The North Korea Paradox: Why There Are No Good Options on Nuclear Arms
North Korea would be likely to require: ■ A tacit acknowledgment of the country’s right to retain its existing programs.■ A declaration
that the United States considered the North Korean government legitimate and would not seek to topple it.■ The lifting of sanctions.■ The withdrawal or reduction of the American military commitment to South Korea.
Vice President Mike Pence, speaking in South Korea on Monday, cited Mr. Trump’s "strength" and willingness to use force, warning, "North Korea would do well not to test his resolve." But Mr. Trump may find
that North Korea is driven by dynamics more complex than can be solved with strength or threats alone.
Any partial or full American withdrawal would risk sending the American relationship with South Korea
and Japan into crisis, empowering North Korea and weakening American influence in Asia.
Denny Roy, a political scientist who studies Asian security issues, told me last fall
that North Korea "intentionally employs a posture of seemingly hyper-risk acceptance and willingness to go to war as a means of trying to intimidate its adversaries." This puts the world in a quandary: How could any outside threat possibly exceed the risk that North Korea already takes on itself?
Myers, a North Korea scholar at Dongseo University in South Korea, wrote in a 2010 book on North Korean ideology, "It is the regime’s awareness of a pending legitimacy
crisis, not a fear of attack from without, which makes it behave ever more provocatively on the world stage." Today, the country and government appear to be stable.
Any agreement that North Korea would be likely to consider minimally acceptable would come at huge cost to the United States and its allies.
Punitive strikes, which might otherwise be used to chasten the country, or strikes meant to degrade the missile
or nuclear programs, would risk stirring North Korea’s fear of an all-out attack, leading to nuclear conflict.