\nmilitary conflict with North Korea as high as 20% to 25%.
\nThe isolated Asian nation conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test in September, claiming it had
\ndetonated a miniaturized hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on a missile. It’s also been steadily working on its
\nmissile capabilities, firing 22 missiles during 15 tests from February to mid-September.
\nEven as other countries have urged caution, dialogue and reciprocal confidence-building measures, Trump has
\nbelittled the North Korean leader as “rocket man,” dismissed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s eorts
\nto broker a
\ndiplomatic solution, and hinted that he is ready to take military action.
\nAsked at Thursday’s event about the threat posed by North
\nKorea, McMaster said that Trump will not accept a nuclear
\nNorth Korea that threatens the US, putting the administration
\nin a “race” to resolve the increasingly tense stando
\nbefore it
\ndevolves into a military confrontation.
\n“He’s not going to accept this regime threatening the United
\nStates with nuclear weapons,” McMaster said. “There are
\nthose who would say, well, why not accept and deter. Well,
\naccept and deter is unacceptable.”
\n“So this puts us in a situation where we are in a race to
\nresolve this short of military action,” McMaster said.
\n“Everybody knows it. We all know it. … Our allies and partners
\nknow it. China knows it. Russia knows it.”
\nBrennan, speaking Wednesday night at Fordham University
\nSchool of Law, stressed that, “there really is no good military
\nsolution to this issue.”
\n“A 1 in 4, 1 in 5 chance”
\n“The prospects for military conflict on the Korean Peninsula are greater than they have been in several decades,”
\nhe said. “I don’t think it’s likely or probable, but if it’s a one in four, one in five chance, that’s too high.” Asked if
\nthat’s the rating he’d give for the chances of conflict, he said, “Yeah, I guess I would.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nlimited military engagement that would result in some deaths,
\nthat could then quickly trigger some retaliatory strikes that
\ncould escalate.” On top of that “conventional scenario of
\nescalation,” he reminded the crowd that North Korea has
\nfinely honed cyber capabilities.
\n“So I think we have to be mindful here that there are a
\nnumber of scenarios here that could lead to an escalation that
\nwe really need to be trying to avoid,” Brennan said. Trump
\nisn’t helping on that score, he said.
\n“You have two leaders of the two major protagonist countries
\nthat are hurling these broadsides back and forth, and they
\nhave a lot of personal political face involved in it,” he said.
\n“I don’t agree that the tack that Mr. Trump has taken is a
\nconstructive and productive one,” Brennan said, calling the
\nreferences to “Rocket Man” and other insults “irresponsible.”
\nMcMaster praised Trump’s handling of the crisis, saying that
\nthe President’s leadership had created the possibility of an
\n“unprecedented level of international cooperation on the
\nissue.”
\nHe also praised Tillerson’s eorts
\nto increase international
\npressure on North Korea, which has moved some countries to
\ncut diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, expel its
\nambassadors and in some cases, ban North Korean guest
\nworkers. North Korea, meanwhile, has said it won’t be willing
\nto talk to the US until it ensures it has missile and nuclear
\ncapabilities.
\nCNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed to this report<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2017\/10\/19\/politics\/north-korea-officials-mash-up\/index.html CIA Director Mike Pompeo said the United States has to act as if North Korea is on the verge of being able to strike it with a missile and act accordingly — and that President Donald Trump is ready to do so. “From a US policy perspective, we ought to behave as if we are on the cusp of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}