Northeast Asia

[U.S.] is not [sending] a unified message [on North Korea]: It is the leaders of two different departments pursuing two distinctive approaches, which contradict each other. Treasury believes that squeezing China [and penalizing Chinese banks and firms] will compel China to turn up the heat on North Korea. I am not at all convinced that this will generate the responses from China that the U.S. wishes to see. Contrarily, State [Department] sees heightened cooperation with China as essential to curbing North Korea's nuclear and missile activities. The U.S. should not be imparting mixed messages to Pyongyang, and the Trump administration has exhibited very little message discipline in its North Korea policy.

[On President Moon Jae-in's definition of a 'red line' for North Korea] The only way we will know definitively that North Korea actually has a nuclear-armed missile that works is to demonstrate this capability...It would be considered an act of war which others would see as justifying preemption, and retaliation if preemption or missile defense did not work.

[Kim Jong Un] is not a man who wants to go to war with the United States...[North Koreans] were not going to strike first because they know the risks if they did launch some kind of missile attack.

[Kim Jong Un] wants to be validated. He presides over one of the most misbegotten regimes in the world that has an economy one fortieth the size of South Korea's. He is trying to claim that he is now on a level playing field with the most powerful state in the world, so he does this through an over-commitment to military programs.