NI: Pyongyang's biggest threat to the US is not missiles

On August 8, US President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with military action but appears to have forgotten North Korean retaliation against its neighbor to the south, a US alliance, reports The National Interest.

There is a view that "maximum pressure" from the US and other countries will bring North Korea to the negotiating table and force it to suspend its nuclear program.

This ignores the following reality: Kim Jong-um's regime wants to be able to reach US territory with nuclear weapons and there are no acceptable variants now that can make Pyongyang change its strategy, reports The National Interest columnist Richard C. Bush.

However, the danger of a North Korean preventive nuclear attack is relatively small.

Japanese and South Korean experts indicate a far greater danger than a North Korean preemptive strike. These countries have relied on the credible commitment of the United States to use every means available to defend them against a North Korean attack. Among other things, they decided not to acquire their own nuclear weapons because they had the US nuclear shield, adds The National Interest.

But with North Korea's nuclear development, the skepticism of Tokyo and Seoul over the credibility of the US commitment grows. The main question here is whether Washington would be willing to risk San Francisco to defend Seoul or Tokyo.

Moreover, according to The National Interest, North Korea poses an even more serious threat. Pyongyang may soon realize that it can behave more recklessly with South Korea at the conventional level because it can hypothetically contain the US with its nuclear weapons.

The current reality may lead to divisions in the South Korean people and internal tensions in the alliance between the US and South Korea. In such a situation, Seoul can probably think about developing the nuclear arsenal itself so as not to appear weak and stop future humiliation. Under these conditions, the danger of the potential use of nuclear weapons will become real.

Whatever happens, we will probably have North Korea's political victory over the US, concludes the actor of the article in The National Interest.