North Korea's provocations are still trending in the wrong direction and will only get worse when they achieve their nuclear objectives, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said Sunday.
"When you look at North Korea's behavior, it just gets worse and worse and worse," Bolton told "The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y., per The Hill.
"If this is North Korea's behavior now, imagine what it will be when they really do have deliverable nuclear weapons, which, as I say, could come very soon."
Bolton was particularly concerned about North Korea's burgeoning threat of bringing their nuclear weapons closer to the U.S. through improved submarines.
"If they can achieve that capability, they could put nuclear weapons on submarines that could get much closer to the United States . . . that might go undetected in the vast Pacific Ocean," Bolton told host John Catsimatidis, per The Hill.
Bolton believes in exhausting diplomatic solutions with allies in the region, including unifying the Korean peninsula, before military action with North Korea.
"The North Koreans — this very erratic, unstable regime — may soon have the capability to harm us directly," Bolton said, per The Hill.
"The real objective of the Trump administration has to be to convince China that it's in their best interest to find a way to reunify the Korean Peninsula as peacefully as possible. . . .
"If our main purpose is to prevent North Korea from having nuclear weapons, I think the only long-term assurance we have that that is achievable is by reunifying the two Koreas. Faced with the choice of using military force or trying to get reunification — I think we always have to keep force on the table — but if there's any diplomatic option left, it is pushing China toward accepting reunification."
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