Trump strategy on N Korea: 'Maximum pressure and engagement'

The Trump administration has settled on its North Korea strategy after a two-month review: "Maximum pressure and engagement."
US officials said today the president's advisers weighed a range of ideas for how to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme, including military options and trying to overthrow the isolated communist dictatorship's leadership. At the other end of the spectrum, they looked at the notion of accepting North Korea as a nuclear state.
In the end, however, they settled on a policy that appears to represent continuity.
The administration's emphasis, the officials said, will be on increasing pressure on Pyongyang with the help of China, North Korea's dominant trade and military partner. The officials weren't authorized to speak publicly on the results of the policy review and requested anonymity.

The new strategy will be deployed at a time of escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula. US, South Korean and other officials are closely monitoring the North amid indications it could conduct another missile test or nuclear explosion to coincide with an important national anniversary this weekend. Pyongyang has undertaken five nuclear tests since 2006.
An influential Washington think tank estimated today that North Korea could already have up to 30 bombs.

The Institute for Science and International Security cited a worrying increase in North Korea's nuclear program, but said the arsenal may only have been as large as 13 atomic weapons at the end of 2016. Its research suggested a range between 10 and 16 such weapons two years earlier.

The institute's estimates are based on what it believes the North has produced in plutonium and weapons-grade uranium. The margins represent uncertainty as to whether North Korea has one or two uranium enrichment facilities.
The North has owned up to one such facility, at its Nyongbyon nuclear complex, but the US government assumes it has more.
"The bottom line is that North Korea has an improving nuclear weapons arsenal," said David Albright, the institute's president.
He said the North may have a handful of plutonium-based warheads it can mount on medium-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching South Korea and Japan. But it's doubtful the North is currently able to build reliable, survivable warheads for an intercontinental ballistic missile that can strike the US mainland, he said.

As for the Trump administration's policy, the US officials emphasized that no engagement of North Korea is currently taking place, and that the focus now was on pressure.