Recent weeks of saber-rattling and military escalation have affirmed a harsh truth: North Korea — which is much closer to putting a nuclear warhead on a missile than Iran and has threatened to strike the United States and its allies — is the more urgent challenge. The major powers still haven't figured out how to solve it.
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The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, took power in late 2011. Since then, the North has launched a three-stage rocket and tested a nuclear device. After the United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions in last month for the country's third nuclear test in February, North Korea's s rhetoric became even more aggressive. It threatened to hit American cities with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and declared itself to be in a state of war with South Korea.
For their part, the United States and South Korea went ahead with a joint military exercise, then upped the ante. Washington deployed extra ships, sent B-2 stealth bombers, F-22 stealth fighter jets and B-52 bombers on practice runs over the South, and, on Wednesday, announced it was setting up a land-based missile defense system in Guam. On Monday, South Korea's president, Park Geun-hye, vowed to strike back quickly if the North stages an attack.
The Obama administration was prudent to bolster its forces in the region. Many experts assume Mr. Kim won't attack the world's top military power or its allies, but Washington has an obligation to guarantee that if this assumption is wrong, it can defend the homeland. There are also sound reasons to reassure South Korea and Japan that America's defense commitments remain firm; some politicians in both countries are pushing their governments to develop their own nuclear weapons programs, which would be disastrous and unnecessary. Finally, there is a message in all this to China, namely that if it will not rein in the ally it keeps afloat with food, fuel and trade, then Washington will contain it.
But it's clearly time to find ways to calm the crisis; there is no way to ensure that Mr. Kim, in particular, won't miscalculate and trigger a serious confrontation. The Obama administration and North Korea in recent days have sent mixed messages in this regard. Secretary of State John Kerry's declaration on Tuesday that the United States would negotiate seriously on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula was helpful. But it could prove more useful to encourage Ms. Park, who has talked of engaging the North, to take the lead, perhaps by exploring Mr. Kim's recent comments about wanting to talk about development.
China remains central to any coherent strategy and some Chinese elites have urged Beijing to abandon its ally. Whether that happens, China needs to robustly enforce the United Nations sanctions it helped enact and stand with the United States and others in delivering a unified message that North Korea will never be accepted as a nuclear weapons state but that there is a path to economic revival and security if it chooses to take it. Plotting next steps should be high on the agenda when Mr. Kerry visits Beijing next week. There's no guarantee any strategy will be successful, but military escalation is no answer either.
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