The world faces a real crisis as North Korea continues its march towards obtaining the ability to launch ICBM’S. North Korea under Kim Jong-un is quickly developing the ability to attack his neighbors with nuclear weapons. As they further develop their nuclear capability, what will the world do about it? What will be the response of the United States under President Donald Trump?

The conventional wisdom is that Kim Jong-un wants to have the ability to attack his neighbors and by having such power, he can thereby guarantee his own position as the leader of North Korea. After all, who is going to mess with a country that has nuclear weapons and is willing to use them. In fact one can say that having nuclear weapons and having the ability to use them is a way to for a nation to play nuclear chicken. It is a dare, really, where you are basically saying to the world, try something against my government and I will use nuclear weapons.

Most bystanders in the world community of nations takes the conventional wisdom at face value because if, and it is a big if,  Kim Jong-un would be foolish enough to use his weapons he and his nation would be in ashes in a matter of minutes if he were to attack another nation. But there is this lingering doubt that Kim is bat-shit crazy and that anything is possible!

Now for just one minute let us consider what might happen with President Trump in office. His own sanity has been questioned. He also like his counter part, Kim Jong- un has a huge ego.

Imagine for just one minute that there is another ego just as big as Kim’s, and that is the President of the United States. Trump has been floating the idea to people like Senator Graham of South Carolina, that he is considering using our nuclear weapons against North Korea. What President Trump is considering could just be a strategy that used to be called brinkmanship. But what if it is not? Is President Trump serious? What would be the consequences?

Nearly 72 years ago, the United States unleashed the power and devastation of the atom bomb. The use of such a weapon was controversial then. The weapon was so new that we had no idea really what level of death and destruction would be forthcoming. All we did know was that by using such a weapon it might bring Japan to their knees and thereby we had the potential to save a million or two lives that would have been at risk if we were to invade Japan. The emperor was indeed ready to surrender after the use of the atom bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In spite of the death and destruction their were elements of the Japanese military who wanted to fight on.

We now know the power of nuclear weapons. The effect of using a nuclear devise is not just that you have the immediate death of many but the long term problem is the fallout and what would be left after the attack. Chernobyl and Fukushima are long term reminders of what just an accident can do to the earth as a result of radiation.

The fact that President Trump has an administration with an amazing amount of Generals in high positions has its pluses and its minuses. For those Generals in his administration who have experienced war, they are affected by the sobering reality of what war can do, but on the other hand they may look more closely at using the military instead of diplomacy. Trump may use the Bush Doctrine and choose to do a preemptive strike in North Korea, choosing to use our military triad, to attack North Korea with missiles from a submarine, thinking that they could take out Kim Jong-un and his nuclear weapons before North Korea could respond.

There are other alternative approaches that we may choose to take in our confrontation with North Korea. A military option is not the only option.

The United Nations has unanimously agreed to even stricter sanctions against the government of North Korea. China has agreed to follow the sanctions in an attempt to rein in North Korea.

China has been working on a resumption of the 6 party talks. These were multi-lateral talks with China, North Korea, South Korea, the U.S., Japan and Russia involved. The result sought is that North Korea would denuclearized. One of the key points that China would like to see accomplished is that the security of North Korea would be guaranteed in exchange for their becoming denuclearized.

We should give diplomacy a chance with a renewed effort to solve our very real problem with North Korea. Their needs to be an effort where we are willing to give North Korea something in return for their willingness to denuclearize.

The danger is that we have a President who does not seem to like to work with others. He often seems to make decisions on the spur of the moment, based upon emotionalism rather than a well thought out plan. Make no mistake these are perilous times. Does President Trump want to be the baddest bully in the world? Will Trump choose to use nuclear weapons to end a dispute through the use of force regardless of the consequences to the people of South Korea? It is unfathomable to ponder what the consequences would be if we were to use nuclear weapons for the second time in our history.

Since writing this essay our fearless leader Donald Trump has threatened North Korea with fire and fury that the world has never seen. These kind of bombastic and over the top comments do not help the situation but they do ramp up the danger of a confrontation. Will Donald Trump destroy the world as he attempts to show the world what a tough guy he is?