Tuesday, November 22, 2016

What Will Be President-Elect Trump's Policy Towards North Korea?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the test-fire of a strategic submarine underwater ballistic missile (not pictured), in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on May 9, 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS/KCNA

Elise Hu, NPR: How Uncertainty In The Korean Peninsula Could Be A 'Recipe for Disaster'

As in so many foreign policy issues, there's considerable confusion about what U.S. policy toward North Korea will look like under President-elect Donald Trump. Pyongyang's expanding nuclear capability will not be something he can ignore.

"The likelihood today of a nuclear catastrophe somewhere in the world is greater than it was than during the Cold War — greater than during the Cold War," former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said in Seoul a week after the American election.

He doesn't think a catastrophe will come from a nation launching an actual attack, but rather through an accident.

"The danger is we blunder into a nuclear war. The reason we are blundering into these positions is that people do not understand the dangers," Perry said.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: Aside from continuing a policy of containment and more sanctions .... there is very little that the U.S. can do to change North Korea's behavior.

2 comments:

B.Poster said...

Containment and sanctions only reinforce the behaviors that we are supposedly trying to change. In order to have any chance at changing said behaviors, the so called policies of containment and sanctions need to be revisited.

The problem with sanctions is the US dollar will be losing its role as world reserve currency sooner rather than later, probably within the first term of the next POTUS. Sanctioning countries only hastens the end and makes a "hard landing" more likely when this does happen. The goal needs to be a "soft landing." The "landing" itself cannot be prevented. Containment can't work as it is unsustainable and only further drains the US military. The US military is already worn down to the point that even basic national defense will be problematic at best. Continuing to try and use the US military as a component to "contain" North Korea is not only futile but will make the situation even more dire.

Hurhurhur said...

Just drop bomb, make parking lot, such is life..