U. S. officials scramble to come up with options in dealing with the North Korea threat. Here are three possible tactics.
So far, markets have shrugged off the North Korea crisis just like White House turmoil. But the economic hazard, like the security threat, is coming more clearly into focus.
Each new North Korean missile test brings American officials closer to an excruciating choice: striking militarily to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program from endangering the U. S., or accepting the North Korean threat while scrambling for a new strategy.
“There are real potential economic consequences” either way, said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He called it “an enormous test” of a Trump administration weakened by disarray.
The Trump administration has signaled that military options, which would put the South Korean population as well as American troops stationed there in the line of fire, remain on the table. But Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged the cost could be “a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes.”
The duration, scope and intensity of such a conflict would be highly unpredictable. In addition to the toll in casualties, it could destabilize the entire Asia-Pacific region and, at minimum, severely strain the confidence of consumers and investors in the United States.
A second alternative is relying on pressure from North Korea’s neighbor China. President Donald Trump has oscillated between promising that China could swiftly halt the North Korean nuclear program, to thanking China for trying unsuccessfully, to faulting China for “just talk.
