Let’s face it: three American administrations tried, and completely failed, to persuade the North Korean regime to give up its nuclear program, because the regime obviously believes that nuclear weapons are essential to its continued existence. Gorbachev could tell you that a nuclear arsenal is no guarantee that your political system won’t implode, and the regime already has a substantial conventional deterrent, but whatever. It is what it is.
That leaves us with three options:
1. A Chinese-inspired coup, followed by a partial liberalization of the political and economic systems: For everyone but the regime, this is the best possible outcome. The Chinese get to expand their influence; the North Korean people get a more tolerable system; the South Koreans don’t have to worry about picking up the huge check for reunification; and we get an end to the nuclear program. Unfortunately, the regime is only too aware of this possibility, which is why any North Korean bigwig who becomes close to the Chinese tends to end up on the business end of an anti-aircraft gun. China is, in a way, as big a threat to the regime as we are.
2. Learn to live with a North Korean nuclear threat: Deterrence has always worked with all of the other nuclear powers, so why not North Korea? The obvious response is that it would be risky to rely on the rationality of a hermit state that places such an unwarranted value on its nuclear program.
3. A preemptive strike on the nuclear program, accompanied by a promise not to seek regime change and a threat to annihilate North Korea if there is any retaliation: The risk of this approach, of course, is millions of deaths in South Korea and, potentially, even Japan. If Trump truly believes in “America First,” however, what’s that to him? It would be up to Kim to decide whether to live with the humiliation of losing his weapons or to retaliate and watch the complete destruction of his country.
I have predicted previously that Trump will roll the dice with the lives of our allies and launch the preemptive strike. I stand by my prediction.