Latest in North Korea
President Donald Trump released an executive order yesterday declaring, in effect, the time has come for the international community—China, in particular—to choose sides over North Korea.
One of the most robust findings in the field of behavioral economics is the difference between what people demand to sell something they already own and the price they would have been willing to pay for it. For example, my wine-loving investor friend might not be willing to bid more than $750 for a desirable bottle of Bordeaux, but when received as a gift wouldn’t sell the same bottle for less than $1000. Somehow the mere fact of owning something makes it seem more valuable.
With biannual joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises set to begin on Monday, the temperature on the Korean Peninsula has cooled, if only slightly, following a recent escalation in rhetoric between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Other than war, the only ways to address the major threats from North Korea are deterrence and negotiations. The U.S. should certainly continue and sensibly expand deterrence strategies. But negotiations with North Korea would provide the best path forward. Most people agree that the best route to effective negotiations is working cooperatively with China, but those efforts haven’t yet paid off.
President Donald Trump tweeted Aug. 11 that “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.” Many observers have interpreted the president’s statement as doubling down on his earlier threats to use military force against North Korea.
North Korean state media announced Tuesday that Kim Jong Un, after reviewing military plans, would hold off on his threat to fire missiles at Guam. The people of Guam, a U.S. territory where I spent my formative years and one of the Pacific islands my Chamorro family calls home, are accustomed to rolling in and out of global consciousness because of periodic military threats and the occasional congressional hearing about the island’s buoyancy.
North Korea tested a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4, rushing closer to posing a major nuclear threat to the United States. Just a few weeks later, on July 28, the Kim Jong Un regime tested another ICBM, this time with a range that may include major cities in the continental U.S.
Lost amid the fallout of President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey last week was the U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement of new sanctions on individuals and companies found to be supporting Iran’s missile program. Four of the seven new sanctions targets are Chinese. This matters because although this is the second time since President Trump has taken office that the U.S.
Kim Jong-un’s quest for nuclear weapons and inter-continental missiles is rational. The ability to strike American allies, South Korea and Japan, and even the United States itself with nuclear weapons is the most obvious deterrent against any effort to end his regime. If the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons were easy to solve, the problem would have been solved long ago.
The only thing more alarming than a military confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea (the DPRK) would be a military confrontation between the U.S. and China. Yet as tensions between the United States and the DPRK continue to rise, too few analysts are considering the danger of China intervening militarily in response to a U.S. strike on the DPRK’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. This oversight is surprising, especially given that China is legally obligated to render military assistance to North Korea if the U.S. launches any kind of armed attack.