NATIONAL SECURITY/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/REX TILLERSON/STATE/TRADE DEALS: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ruled out pursuing a traditional Cold War-style containment and deterrence strategy against a nuclear-armed North Korea, citing concerns that Pyongyang will transform its arsenal into a commercial business and sell nuclear weapons to other actors…
President Donald Trump has long said he won’t tolerate a North Korea with nuclear weapons capable of striking American shores. Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo warned in September that North Korea was willing to share its nuclear arms technology with ‘lots of folks,’ including potentially Iran. And a U.N. report last March detailed how North Korea attempted to sell nuclear material to unidentified international buyers in 2016.
Mr. Tillerson’s comments on Tuesday to an audience at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington made clear that the Trump administration sees the possibility of nuclear technology sales as reason enough to quash the possibility of a deterrence strategy—which would de facto accept North Korea as a nuclear power while preventing Pyongyang from using the weapons through mutually assured destruction.
The secretary of State said the U.S. had already seen elements of North Korea’s commercial nuclear activity in the marketplace and couldn’t accept that development, particularly in a world where hostile nonstate groups pose some of the greatest threats to the U.S. Unlike the Soviet Union and China, Mr. Tillerson said, North Korea has no record whatsoever of abiding by international norms.”
-Paul Sonne, “Tillerson Rules Out a Containment Strategy for North Korea,” The Wall Street Journal online, Dec. 12, 2017 09:40pm