For a decade or so, they, especially U.S. foreign policy establishments, had held onto the belief that N. Korea does what it does because they want to negotiate away nuclear card in return for hefty aid package and normalization with U.S.. However, they had no such intention. Time and again, when the talk on this issue may be about to gain a momentum, they broke off the talk on some trivial pretext, and proceeded to continue their nuclear project.
Now that N. Korean nuke is a reality, they entertain another ungrounded belief that N. Korea will stay where it is, having nuke and no further development (toward deploying nuke-tipped ICBM,) in return for nice rewards.
That is not going to work either. As long as Kim Jong-il is alive, they will continue to work toward that goal.
What is needed is 1) persistent containment; Keep all sanctions on, and 2) allow S. Korea and Japan to talk more openly about their nuclear options.
The latter is especially crucial, but imbeciles in Foggy Bottom won't hear about it.
What do you mean by persistent containment? Short of war, I think North Korea has the upper hand. What if North Korea sells nukes? Or missiles (Supposedly, Iran’s Shihab-3 that successfully sent a satellite to space is a modified form of North Korea’s Rodong Missile, you can check fas.org or globalsecurity.org).
Only when it comes to war does the U.S. have the upper hand (and by far).
the U.S. public will not be willing to spend a trillion dollars or send half a million soldiers as to fight for Korea (unless North Korea invades and kills 20,000 U.S. soldiers stationed near the DMZ overnight).
Yes, this is precisely our weakness. Our blindness. And it crosses Republican (Condi Rice and Chris Hill come to mind) and Democrat administration alike. Only a few get it. In my book, TLR, you are one of those who “gets it” with respect to North Korea. And yet, it isn’t rocket science. Nor should it be. It is just an American lack of paying attention, which creates the byproduct of doing the same stupid thing over and over again, expecting different results, which is in and of itself indicative of a lack of both wisdom and historical memory.