Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky

Opinion contributors

We give President Trump high marks for putting the North Korea nuclear challenge at the top of the international agenda, and injecting urgency into coping with a serious threat that has defied the efforts of three previous administrations. Let’s call it “strategic impatience,” the opposite of the Obama administration’s policy of strategic patience. But on almost every other aspect of Crisis Management 101, Trump is failing the course — and the consequences could be deadly.

Denuclearization is an unrealistic goal

Trump said this week that his goal is “complete denuclearization” of North Korea. Maybe this is the well-known Trump tactic of staking out an extreme position that he will eventually abandon. But if it is his real objective, we might as well plan on a military option.

For decades the Kim family has defined getting nuclear weapons as crucial to its survival — to deter U.S. efforts at regime change and to preserve its independence toward China. Pyongyang also probably harbors the goal of using nuclear weapons to coerce South Korea to end its alliance with the United States and expel U.S. forces from South Korea — and possibly even to force South Korea to achieve unification of the peninsula on North Korean terms.

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Every time the administration talks about denuclearization, Kim Jong Un hugs those weapons more tightly. In reality, the best Trump can do is to test whether Kim would be willing to freeze his nuclear and missile testing and production in exchange for sanctions relief and security guarantees. And this will only come about if the U.S. starts talking to North Korea and not just about it.

Trump is floating non-existent military options

In a crisis you can get away with a fair amount of brinkmanship, but only if you intend to carry through on the threats you make. Almost every Trump administration official from the president on down has publicly opined that the U.S. has military options. Trump raised the idea again this week and said it would be “devastating.” And in theory and on paper that’s true.

But every military option — including preventive attacks on missiles at their launching pad, intercepting missile tests and striking conventional and especially nuclear targets in North Korea — carries real risks of triggering a conflagration on the Korean Peninsula and offers absolutely no assurance of changing Kim’s behavior. Indeed, they may result in the opposite effect: He‘ll cling to his nukes like a barnacle to the side of a boat.

And if the purpose is to scare the Chinese to act, more than likely Beijing knows we don’t have military options. The fact is threats with no intent to follow through make the U.S. look weak. This tactic also raises Kim’s own need to respond with counter-threats. And it’s a game of chicken that might well lead to miscalculation or mistakes with catastrophic consequences.

Personalizing the Crisis

Imagine what would have happened if, in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, President John Kennedy had attacked Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev’s sanity, called him names and threatened to destroy his country. Kennedy got out of that crisis by understanding what the Russian leader needed, not by humiliating him. Khrushchev had constituencies to satisfy — the Politburo, the military, public opinion and his own place in history.

Trump’s junior high school taunts create a personal investment for Kim to stand firm. North Korean experts were stunned by Kim’s decision last week to personally inject himself with a statement responding to Trump’s threats. Never make it harder for you or your adversary to climb down from a tall tree. Kim and his fellow North Koreans crave respect. Now that their manhood is being challenged, who among Kim’s advisers will urge him to submit to Trump’s threats?

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Where’s the exit ramp?

This isn’t the Cuban missile crisis, but we may well be closer to some kind of nuclear conflict than at any time since 1962. Pressuring North Korea with sanctions, enlisting China and mobilizing international pressure are all reasonable levers to pull. But it’s possible that only the U.S. can give Kim what he needs to de-escalate the crisis. It may be politically inconvenient but if there is any way out of this, it will be for Trump to stop talking about Kim and start talking to him.

Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former State Department adviser and Middle East negotiator, is the author of The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President. Follow him on Twitter: @aarondmiller2. Richard Sokolsky, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, served in the State Department for 37 years.