According to The Washington Post newspaper, citing sources in the US military intelligence, North Korea as early as in 2018 will be able to create an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable to reach the US territory. This could potentially happen before the US modernizes its national missile defense system.
North Korea has become the Trump administration’s main foreign security challenge, Richard Weitz, senior research fellow and director of the Center for Military and Political Analysis at the Hudson Institute, said in an interview with www.valdaiclub.com. Like previous U.S. presidential administrations, the current White House, although rejecting the Obama-era policy of “strategic patience,” has affirmed that all policy response options were on the table.
"Unfortunately, nothing has worked well in the past. Sanctions have succeeded in impeding North Korean nuclear development but not in halting it. Diplomatic overtures have resulted in broken promises and violations. China’s support for existing sanctions has been lackluster; and other alternatives, such as redeploying nuclear weapons to South Korea, are controversial and potentially counterproductive," the expert said
Neither Russia, China, nor the United States wants North Korea to have nuclear weapons, test ballistic missiles, or engage in WMD proliferation, Richard Weitz stressed.
According to him, "Russian and Chinese leaders favor diplomatic solutions that limit U.S. military activities in the region, such as their freeze-for-freeze proposal that would suspend major U.S. exercises with South Korea as well as North Korean missile and nuclear weapons tests".
"If Trump decides to engage directly with North Korean leaders, however, then Beijing and Moscow might facilitate such outreach as they have long endorsed this approach", the American expert concluded.
