What To Do About North Korea

Okay, this is bad . . .

Kim Jong Un, the leader of the inappropriately and redundantly named Democratic People's Republic of Korea - that would be North Korea - just had his military conduct a successful missile test.  The intercontinental ballistic missile that was tested can reach Alaska . . . and  with a nuclear warhead, it can turn our 49th state into a baked Alaska.

And then it really will be the Last Frontier.

Okay, here's the situation.  Kim Jong Un wants nuclear weapons to prevent the reunification of Korea under the Republic of Korea in the south.  He wants to prevent his own people from rebelling against him - you can do that with nukes.  He also wants to drive a wedge between the United States and South Korea by pointing offensive nuclear weapons at the U.S.  He bases this policy on the fear that the U.S. would be instrumental in reunifying Korea under the government in Seoul.  Meanwhile, China, North Korea's closest (only?) ally, doesn't want a reunified capitalist Korea threatening its interests.  What can be done beyond tighter sanctions against North Korea?

Okay, here's the solution.

Leave Kim Jong Un alone.

I mean it.  Send a signal to the North Korean leader that we have no intention of bothering him, and maybe he won't bother us.  If he does, even after we and the South Koreans act in good faith and show a purely defensive posture along the so-called demilitarized zone, maybe the Chinese can go into North Korea and replace him with another Communist leader - someone who won't cause so much trouble but maintain the status quo.

Defense Secretary James Mattis believes that we can still use diplomacy.  As long as we make it clear that we're not going to do anything that would instigate an armed conflict with North Korea, Kim may very well realize that, should he succeed in developing nuclear weapons, like the Chinese did in the 1960s, he would be better off keeping them as deterrents to aggression, and not actually, well, using them.

And if all else fails . . . we can always call Dennis Rodman.