Latest N Korea missile spurred US game plan

Bloomberg ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Shortly after the US detected the launch of a North Korean missile that soared over Japan, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley joined national security aides on calls to craft an urgent response.
Coming less than a week after Trump said Kim Jong Un was “starting to respect” the US, the test-firing was a provocation and required a clear response. So the team activated a process put in place by Trump’s new chief of staff John Kelly in anticipation of just such a crisis.
The idea was to reach out first to reassure allies and ensure the initial response came not as an off-the-cuff presidential tweet but a statement that reflected measured thinking, according to people familiar with the process, who asked not to be identified discussing internal policy.
Deliberations were cut off early in the evening as National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster — who was joined in his office by Tillerson for the calls on how to respond — prepared a statement for President Donald Trump’s approval, the people said. The response, announced in Washington, said North Korea’s latest launches “signaled contempt” for its neighbors and restated the US position that “all options are on the table.”
There was no repeat of Trump’s “fire and fury” comment from earlier this month. The more restrained approach helped ease market jitters, as the dollar erased losses and US stocks gained. But the brief remarks were also a tacit concession that officials were unable to articulate a response equal to Kim’s latest move.
Facing an acceleration in North Korea’s weapons testing, Trump finds himself confronting the same predicament that bedeviled predecessors Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — leaders he’s blamed for not halting North Korea’s nuclear and missile program at an earlier stage.
“Kim Jong Un is pretty much in the driver’s seat,” said former US Ambassador to China Max Baucus. The Trump administration “is in a real tough spot,” he added. That view was echoed by Gary Samore, a former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction under Obama. “The fundamental obstacle to negotiations is Kim Jong Un, not President Trump,” Samore said in an interview. “At this time, Kim is not interested in negotiations until he’s demonstrated that he has the capacity to attack the US directly.”
The challenge for the administration is that its options are the same as they’ve been for years: accept that North Korea will be a nuclear state and contain it; negotiate a solution, along with sanctions; or take military action. Analysts generally agree a strike is unpalatable given the devastation North Korea could inflict on Seoul, which is just 30 miles from the border, and on other neighbors including Japan.

‘Missile over Japan prelude to containing Guam’
Bloomberg

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the test-firing of a missile over Japan was a “meaningful prelude” to containing the American territory of Guam, adding he will continue to watch the response of the US before deciding on further action.
Kim guided the firing of the intermediate-range strategic ballistic rocket and urged his military to conduct more such launches into the Pacific Ocean in the future, according to a statement from the official Korean Central News Agency. The missile firing was part of “muscle-flexing” to protest annual military exercises being held between the US and South Korea, KCNA said. North Korea had threatened earlier this month to launch missiles over Japan toward Guam, which prompted warnings of retaliation from American military officials.
It was the first North Korean projectile to fly over Japanese airspace since the regime launched a rocket over Okinawa in 2016, and undermines nascent hopes for dialogue over Kim’s weapons programs. That’s after tensions had appeared to cool following a war of words between US President Donald Trump and Kim earlier this month.
In separate calls US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson agreed with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts the test was “was an escalation of North Korean provocations and showcased the dangerous threat posed by North Korea.” The United Nations Security Council said in a statement it “strongly condemns” the launch, the Associated Press reported. China is working with the security council in response to the tests, but doesn’t favor unilateral sanctions against North Korea, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at briefing in Beijing on Wednesday.
“China and the DPRK are neighbors, we have a traditionally friendly relationship,” Wang said, referring to North Korea’s formal name. “This is a fact, but at the same time the behavior of the DPRK has violated UN Security Council resolutions and as a member of the security council and a responsible major country…it is necessary for us to make our opposition clear.”