Pushing North Korea to the brink wouldn’t be wise

This week the U.S. intelligence community concluded that North Korea has obtained the ability to miniaturize nuclear warheads that may be loaded onto intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), a development that represents an immediate and existential threat to the United States.

Since North Korea detonated its first nuclear device in 2006, U.S. policy has sought to reverse Pyongyang’s course and return the rogue nation to non-nuclear status. Despite economic sanctions, military operations in the region and verbal threats, U.S. policy has failed.

Today, North Korea has approximately 60 nuclear warheads and can develop six to eight nukes per year. Any effort by the United States to physically destroy North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and the facilities that develop them would cause unparalleled levels of human destruction, wreck the global economy and threaten the survival of humanity. Such is the destructive power of modern nuclear weapons.

It is time for the United States to fundamentally redirect its foreign policy approach towards North Korea. Rather than continuing the futile attempt to force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, the U.S. should craft a policy around the reality that North Korea has, and will continue to possess, a sizeable and deliverable nuclear arsenal.

Much as we dealt with a hostile Soviet Union and communist China when those adversaries developed nuclear weapons systems, the U.S. should focus on preventing a nuclear war through the policy of deterrence, communication and, eventually, treatybound agreements that regulate arsenals. It is time for the goal to shift from denuclearization to non-use and survival.

It is important to note what this suggested policy does not do. It does not endorse North Korea’s nuclear weapons status. We remain right and North Korea remains wrong. Accepting realities that cannot be changed is a sign of prudence, maturity and clear-headed thinking, not capitulation.

Nor does this policy approach preclude the United States from continuing to develop defenses to protect the country from the threat of a North Korean nuclear attack, namely deterrence and anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems.

Simply put, the United States can either revert to a policy that historically has worked, as evidenced by the lack of nuclear war since 1945, or it can continue its brinksmanship policy that will not eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons and will increase the likelihood of a nuclear exchange.

Jeffrey S. Morton is a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, director of the Leon Charney Diplomacy Program and fellow at the Foreign Policy Association. The views expressed here are those of Dr. Morton and not necessarily Florida Atlantic University.