How to End the North Korean Missile Crisis

            The United Nation’s Security Council has imposed sanctions on the DRNK for its failure to comply with the Council’s succession of a dozen or so resolutions dating back to 1993. These sanctions have not had the desired outcome. We have been doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

            In October 1962 President Kennedy addressed the nation about the Soviet Union’s nuclear missiles in Cuba. The salient element of his message was this: “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.” Kennedy’s response rendered those missiles useless. In the case of North Korea, that approach should have the same results. Again, the missiles would become unemployable and the DRNK military would block their erratic dictator from any launching. Would this declaration constitute extending the Monroe Doctrine into Asia? It’s there now on a de facto basis, this would formalize it.

            Our response to a DRNK attack would probably be the same with or without the proposed proclamation, but  with that warning, such an attack is highly unlikely.. We need to be explicit about our likely response to the use of nuclear weapons by the DRNK.