FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

As the current war-scare with North Korea heats up, it is worth observing that the United States has learned to live with other countries’ nuclear weapons and missiles without a war. As loathsome as North Korea’s domestic politics are, it is not at all clear, and in fact highly unlikely, that Kim Jong Un intends to use nuclear weapons offensively against the United States or American allies. As former National Security Adviser Susan Rice put it recently, the United States can “tolerate” a nuclear North Korea. Language is important here. “Tolerate” does not mean endorse or approve. No one wants North Korea to have nuclear weapons — not even the Chinese, who often abet North Korean bad behavior. But we have little choice. This is teethgrinding, grudging tolerance, because the other options are so poor. For convenience, those options might be arrayed along a typical, left-center-right spectrum. Doves on the left would seek engagement and dialogue with the North. They argue that the U.S. and South Korea have demonized North Korea over the years so much, that the North is understandably hostile. George W. Bush famously placed North Korea on an “axis of evil” and said he “loathed” Kim Jong Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea itself routinely claims that the U.S. pursues a “hostile policy” toward it, and that it needs nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee against American-led regime change. The Kims have been quite explicit that they do not wish to meet the fate of Saddam Hussein or Moammar Khaddafy. The South Korean left has sought a dovish engagement policy for years, peaking in the so-called “sunshine policy” from 1998-2008, when South Korea provided aid, assistance and diplomatic cover for North Korea in a unilateral effort to break the long Korean stalemate. The most prominent figure advancing such thinking is the current liberal South Korean president, Moon Jae In.

Hawks on the right would argue that military action must be contemplated, because North Korea is the most dangerous state in history to possess nuclear weapons. These critics would suggest that engagement is a ruse, that North Korea cheated on the “sunshine policy,” and that Pyongyang’s brutal, gangsterish dictatorship cannot be trusted to have the world’s most powerful weapons.

Indeed, they point out, the ruling Kim family may not even be rational. They may use these weapons offensively against the United States, or to coerce Korean unification on the North’s terms. The most prominent figure making such arguments in the United States today is probably John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Centrists, and count me among them, have a more responsible course forward.

We understand that diplomatic engagement with North Korea has repeatedly failed, and that military action is too risky. Doves have indeed struggled to show results from negotiations. Talks with North Korea often seem to drag on forever, with constant trickery and backsliding on the North Korean side.

The last serious U.S.-North Korean deal, struck in 2012, began to unravel within weeks because of North Korean noncompliance. Talks in the Bush years also seemed to go nowhere. On the South Korean side, the “sunshine policy,” despite great commitment from Seoul, yielded little, and Moon’s recent, renewed effort at outreach has been batted away by Pyongyang.

Trying to talk to North Korea is always a good idea. As Winston Churchill said, “jaw jaw is better than war war.” But we must go in with deep skepticism. We must not allow talks to become an end in themselves, a play for time by North Korea to continue developing its weapons.

Nor must talks degenerate into subsidies to a dictatorship in order to “buy” good behavior from North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was right to say to Pyongyang just a few days ago, “we are not your enemy,” in an effort to draw out the North. But after decades of effort, our expectations of engagement should be low.

Force is an attractive option for a superpower; President Trump has threatened “fire and fury,” and has declared the U.S. military “locked and loaded.” The U.S. has the world’s best military, and it is tempting to use that powerful leverage.

We do this frequently in the Middle East, where we have used invasion, special forces, and drones to pursue our opponents. But that is feasible there, because the U.S. is relatively secure from counter-strikes, other than limited terrorist action.

In the Korean case, North Korea has significant capabilities to do great damage to our allies in the region, South Korea and Japan, and perhaps now to the U.S. homeland itself via its emergent intercontinental ballistic missiles.

South Korea is especially vulnerable. Its capital, Seoul, lies just 25 miles from the demilitarized zone border. Some 20 million people live in Seoul and its nearby cities. Were the North Koreans to retaliate against an American airstrike, they could do great damage to Seoul, potentially killing tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands if they used nuclear weapons.

As North Korea’s missile tests have accelerated, Pyongyang can now range Japan’s cities too, plus, perhaps, American cities. All this means that North