More worrisome, though, is whether the administration has really thought through the implications of lashing back at North Korea. It may placate public opinion, but it could also result in even more North Korean aggression, without a way to de-escalate, short of America giving up when faced with even greater North Korean tit-for-tat response.
Obama’s national security team is probably assuming that Pyongyang will back down when faced with a robust American action. After all, that is what seems to happen each time there is a North Korean military provocation: America sends some B-52s or F-22s to the Korean peninsula, announces a few more wargames with its ally in the South, and then the North goes quiet for months on end.
Yet there is a difference between threatening retaliation and actually carrying it out. American muscle flexing has done nothing to solve the long-term problem of North Korea, but it also has not resulted in past situations spiraling out of control. Nor have American-sponsored sanctions, except in one instance, caused real pain for the Kim family regime, given the lifeline that China continues to provide to Pyongyang. That one instance, the targeting of the leadership’s personal finances, was dropped quickly enough by the Bush administration as a quid pro quo for supposedly meaningful dialogue (which never materialized).
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