If "blinking" or "not blinking" is your only way of understanding our options, then so long as they don't blink and we don't blink we have three likely outcomes: (1) North Korea collapses -- a very real possibility, and one that China simply won't allow because of the consequences for them, or (2), North Korea continues to exist and to build nuke after nuke and exports nukes and materials to the highest bidder -- take your pick, there will be plenty of customers, or (3) We attack sooner or later, something North Korea recognizes is a very real possibility, and Kim gets to go out in style and take a lot of people with him, including tens of thousands of Americans in South Korea and Japan, and hundreds of thousands if not millions of South Koreans and Japanese.
North Korea, more than any other country in the world, comes close to what might be called a "terrorist state". If the best mental model we can come up with is "blinking", there will be no peaceful end to this crisis. |
