“Many people have asked the question, ‘Well, why can’t you live with a containment strategy? You lived with it with Russia. You lived with it with China,’” Mr. Tillerson said. “The difference is that with the past behavior of North Korea, it is clear to us that they would not just use the possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent. This would become a commercial activity for them.”
Japan Missile Plans Put North Korean Bases Within Range
Japan plans to make its first purchase of missiles that could target North Korean military bases from long distance, a major military upgrade as a rising nuclear threat from Pyongyang sparks a regional arms race.
The decision, announced Friday, includes the potential purchase of missiles from Lockheed Martin Corp. and is likely to be welcomed by President Donald Trump. During a visit to Tokyo in November, Mr. Trump called for Japan to buy “massive” amounts of military equipment from the U.S.
Under Mr. Trump, the U.S. has sought to push Japan to upgrade its military capabilities and shoulder more of the burden of its defense. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is largely in agreement as he seeks to loosen restrictions on the Japanese military.
.. Last year, South Korea deployed a U.S.-built missile defense system and is currently working on a new ballistic missile capable of destroying North Korea’s underground military facilities. Japan also intends to purchase a new land-based missile defense system from the U.S.
Tillerson’s fall could turn State into a hawk’s nest
The centerboard of this administration’s foreign policy team will remain Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, still steady in balancing competing views. But there will be a lot more sail aloft, adding speed and also danger. The changes will likely be seen as a signal of greater U.S. willingness to use force, which will increase anxieties at home and abroad about possible conflict with North Korea and Iran.
.. Mike Pompeo, the feisty and politically ambitious CIA director who is likely headed to State, is the un-Tillerson. He’s flamboyant where Tillerson is guarded, sharp and sometimes snarky where Tillerson is reticent. He’s a far better communicator than Tillerson, and he’ll probably do better conveying to Congress, the public and U.S. allies his version of diplomacy than does Tillerson, whose dislike for his job is palpable.
.. The atmospherics will be a more activist, hawkish, extroverted U.S. foreign policy. Pompeo is good at the things Tillerson isn’t... Mattis and Tillerson have been joined at the hip on most policy issues, especially North Korea. They presented a formidable united front in the Situation Room; the power axis may now shift a bit, because of the chemistry between Trump and Pompeo.
.. Pompeo has been aggressively developing covert options for North Korea, but he probably agrees with Tillerson that there is no “silver bullet” for solving this problem.
.. Tillerson’s plan to convene in Canada a meeting of the “sending states,” the 15 U.S. allies that sent troops to fight North Korea in 1950 under a U.N. Security Council resolution. Mattis was the first to endorse this idea publicly, and he still backs it strongly.
.. The wild card in the new team is Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), reputed to be the president’s choice to replace Pompeo as CIA director. Cotton has played an outsize policy role in recent months, especially in shaping Iran strategy. He cultivates the image of a hard man, lanky, laconic and Arkansas-tough. Like Pompeo, he combines book smarts with a high tolerance for risk. Pyongyang and Tehran should be worried. This team has not been selected to manage compromise.
.. U.S. allies will probably be worried, too. Tillerson was liked and trusted by key allies and seen as a check on Trump’s impulsiveness.
.. Most successful CIA directors quickly learn how much they don’t know; humility is part of the job description, along with boldness.
.. In the early months of the Trump administration, the Mattis-Tillerson alliance led many analysts to say that the “adults” were in charge of foreign policy, and that their influence checked the tweet-happy president. Trump hated that formulation. Now he’ll have a new team, one that is tuned more closely to his pitch.
Are We Headed Toward a New Korean War?
In 1969, President Richard Nixon was tempted to strike at North Korea after it shot down an American spy plane, killing all 31 people aboard. Aides warned that any military strike could escalate into all-out war, and eventually Nixon backed down. Ever since, American presidents have likewise been periodically tempted to strike North Korea after one provocation or another, but have ended up showing restraint for fear of a cataclysmic war.
Hawks say that the continued American restraint has fostered a perception in North Korea that the U.S. is a paper tiger, and frankly there’s something to that. I worry that the U.S. and North Korea are both overconfident. On my recent visit to North Korea, officials repeatedly said that with their bunkers and tunnels, and ability to strike back, they could not only survive a nuclear war with the U.S., but would even prevail.
In Washington, there’s sometimes a similar delusion that a war would be over in a day after the first barrage of American missiles. Remember that tiny Serbia withstood more than two months of NATO bombing in 1999 before agreeing to withdraw from Kosovo; North Korea is incomparably more prepared for enduring and waging war.
I also worry that North Koreans are sometimes perceived as cartoonish, goose-stepping robots — a perfect, dehumanized enemy from central casting