Kent Harrington: Living with Kim Chong and North Korea’s Nuclear Threat

 Living with Kim Chong and North Korea’s Nuclear Threat
Despite seven decades of American military and political engagement on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang’s dynastic communist regime continues to challenge US policymakers as well as stability in East Asia.  Like its predecessors, the Biden administration has sought to mix diplomacy and deterrence, while cooperating with its allies in Seoul, Tokyo, and elsewhere to constrain North Korea’s nuclear threat.  The results: like his father and grandfather, Kim Chong Un has continued to build his nuclear arsenal despite the costs to Pyongyang and the North Korean people.  70 years after the end of the Korean war, the question is obvious.  Is the past prologue?  Is Kim’s arsenal simply a fact we must live with, and if it is, what are the risks?