nuclear missiles

If Trump is realistic about what Kim Jong Un will give up and what U.S. security needs require, he will see that total denuclearization is not the only acceptable outcome. This tactic, demanding 100 percent but being prepared to accept 80, is not one that comes naturally to Trump, and therein lies a danger. He is thin-skinned and finds it difficult to accept any loss of face. But if he gets most of what he’s asking for — enough to make the Korean Peninsula, its neighbors, and the American homeland much safer — we hope he will not walk away in a rage.

No vital U.S. interest requires us, in perpetuity, to be willing to go to war to defend South Korea, especially if that war entails the risk of a nuclear attack on U.S. troops or the American homeland. If the United States did not have a mutual security pact that obligates us to defend South Korea against a nuclear-armed North, would President Trump be seeking to negotiate such a treaty?

Putin is wrong, dangerously wrong.  But how to punish Moscow?  America’s direct stake in the controversy between Russia and Ukraine is essentially nil.