This test should not come as a surprise as the regime has been very open about its ambitions \u2014 but what can President Donald Trump actually do about it?<\/b>
\nNorth Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test Sunday, according to senior U. S. officials, an apparently significant step toward its goal of building a bomb capable of hitting the U. S. mainland.
To anyone paying attention, this development should not come as a surprise as the regime has been very open about its ambitions \u2014 but what can President Donald Trump actually do about it?
Some experts say the president now finds himself boxed in with only one real option: negotiate with a brutal dictatorship that’s one of the world’s most oppressive human-rights abusers.
\u00ab\u00a0This looks like the only option here, \u00a0\u00bb according to Professor Hazel Smith at the School of Oriental and African Studies, a university in London more commonly known as SOAS. \u00ab\u00a0There needs to be some very brave diplomacy \u2014 diplomacy with a regime that for good reason is considered abhorrent.\u00a0\u00bb
Whether the colorful characters leading Washington and Pyongyang have the appetite for this course of action remains to be seen.
Certain members of Trump’s administration have appeared more open to the idea of talks, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying last month that \u00ab\u00a0we’re trying to convey to the North Koreans, ‘We are not your enemy, we are not your threat.'\u00a0\u00bb
But Trump and his counterpart, Kim Jong Un, have more often favored threats and demands over nuance and olive branches.
Trump’s tweet following Sunday’s test exemplified his approach, saying: \u00ab\u00a0appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!\u00a0\u00bb
And later Sunday as he was leaving a Washington church, when the president was asked whether he would attack North Korea, he responded, \u00ab\u00a0We’ll see.\u00a0\u00bb
\u00ab\u00a0We come back to the idea that there has to be some sort of negotiation, \u00a0\u00bb said John Nilsson-Wright, a senior research fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. \u00ab\u00a0However there’s no evidence that North Korea is ready to talk and not much from Donald Trump either.\u00a0\u00bb
In fact, North Korea did actually appear to suggest last month that it was open to getting rid of its nukes and rockets \u00ab\u00a0if the U. S. hostile policy and nuclear threat to [North Korea] are definitely terminated.\u00a0\u00bb
But all the while, the threats and missile tests and fiery propaganda have kept coming.
So how did we get to a place where the world’s biggest economy and most powerful military has so few options in dealing with an impoverished pariah state with few allies?
Firstly, a military strike against North Korea would be chaotic and bloody. If the U. S. launched an offensive, the North would almost certainly provoke a devastating retaliation against America’s ally of South Korea.
Even with conventional, non-nuclear weapons, North Korea could launch a barrage of missiles against the South’s capital of Seoul, and the wider conflict could see \u00ab\u00a0millions of casualties and probably millions of deaths, \u00a0\u00bb according to Smith at SOAS, author of \u00ab\u00a0North Korea: Markets and Military Rule.\u00a0\u00bb
These dire consequences caused Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to conclude last month that \u00ab\u00a0there\u2019s no military solution [to North Korea] , forget it.\u00a0\u00bb
While Trump has certainly talked tough \u2014 threatening North Korea with \u00ab\u00a0fire\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0fury\u00a0\u00bb among other things \u2014 these ultimatums have rarely if ever been backed up with action.
And some analysts say these hollow warnings have only emboldened North Korea.
\u00ab\u00a0The United States has not mounted a coherent and visible response to several thresholds that have been crossed, \u00a0\u00bb Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told MSNBC on Sunday.
When North Korea achieved several important milestones in its weapons program, such as test-firing two intercontinental ballistic missiles, this \u00ab\u00a0did not provoke a specific response from the Trump administration, \u00a0\u00bb Mount said. \u00ab\u00a0That’s been a mistake and quite frankly it’s allowed these missile tests to continue.\u00a0\u00bb
Nilsson-Wright, who is also a senior lecturer at Cambridge University, agreed.
\u00ab\u00a0It seems that Donald Trump’s tactic of using rhetorical brinkmanship is not working and failing pretty dramatically, \u00a0\u00bb he said.
The other option open to the international community is more sanctions.
But as Smith at SOAS pointed out, \u00ab\u00a0sanctions are not a policy in and of themselves. The question is, what do you want them to actually achieve?\u00a0\u00bb
Judging by North Korea’s increasing nuclear and missile capabilities, the measures imposed so far have been unsuccessful in halting the regime’s technological advance. In addition \u00ab\u00a0any food sanctions would be directly affecting 25 million people who are living in one of the poorest countries in the world, \u00a0\u00bb Smith said.
Military conflict and sanctions aside, that leaves the option of negotiation.
Despite North Korea’s appalling human-rights record, any talks would be \u00ab\u00a0a good thing and an important thing to consider, \u00a0\u00bb according to Nilsson-Wright.
North Korea is unlikely to launch a preemptive attack on the U. S. or its allies, but its weapons program worries analysts because of the scope for miscalculation and miscommunication from both sides.
Entering into diplomatic talks with historical enemies is nothing new. In 1997, British Prime Minister Tony Blair started negotiations with the Irish Republican Army, a banned terrorist group that committed waves of attacks against civilians and the U. K. government.
There’s also precedent between the U. S. and North Korea. In 1997, three years before Blair shook the hands of IRA leaders, former President Jimmy Carter flew to Pyongyang to persuade the regime to negotiate with Bill Clinton over its nuclear program.
\u00ab\u00a0These gestures at the 11th hour can sometimes work, but I haven’t seen any sign that Donald Trump is willing to do something as bold as that, \u00a0\u00bb Nilsson-Wright said.<\/p>\n