Days before his inauguration, Donald Trump dismissed the claim from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he would soon test an intercontinental ballistic missile. “It won’t happen,” Mr Trump tweeted. But over the past year Pyongyang has made big advances in being able to strike the US with a nuclear weapon. It has tested three intercontinental ballistic missiles and conducted a sixth nuclear test by detonating what may have been its first hydrogen bomb. The result has been a sharp escalation in talk about a US military response. Just before Christmas, Jim Mattis, defence secretary, warned that “storm clouds are gathering”. General HR McMaster, the adviser who has been the most bellicose of the Trump national security team, says it would be “intolerable” for North Korea to be able to attack the US with a nuclear weapon. After Pyongyang in November tested a rocket with the range to reach anywhere in the continental US, he said the odds of war were “increasing every day”. Governments around the world are trying to ascertain if the rhetoric is designed to underpin diplomatic efforts, or if Mr Trump genuinely believes Mr Kim cannot be deterred from using nuclear weapons and, therefore, is serious about preventing him from crossing the finishing line.
“If he means it, we are going to war,” says Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama. “What does nuclear war look like? We haven’t had that debate in this country . . . I still don’t put it past Kim Jong Un to use a nuclear weapon in retaliation against us.” The Trump administration’s rhetoric is the backdrop for the inter-Korea meeting on Tuesday, where North Korea offered to send athletes to next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and South Korea said it would consider temporarily lifting some sanctions on the North. Officials in Seoul acknowledge they have been looking for ways to ease the military tensions, an overture that could create difficulties for Washington’s efforts to impose greater pressure on Pyongyang over its nuclear programme. As US officials try to determine how close Mr Kim is to crossing the nuclear threshold, the Pentagon is updating its plans. At one end of the spectrum, Mr Mattis has said the US has options that would not necessarily spark retaliation against Seoul — a claim that has been met with much scepticism — while Gen McMaster has talked about the possibility of a “preventive war” aimed at eliminating the North Korean missile and nuclear weapons programmes. In a private briefing for former national security advisers over the summer, Gen McMaster outlined the options, which led some — but not all — of the participants to conclude that the US was more serious about military action than they had thought, according to two people familiar with the event.
https://www.ft.com/content/a6384b1e-eaf7-11e7-8713-513b1d7ca85a
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