De-escalating Kim Jong-un’s nuclear threat – through force, sanctions or talks – will require the US to navigate its tricky relationship with China
In the wake of North Korea’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date, the US has called for the toughest possible sanctions at the United Nations and said there are ample military options on the table.
Experts warn that there are few good options the US can take without assistance from China, which has been wary of pushing the North Korean regime to the brink of collapse. China has advocated a freeze on development of the North’s nuclear program in return for an end to joint US-South Korea military exercises, an idea the US has rejected.
Donald Trump has floated three ideas as a candidate and later US president to deal with the crisis: military strikes, punishing China economically and direct talks.
US defence secretary James Mattis warned earlier this week of “ a massive military response ” to any threat from North Korea against the US or its allies, and Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the UN, accused leader Kim Jong-un of “ begging for war ”.
“Kim Jong-un doesn’ t want to talk: he wants to develop the economy and a nuclear arsenal, not one or the other but both at the same time, ” said Park Byung-kwang, director of centre for north-east Asia at the Institute for National Security Strategy in Seoul, a thinktank affiliated with the country’s intelligence agency.
“The crisis on the Korean peninsula is getting worse, which means the likelihood of Trump exerting more pressure and even [a] military strike is becoming more feasible.”
According to Park, Trump has three options: ratcheting up pressure through sanctions, starting a direct dialogue with Kim or considering surgical strikes on North Korean military facilities.
But it remains uncertain if Trump would coordinate with South Korea and Japan, two important US allies in the region, ahead of a military strike. Both countries would likely vehemently oppose attacking North Korea, Park said, given that their citizens are most likely to die in any conflict.
Talk of war could bolster Kim’s position in the short term.
“Donald Trump’s sabre-rattling plays into Kim’s logic of domestic power that positions the US as a dire threat, justifying the regime’s political repression, ” according to Benjamin Habib, a politics professor at La Trobe University.
“One could be forgiven for observing the current US-North Korea standoff as a game played by privileged men in suits on either side, gambling with the lives of ordinary citizens, ” he added.
