The Atlantic

Trump's Red Line on North Korea Gets Fuzzier

Mike Pompeo adds a few caveats to America's strategy.
Source: Eric Thayer / Reuters

In January 2017, President-Elect Donald Trump , in response to news that North Korea was close to completing a nuclear weapon that could reach the United States, “It won’t happen!” One year later, in at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, Trump’s CIA director went into detail about what precisely the administration means by “it.” Within that definition are the potential triggers for military conflict between two nuclear-armed states, since the Trump administration has threatened to use force against North Korea if its current campaign of diplomatic pressure and economic isolation fails.

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