Story highlights Alice Stewart: Decades of diplomacy have not worked to slow North Korea's nuke program

It's time to replace tepid talk with tough talk, and be ready to back up the words with action, Stewart writes

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President. The views expressed in this commentary are solely hers.

(CNN) The North Korea crisis is deadly serious and President Donald Trump is pursuing a dangerous path, escalating tensions with his "fire and fury" and "locked and loaded" comments. His unpredictable behavior is being met with predictable criticism from the left.

Even as, according to news reports, the United States has been engaging in back-channel diplomacy with North Korea for months, we appear to be moving disconcertingly closer to the possibility of a nuclear exchange. To this, I say: brutal talk is just what a brutal dictator like Kim Jong Un needs to hear.

Over decades, as the Cold War came to a close in 1989 and North Korea lost the security and economic support of the Soviet Union, the Kim regime has been developing its nuclear weapons program. US presidents, both Republican and Democrat, have tried and failed to halt the regime's efforts. The sanctions, negotiations, and war of words with North Korea have been ultimately to no avail. Enough.

Alice Stewart

Last week brought news that, according to an analysis by intelligence officials, Pyongyang has successfully produced a nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles. On Tuesday, President Trump responded with a stern warning that North Korea's threats of nuclear attack would bring US retaliation "like the world has never seen."

On Wednesday. Secretary of Defense James Mattis urged North Korea to stand down or face a response "that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people."