In the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency, an American scholar quietly met with North Korean officials and relayed a message: The new administration in Washington appreciated an extended halt in the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests. It might just offer a ray of hope. North Korean officials responded defiantly. The nearly four-month period of quiet wasn’t a sign of conciliation, they retorted, insisting supreme leader Kim Jong Un would order tests whenever he wanted. As if to ram the point home, North Korea only two days later launched a new type of medium-range missile that ended Trump’s brief honeymoon. The February launch heralded a year of escalating tensions that have left the U.S. and North Korea closer to hostilities than at any time since the Korean War ended in 1953. The North is now at the brink of realizing its decades-old goal of being able to strike anywhere in America with a nuclear weapon. And two leaders untested in the delicate diplomacy of deterrence have exchanged personal insults and warned of the other nation’s annihilation. “Pyongyang and Washington are caught in a vicious cycle of action and reaction,” Korea expert Duyeon Kim wrote in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. “If nothing happens to break the cycle, it will continue until one side either stands down, which is very unlikely, or, far worse, takes military action.” The exchanges at the unofficial U.S.-North Korean talks 10 months ago hadn’t been reported before. They were recounted to The Associated Press by a participant who requested anonymity to describe them. No U.S. government officials took part. Although North Korea at that time signaled interest in talks with Washington, its uncompromising position made plain the challenges Trump faced as he entered the White House, promising to sort out the North Korean “mess” he inherited. It also underscored how much difficulty the U.S. has experienced gauging the North’s thinking. Before his inauguration, Trump blithely tweeted about the prospect of Kim having a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike America: — “It won’t happen!” Almost a year later, and after an onslaught of new economic sanctions and U.S. military threats, the nuclear menace from Pyongyang is far worse. And U.S. strategy is muddled. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently offered unconditional talks with North Korea only to be quickly shot down by the White House, where not only Trump has talked up the possibility of military confrontation. National security adviser H.R. McMaster also has warned the potential for war is “increasing every day.”
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