There are no easy options for dealing with North Korean – missile launch

Where North Korea is concerned there are no easy options, simply ones that are less bad.

Here’s the script accompanied by a lot of bombast, signifying not much.

• North Korea launches another missile — its 18th for the year and 80th since Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2011. This time it travels over Japan itself.
• The “international community” expresses outrage. Australia echoes these imprecations — at a distance.
• Meanwhile, US-South Korean war games proceed, according to schedule, on the Korean Peninsula.
• North Korea ignores the threats, and prepares for its next missile launch.

Clearly, a “fire and fury” strategy is not working. The question then becomes: what are the alternatives?

Back in July, the Council on Foreign Relations provided a useful primer.

In that post, the author referred to a proposal by Chinese delegates to a US–China Diplomatic and Security Dialogue in Washington in June in which they advanced a two-step strategy based on previous remarks by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

• First, the US would suspend US-South Korean military exercises (the twice-yearly ones now in progress) in exchange for a freeze on North Korean missile development and testing;
• Second, China would monitor North Korean compliance. Should North Korea infringe on such an agreement, China would withhold economic benefits and security assurances.

In other words, China would have skin in the game — and perhaps, more to the point, risk losing diplomatic face if such a process faltered.

Trump makes Iran-style solution difficult

The above approach is not dissimilar from the one the Obama administration adopted in negotiations with Iran over a freeze on its nuclear program.

There was no single “big brother” standing in the wings to exert pressure on Iran.

Source: North Korean missile launch: There are no easy options for dealing with Pyongyang – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)