North Korea: The next quagmire

In the first few months of the Trump Administration, North Korea, with its less than mentally stable leader has done its best to taunt our government headed by someone most people think is also less than stable with a series of missile tests. The latest is an apparent ICBM missile test launch that showed that future products could possibly reach Hawaii or Alaska.

While most believe the North Korean leader may be insane, they also believe he is not stupid enough to risk annihilation by threatening United States territory. That said, the United States does not want to push the envelope too much so South Korea and Japan do not wind up in North Korean crosshairs.

What to do to avoid North Korea becoming the next quagmire like Afganistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, or Syria? Negotiations since the Clinton Administration have been little more than glorified shell games where North Korea gets relief in exchange for stopping their missile and nuclear programs which they do for a couple of minutes. Perhaps a revisit of the sunshine policy between the North and South is in order where the two countries become closer like they started to do at the turn of this century. Maybe an economic free trade zone (kind of a Korean NAFTA) in exchange for a total suspension of their missile program with monitors and a guarantee that there would be no outside attempts to topple the government (like we did with Cuba following the missile crisis). There are options for a peaceful accommodation. We can not allow them to taunt us and we can not afford to get into another quagmire. Hopefully, the diplomats will find a way.


https://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/five-blunt-truths-about-the-north-korea-crisis/?smid=fb-share

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/asia/north-korea-south-us-nuclear-war.html?smid=fb-share

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/us/politics/trump-north-korea-missile-icbm.html?_r=0