytime soon, but creating a framework that renders that decision at least conceivable is the only sensible way forward.

This is not a hopeless strategy. Over the years Pyongyang, in between its threats and provocations, has more than once dangled offers to freeze its nuclear progress.

With the right inducements, Kim very well might decide to change direction. Or he might die. In such a system, things might change—for better or worse—overnight. This is likely to put him at odds with Donald Trump, but reduces the chances of the U. China has also expressed more willingness to put pressure on Kim, although it has yet to act emphatically on this.

And time might allow the working-out of a peaceful path to disarmament. Better to buy time than to risk mass death by provoking a military confrontation. For all these reasons, acceptance is how the current crisis should and will most likely play out. No one is going to announce this policy.

If there were a tolerable alternative, it would long ago have been tried. Sabotage may continue to stall progress, but cannot stop it altogether. As long as they are making progress toward nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and they can stay in power, then they seem to be willing to pay that price. In short, North Korea is a problem with no solution … except time.

True, time works in favor of Kim getting what he wants. Every test, successful or not, brings him closer to building his prized weapons. When he has nuclear ICBMs, North Korea will have a more potent and lethal strike capability against the United States and its allies, but no chance of destroying America, or winning a war, and therefore no better chance of avoiding the inevitable consequence of launching a nuke: national suicide.

Kim may end up trapped in the circular logic of his strategy. He seeks to avoid destruction by building a weapon that, if used, assures his destruction. His regime thrives on crisis. Perhaps when he feels safe enough with his arsenal, he might turn to more-sensible goals, like building the North Korean economy, opening trade, and ending its decades of extreme isolation. All of these are the very things that create the framework needed for disarmament.

But acceptance, while the right choice, is yet another bad one. With such missiles, Kim might feel emboldened to move on South Korea. Would the U. The same calculation drove the U. Trump has already suggested that South Korea and Japan might want to consider building nuclear programs. In this way, acceptance could lead to more nuclear-armed states and ever greater chances that one will use the weapons.

With his arsenal, Kim may well become an even more destabilizing force in the region. There is a good chance that he would try to negotiate from strength with Seoul and Washington, forging some kind of confederation with the South that leads to the removal of U.

If talks were to resume, Trump had better enter them with his eyes open, because Kim, who sees himself as the divinely inspired heir to leadership of all the Korean people, is not likely to be satisfied with only his half of the peninsula. There is no sign of panic in Seoul. Writing for The New York Times from the city in April, Motoko Rich found residents busy with their normal lives, eating at restaurants, crowding in bars, and clogging some of the most congested highways in the world.

In a poll taken before the May election, fewer than 10 percent of South Koreans rated the North Korean nuclear threat as their top concern. We would all just die in an instant. In the five and a half years since assuming power at age 27, he has acted with brutal efficiency to consolidate that power; the assassination of his half brother is only the most recent example.

For a man who occupies a position both powerful and perilous, his moves have been nothing if not deliberate and even cruelly rational. And as the latest head of a family that has ruled for three generations, one whose primary purpose has been to survive, as a young man with a lifetime of wealth and power before him, how likely is he to wake up one morning and set fire to his world?

Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. The War on Bollywood Aatish Taseer. In recent years, the rate at which the Kim regime has launched test missiles has increased. Listen to the audio version of this article: Feature stories, read aloud: download the Audm app for your iPhone.

No matter how well you fought, there were always more. They would slip behind you, cut off your avenue of retreat, and then they would hit you on the flanks. They were superb at that, Miller thought. The first wave or two would come at you with rifles, and right behind them were soldiers without rifles ready to pick up the weapons of those who had fallen and keep coming. Against an army with that many men, everyone, he thought, needed an automatic weapon.

Baengnyeong Island, South Korea, April 24, A crane salvages the South Korean warship Cheonan , which sank following a mysterious explosion near the disputed sea border with North Korea, leaving 46 crew members dead. Administrations have tried various strategies to thwart the dangerous trajectory of the regime.

Some have made progress, only to be set back by North Korean perfidy, by changes in policy direction and by cautious partners and allies in the region who wanted a different approach. We now know that for much of this time Pyongyang was working to preserve and even expand its nuclear program.

North Korea has several nuclear weapons and is perfecting the missiles that are designed to deliver them. The North Korea challenge is, as President Obama reportedly told then President-elect Donald Trump, the most dangerous and difficult security challenge he will face. The U. Nothing has produced lasting results. Administrations have tried sanctions but have faced a China reluctant to enforce them and an inadequate international response. Administrations have considered military action but have pulled back, assessing the risk of catastrophic war as too great.

The main reason we are where we are today is because North Korea has walked away from every denuclearization agreement ever reached. The regime clearly wants nuclear weapons more than any inducement. And it has not changed its behavior in the face of sanctions. But no U. Compelling Pyongyang to make that stark choice offers the best way forward.

A successful U. Avoiding the temptation to do nothing. By Chris Hill. There are, no doubt, problems and even crises in the world that go away on their own. The North Korean nuclear issue is not one of them. The growing number of tests in recent years, including two nuclear explosions in alone, suggests that North Korea has made development, deployment and the capability to deliver nuclear weapons a national aspiration.

He also repeatedly insisted that North Korea had to be stripped of its nuclear capabilities before diplomatic or trade connections could be built. Even so, North Korea's repeated displays of aggression meant that Obama never got to the point of negotiation. And even though Trump is the first American leader to meet face-to-face with a North Korean leader, he's definitely not the first to be asked.

By Kavitha George.