War With North Korea: Chances Are ‘Increasing Every Day’ As Kim Gets Better With Weapons, McMaster Says

The chances of a war with North Korea are “increasing every day” as Kim Jong Un’s regime just keeps getting better at weapons tests, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Saturday.

Speaking only days after North Korea’s most menacing missile launch to date, McMaster called the isolated nation “the greatest immediate threat to the United States” and said that even its apparent military shortcomings give no comfort as that threat grows.

“Every time [Kim] conducts a missile launch and nuclear test, he gets better,” McMaster said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif.

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“And whether it’s a success or a failure isn’t as important as understanding that over the years he’s been learning from failures, improving and thereby increasing his threat to all of us.”

Kim Jong Un in a photo from the Tuesday missile launch, released by North Korea’s state-run media. Reuters

McMaster suggested there still might be ways to tame Kim’s regime without combat. He called on China, North Korea’s most vital economic partner, to completely cut off oil imports, since Kim won’t be able to test any missiles without fuel. 

“We’re asking China to act in China’s interest, as they should, and we believe increasingly that it’s in China’s urgent interest to do more,” he said.

But the time for diplomatic options is quickly ticking away, McMaster warned.

“There are ways to address this problem short of armed conflict, but it is a race because he’s getting closer and closer, and there’s not much time left,” he said.

North Korea on Tuesday launched a missile last Tuesday that, according to defense experts, traveled higher and farther than any other it has ever launched, and had the ability to strike anywhere in the mainland United States. Defense analysts noted that it’s unclear whether the weapon would be able to travel that far if it carried a nuclear warhead — something Kim has yet to pull off.

But the test showed that North Korea’s capabilities have rapidly advanced as Kim has scaled up missile tests this year while hurling threats at the United States. It also broke a two month hiatus on North Korea’s weapons tests, which had spurred speculation that Kim was dialing down his military menace.

The Trump administration has consistently said it would be ready to strike North Korea if provoked, though President Donald Trump and top White House officials continued to press for a diplomatic solution.

The United States military is overwhelmingly better stocked and prepared than North Korea’s, but Kim’s tests this year have shown some of the most rapid advancement ever seen in his country’s combat capabilities. 

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Billy Bush: Yes, Donald Trump, You Said That

President Trump is currently indulging in some revisionist history, reportedly telling allies, including at least one United States senator, that the voice on the tape is not his. This has hit a raw nerve in me.

I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him, and did not receive enough attention. This country is currently trying to reconcile itself to years of power abuse and sexual misconduct. Its leader is wantonly poking the bear.

In 2005, I was in my first full year as a co-anchor of the show “Access Hollywood” on NBC. Mr. Trump, then on “The Apprentice,” was the network’s biggest star.

The key to succeeding in my line of work was establishing a strong rapport with celebrities. I did that, and was rewarded for it. My segments with Donald Trump when I was just a correspondent were part of the reason I got promoted.

NBC tripled my salary and paid for my moving van from New York to Los Angeles.

Was I acting out of self-interest? You bet I was. Was I alone? Far from it. With Mr. Trump’s outsized viewership back in 2005, everybody from Billy Bush on up to the top brass on the 52nd floor had to stroke the ego of the big cash cow along the way to higher earnings.

None of us were guilty of knowingly enabling our future president. But all of us were guilty of sacrificing a bit of ourselves in the name of success.

Ten years later, I did speak up. Soon after Mr. Trump declared his candidacy, I let it be known on “Access Hollywood Live” that I thought this was an absurd idea.

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In the days, weeks and months to follow, I was highly critical of the idea of a Trump presidency. The man who once told me — ironically, in another off-camera conversation — after I called him out for inflating his ratings: “People will just believe you. You just tell them and they believe you,” was, I thought, not a good choice to lead our country.

I tried to conduct a serious interview with him as a candidate; each time I requested one I was turned down.

This moment in American life is no doubt painful for many women. It is especially painful for the women who have come forward, at the risk of forever being linked to one event, this man, this president of the United States. (I still can’t believe I just wrote that.)

To these women: I will never know the fear you felt or the frustration of being summarily dismissed and called a liar, but I do know a lot about the anguish of being inexorably linked to Donald Trump. You have my respect and admiration. You are culture warriors at the forefront of necessary change.

I have faith that when the hard work of exposing these injustices is over, the current media drama of who did what to whom will give way to a constructive dialogue between mature men and women in the workplace and beyond. The activist and gender-relations expert Jackson Katz has said that this is not a women’s issue — it’s a men’s issue. That’s a great place to start, and something I have real thoughts about — but it is a story for another day.

Today is about reckoning and reawakening, and I hope it reaches all the guys on the bus.

On a personal note, this last year has been an odyssey, the likes of which I hope to never face again: anger, anxiety, betrayal, humiliation, many selfish but, I hope, understandable emotions. But these have given way to light, both spiritual and intellectual. It’s been fortifying.

I know that I don’t need the accouterments of fame to know God and be happy. After everything over the last year, I think I’m a better man and father to my three teenage daughters — far from perfect, but better.

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