Facing test of resolve, Trump pushes
ahead with North Korea review
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[March 08, 2017]
By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with a growing
test of resolve for a new U.S. president who vowed while campaigning to
get tough on North Korea, Donald Trump's aides are pressing to complete
a strategy review on how to counter Pyongyang's missile and nuclear
threats.
Pyongyang's latest missile launches and the assassination in Malaysia of
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's estranged half-brother have added
urgency, driving home the need for Washington to confront the security
challenge.
All options are on the table, ranging from tighter sanctions aimed at
pushing North Korea back into disarmament talks, to a return of U.S.
nuclear weapons to South Korea, and even pre-emptive air strikes on
North Korean missile installations, senior U.S. administration officials
said.
They added a consensus was forming around relying for now on increased
economic and diplomatic pressure – especially by pressing China to do
more to rein in North Korea - while deploying advanced anti-missile
defenses in South Korea and possibly in Japan, as well.
Among the other possibilities, one U.S. official said, was returning
North Korea to the U.S. list of countries that support terrorism.
That would be a response to the suspected use of nerve gas to kill Kim's
brother at a Malaysian airport last month. It would subject Pyongyang -
already heavily sanctioned by the United Nations and individual states,
so far to little effect - to additional financial sanctions that were
removed when it was taken off the list in 2008.
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For now, U.S. officials consider pre-emptive military action far too
risky, given the danger of igniting a regional war and causing massive
casualties in Japan and South Korea and among tens of thousands of U.S.
troops based in both allied countries.
Such ideas could gain traction, however, if North Korea proceeds with a
threatened test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of
hitting the United States. Just before he took office in January, Trump
tweeted: "It won't happen!" when Kim said North Korea was close to
testing an ICBM.
Trump also could opt for escalating cyber attacks and other covert
actions aimed at undermining the North Korean leadership, a U.S.
government source said.
REVIEW COULD BE COMPLETED THIS MONTH
The review is expected to be completed by the end of the month,
officials said. Decisions could be held up, however, by the slow pace at
which Trump has been filling national security jobs.
Trump is known to have little patience for detailed foreign policy
discussions, but officials said he seemed to have heeded a warning from
his White House predecessor, Barack Obama, that North Korea would be the
most urgent international issue he would face - so much so that he
requested intelligence briefings on the issue.
While officials have stressed the need to persuade China to do more to
pressure North Korea, Trump's first concrete response to North Korea's
missile tests has been to start installing an advanced anti-missile
defense system in South Korea, which has incensed Beijing.
Diplomats said the move might reassure U.S. allies but could backfire by
antagonizing China, which regards the system as a threat, and make it
less willing to step up sanctions on its neighbor.
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![](../images/030817pics/news_u33.jpg)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervises a ballistic rocket
launching drill of Hwasong artillery units of the Strategic Force of
the KPA in an undated photo. KCNA/via REUTERS
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"You have to adjust and calibrate all the options based on the facts on
the ground," said an administration official, who added that media
reports highlighting military options were overblown.
"The ability to have sanctions that pack some punch and are more dynamic
than we have had in the past is going to be dependent to some extent on
Chinese cooperation," he said.
Chinese diplomats argue that Beijing is doing all it can.
Bonnie Glaser at Washington's Center for Strategic and International
Studies said China could close banks that conduct illicit financial
transactions with North Korea, prosecute front companies facilitating
business, cut off oil exports and expel North Korean workers.
NO GOOD MILITARY OPTIONS
Glazer said she saw no good military option. While past talks have
failed, she would not be surprised if Trump wanted to try diplomacy.
One idea could be to discuss a freeze in North Korea's nuclear and
missile programs, which would fall short of current demands for nuclear
disarmament.
"North Korea may insist on being recognized as a nuclear weapons state
as a precondition, in which case the U.S. would have to decide whether
to make that concession," she said.
Evans Revere, a former senior diplomat who dealt with Korea under
President George W. Bush, said Washington should pressure North Korea
with sanctions, military deployments and covert operations.
"Doing this would ... compel the regime to rethink its course and make
it more likely to return to dialogue and denuclearization, lest it risk
collapse," he said.
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Whether Trump will be willing to tolerate the level of risk needed to
make such a strategy work remains unclear.
"This is an administration that is more inclined to be averse to regime
change than previous administrations," the first administration official
said. "That's from the top down."
"This administration intends to come up with options based on the cards
we are dealt; not try to change the deck entirely, which is what regime
change is."
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Matt Spetalnick, Steve Holland, John
Walcott and Phil Stewart in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the
United Nations; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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