Nuclear security

Think positive: How to get North Korea to roll back its nuclear weapons activity

The current strategy employed by Trump—of responding to Kim’s provocative behavior with harsh, sometimes even belligerent, rhetoric—does nothing but make Kim lash out with more aggressive behavior. Kim’s worst fear is of US interference in North Korea, and he (and his father and grandfather before him) has used the threat of American imperialism as the cornerstone of his domestic propaganda. North Korean nuclear weapons are painted as an essential defense against this threat. By threatening the use of force, or even the strengthening of sanctions against Pyongyang, Trump not only restarts the cycle of interaction between the United States and North Korea, but escalates the situation tweet by tweet.

The price of military action. Critics of any strategy centered on positive inducements worry about the potential for rewarding bad behavior. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson raised this concern in April, saying “We will not negotiate our way back to the negotiating table with North Korea.” However, the White House must give serious thought to whether military action, which is a real possibility on the current trajectory, is a worthwhile tradeoff for not “rewarding” Pyongyang’s nuclear escalation. North Korea has seen three leaders in Pyongyang issue increasingly inflammatory threats against the United States, but that does not mean the interaction with North Korea has to culminate in a military crisis.