Story highlights Anthony H. Cordesman: The US must accept that threatening "fire and fury" is not a practical military option in North Korea

Instead, the US should devote resources to building up its own military deterrence and that of its allies, Japan and South Korea, he writes

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a national security analyst on a number of global conflicts. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

(CNN) It is easy for the US and North Korea to posture and threaten -- for North Korea to carry out nuclear and missile tests and for the US to conduct B-1B bomber and F-35 flights and military exercises.

It is equally easy for the hopeful and the well-intentioned -- and nations on the margin of events, such as China -- to call for negotiations or believe that some form of dialogue will lead to conflict resolution and change North Korean behavior.

There is always hope that someone else will solve the problem: China, the UN, South Korea or the somewhat mythical "international community." US military experts can continue to search for preventive options -- or any option that will avoid triggering a process of mutual escalation leading to a major military exchange or war.

Anthony H. Cordesman

And the US should seek to negotiate and continue to demonstrate its commitment to its East Asian allies. But it is becoming all too clear that the US may well have to accept the reality that to threaten "fire and fury" is not a practical military option, and there probably won't be any miraculous change in Kim Jong Un's behavior.

At a minimum, he will soon nuclearize the Korean Peninsula and be able to threaten all of Asia, or at least as far as Japan and Guam, with nuclear weapons. In one to two years , he will have a reasonably credible capability to fire a missile with enough accuracy and reliability to carry a nuclear warhead so far as to strike a major city in the West Coast of the continental US.

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