All sanctions, no talks will increase tensions on Korean Peninsula

Susan Thornton, the acting US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, spoke in a Senate hearing on Tuesday about the need to increase the pressure on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea so it will give up its nuclear weapons program.

Besides calling for the UN member states to implement their commitments, she said the United States has urged all countries to suspend or downgrade diplomatic relations and cut trade ties with Pyongyang.

The strategy is all sticks, no carrots. There is no consideration that less pressure, rather than more pressure, might be a more viable way to achieve the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The US clearly believes that tightened sanctions will force the DPRK to change course. Yet tougher and tougher sanctions have failed to get the DPRK to halt its nuclear weapons program.

Senior US officials claim that the US wants to bring the DPRK to its senses, not its knees. Yet its strategy suggests that is not the case, and that it wants the DPRK to be on its knees.

US concerns that the DPRK could have a continental ballistic missile capable of hitting the US worsened this week after new assessment by the Pentagon Defense Intelligence Agency showed that the DPRK could have this capability as early as next year.

Senior US officials claim that the US wants to bring the DPRK to its senses, not its knees. Yet its strategy suggests that is not the case, and that it wants the DPRK to be on its knees.