The U.S. government is two for three regarding recent decisions and statements on North Korea. The U.S. decision last month to turn down Seoul’s request for “strategic weapons” such as the B-52, B-1, and B-2 bombers, which implies the positioning of nuclear weapons in South Korea, was the correct one - for reasons to be elucidated below.

In another significant development, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admits that North Korea has no reason to give up its nukes as long as it sees them as being the guarantee of survival in a hostile world aligned against them. He called efforts to get Kim Jong Un to relinquish his nuclear devices a “lost cause.”