North Korea 3-17-2017

17, March 2017                             North Korea

Mr. Trump is ignoring his first major foreign policy challenge. No, not the travel ban which is in search of a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. This is a complete waste of resources that could be better utilized in confronting a serious challenge that has landed on his doorstep. North Korea’s bizarre despot, Kim Jong-un, is fast becoming a major threat to regional and national stability.

The stakes could not be higher. We have a super macho, twitter-happy U.S. president that is being challenged by a mercurial North Korean authoritarian leader. Trump and Kim have much in common. Both are unpredictable leaders who thrive on adulation. Kim and Putin also have much in common; both do not tolerate dissidents who are ruthlessly exterminated.

According to Robert Litwak, from the Wilson Center, “North Korea is on the verge of a strategic breakout that would enable its leadership to strike the United States with a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile. Litwak predicts that by 2020, North Korea could have a “nuclear arsenal half the size of Great Britain’s with missiles capable of striking the U.S. homeland.” In his new book, “Preventing North Korea’s Nuclear Breakout,” Litwak warns that North Korea is building a nuclear bomb arsenal that could be as large as 100 warheads, and from missiles that could easily reach Japan and South Korea. A 140 character Trump tweet will not resolve this menacing problem.