Speaking at a public roundtable at The Korea Society in New York on Thursday, Bruce Klingner, a former CIA deputy division chief for Korea, said he’s hearing “military options are increasing, not decreasing” in the Trump administration, according to UPI.
“The probability of a military option is not zero,” Klingner said, adding there is talk “inside government” of the “five options to solve North Korea in 18 months.”
While not elaborating on those options, the analyst said he is concerned North Korea could conduct a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could fly farther than the one launched on July 4.
“I’m pretty sure they’re going to do an ICBM test,” Klingner reportedly said.
An unprecedented provocation could set the wheels in motion at the Pentagon to take more forceful measures, the UPI story said.
Ominous Trump, McCain comments
President Donald Trump, after discussing Iran and North Korea with US military leaders on Thursday, posed in a photo with his team before dinner and declared that the moment represented “the calm before the storm.”
“You guys know what this represents?” Trump said after journalists gathered in the White House state dining room to photograph him and first lady Melania Trump with the uniformed military leaders and their spouses, according to Reuters.
“Maybe it’s the calm before the storm,” the President said. What storm?
“You’ll find out,” Trump told questioning reporters.
US Sen. John McCain (R–Ariz.) confirmed in a Thursday interview that there is a war camp in Washington that is pressing for a military solution to the North Korea crisis.
“There is legitimacy to that view, because three administrations in a row have negotiated with the North Koreans and gotten nothing to show for it,” McCain said in an interview with USNI News.