If you’re Joe Biden, there’s a lot to be busy with. I will not re-list the litany of conservative grievances here but, suffice it to say, foreign policy is rather packed with them. The war in Ukraine and threat of China are but two heavyweight issues commanding the attention of Washington’s blob. But there is a third issue — in another corner of the world — to which the U.S. must be paying attention. I write “must” deliberately. There’s no choice. It’s something that Barack Obama called “the most urgent problem” for the country, and something about which Joe Biden has done nothing.
That something is North Korea. On May 4, it tested yet another ballistic missile in the Sea of Japan, a violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions on the country and a direct threat to U.S. allies Japan and South Korea. Though that’s a sentence that one could find nonchalantly in any international newswire (it sounds so commonplace), consider this: The test was North Korea’s 14th in this year alone. It’s only been four months.
In proceeding, the North has had over a dozen opportunities to test and improve its sole nuclear-weapon delivery system. One of those launched was an intercontinental ballistic missile, which is designed to target the United States mainland. Recent reports indicate that the North is planning to test-detonate a nuclear bomb, perhaps by the end of this month — the first nuclear test in over five years. Last week, Kim Jong-un personally said that his goal was to increase his arsenal at “the fastest possible pace.” Any strike on American allies in the region would devastate the United States, for it would lose valuable partners and staging grounds for anti-China measures.
Kim’s activities represent a big leap backwards for U.S. diplomacy. In 2018, after meeting with then-president Trump, Kim began a moratorium on the testing of big weapons. Though Kim did step back from that position in 2019, the magnitude of tests under Biden has been unprecedented. Biden has not seriously tried to diplomatically engage the North Koreans — his symbolic offers of “open ended talks,” for instance, were flatly rejected for their vagueness.
The U.S. has few options, short of a military strike, to compel North Korea to cede its weapons. Diplomatic engagement — with North Korea, and with China on the subject of North Korea — is now the only avenue left. Biden should be trying to make it work. His administration, lacking versatility, is unable to do so. His inaction in this corner of the world undermines American national security every single day.