John Park, a respected Korea analyst with Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has characterized North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “millennial with nuclear ICBMs” and says the Trump administration doesn’t believe that giving the North de facto recognition as a nuclear weapons state will end the crisis — as some have argued.
Park told UPI in an interview that “with respect to living with a nuclear North Korea, very strong voices in the US administration right now have an equation.”
“It’s Kim Jong-un equals irrational, plus unable to be deterred, plus revisionist, plus commercial.
“That means he’s literally crazy so you can’t get into some kind of arrangement.”
“Also once he has a viable weapons system, he’ll sell it,” Park added.
Park is director of the Korea Working Group and an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a faculty affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
He was interviewed by UPI on Thursday in New York City where he spoke at the Asia Society on the economic symbiosis that characterizes the China-North Korea relationship.
Does it mean war?
A small but growing number of experts in Washington are calling on the Trump administration to take military action against North Korea rather than seeking to end its nuclear weapons program through negotiations. They include Edward Luttwak, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.