North Korea is a mystery to most of the world. Controlled by one family via inheritance and through totalitarian methods, its internal politics is in the iron grip of whoever is the hereditary leader, who hold the powers of life and death over those he rules. The country is in a permanent state of war with South Korea, but this has been suspended by an armistice for 60 years. It is obsessed with not only having nuclear weapons, but by having the capacity to land them via missiles on the mainland of the United States. Only then will it feel safe from attack for the purposes of regime change. The problem is the rest of the world will not. In particular America.
The North Korean leadership has played its paucity of cards with a frightening skill, outwitting several US administrations, to the point where its technical advances have confounded so called experts and brought it to the brink of achieving its nuclear and ballistic ambitions. It has also brought itself to the brink of war with the United States, and with it the consequent destruction not just of its own country but much of South Korea too. Japan may not escape collateral damage and the whole region would suffer an economic meltdown in the immediate aftermath. This would spill into the global economic system.
Clearly there must be a better way. Sanctions have no effect, although they are constantly in play, like the next drink being the route to abstinence in the befuddled mind of the chronic alcoholic. Sooner or later, through miscalculation or loss of patience war is now certain. Unless.
Unless the United States manages to convince North Korea that the next time it fires a rocket or tests a nuclear bomb it will be attacked and wiped out. If that message sinks home, as in Kennedy at Cuba, talks can deliver an outcome which works for both sides. But so long as the US allows itself to be pushed just a little further down the road of talk and no action, while Kim Jon Un follows one provocation upon another, the road to calamity remains open. The lesson of the Cold War was that in order to prevent it you have to be ready and willing to fight. At a moment’s notice. Loaded and locked was a statement then of fact, not as now, a rhetorical flourish.