U.S. should use tech strategy in North Korea

North Korea’s protracted policy of nuclear belligerence toward the United States has reached a long-feared tipping point.

Using high-tech tools to crash North Korea’s power grid is a better alternative than conventional war.

Despite a diligent campaign of sabotage and defensive saber-rattling by the Obama and now Trump administrations, Pyongyang has successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, raising the specter of another launch, this time armed with a nuclear warhead.

Make no mistake, this raises the chance of nuclear war to it highest level in a very long time, possibly since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Even if the cities of America’s Pacific coast are somehow kept safe from obliteration, a nuclear North is intolerable. Action must be taken now.

But the question remains, what action?

The trouble is that so few options for action exist and those options have sharply limited appeal.

Economic leverage through China appears to have been exhausted, whether as a result of Chinese anxiety over the possibility of the Kim Jong-Un regime’s collapse creating a massive exodus of North Koreans into China or sheer geopolitical opportunism the result is the same.

A naval blockade or quarantine alone cannot stop the regime’s nuclear advances.

And a conventional or limited nuclear war against the North would most likely result in the regime unleashing the full force of its formidable army, dealing death to South Korea’s military and civilian population, as well as America’s troops stationed along the DMZ.

Not to mention that China has sworn to protect North Korea in case of an attack.

But mere hand-wringing, threatening or ignoring are simply not enough.

And, clearly, diplomatic efforts have failed.

Still, U.S. policymakers must find an effective way to avoid drastic measures.

That’s why attention should turn, if it has not turned already, to tech, America’s limited but potentially decisive asymmetric cyber operations capabilities.

Efforts in this area have already proven their worth in slowing down the North’s march to nuclear intimidation.

Now they should be pressed into service on a greater scale to deprive the Kim regime of the one thing it needs to wage war and maintain its iron grip on the populace: electrical power.

Although not a silver bullet, crashing North Korea’s grid — repeatedly, if necessary — has the strong potential to force a coup, cripple the army, forestall further nuclear progress or drive the regime to sue for peace.

This is a better option than the others the president has to choose from. It is also attractive in concert with more conventional action.

The American people expect the White House to meet the North Korean crisis forcefully yet prudently — and successfully. After so much trouble with cyber conflict coming from North Korea, the United States should turn the tables for a win.

Not just for the United States but for the world.

Although not a silver bullet, crashing North Korea’s grid — repeatedly, if necessary — has the strong potential to force a coup, cripple the army, forestall further nuclear progress or drive the regime to sue for peace. This is a better option than the others the president has to choose from.