The Nuclear Option

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Diplomacy
1. The art or practice of conducting international relations, as in negotiating alliances, treaties, and agreements.
2. Tact or skill in dealing with people
 
"The days of strategic patience are over--all options are on the table."
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

Translation: Expect to have your nation obliterated at any time. This was the dialogue conducted last week between the American Secretary of State and a representative of the North Korean government. Yesterday, President Trump underscored the point warning of a "major, major conflict" with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
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The American government has made it clear--it considers the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, to be a madman. What makes the situation twice as dangerous is that the United States doesn't have a particularly high regard for the sanity of its own leadership. The possibilities for negotiation behind the public bellicosity would appear to be slim. It seems that the group of generals that inhabit the administration's national security team are at ease with the fact that the man chosen by the President to be chief American diplomat is the former CEO of Exxon, a man with no diplomatic or military experience.

One is left to believe that the main strategic role of the State Department may be what it was meant to be from the start: a way to clear a path for energy development in remote locations, such as the enormous Russian Arctic oil fields near the remote Pechora Sea. Without the lifting of sanctions, Russia would be unable to exploit its vast storehouse of natural resources. It is widely suspected that a deal on Arctic oil drilling and the removal of sanctions were the root of the illegal back-channel discussions intended to hand the White House to Donald Trump.

It is a matter of grave concern that the terms "nuclear war" and "World War III" have entered the arena of public discourse with such little fanfare. The words roll off the tongues of news commentators and politicians far too casually.

. The nuclear option is no option; it is unthinkable and should be off the table.

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