The White House is exploring the use of military force to deal with North Korea as the insular country inches closer to developing a nuclear weapon that can reach the United States.
According to The Wall Street Journal, national security officials from multiple levels of the government have come up with ideas that may eventually be shown to President Donald Trump. One idea is for the U.S. military to launch a strike on North Korea in order to prevent it from launching an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICMB).
While Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was meeting with Trump in Florida last month, reports surfaced that North Korea had launched a ballistic missile into the ocean separating the two countries. Also last month, the half-brother of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un was killed in a brazen airport assassination in Malaysia.
The Journal reports that Trump's deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland recently asked members of the national security community to come up with ideas on how to deal with the growing threat North Korea poses. The ideas were submitted on Tuesday.
What may happen is that Trump's administration could change its official policy toward North Korea, the Journal notes.
A defector who used to be the No. 2 man in the North Korean embassy in London said in December Kim would like to have a nuclear weapon ready for use by the end of this year.
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