Does the US have a military option in North Korea?

The United States has used its most fearsome rhetoric yet in its war of words with North Korea, as the world moves to the brink on the Korean peninsula.Three weeks after President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” America’s UN ambassador Niki Haley told the Security Council this week that North Korea is “begging for war.” And while he said the US was not threatening “total annihilation” of North Korea, Defence Secretary James Mattis warned that, “Any threat to the United States or our allies will be met with a massive military response.”But does the United States really have a military option to resolve this crisis? The military brass, while engaging in the fiery language, is well aware that though the US could once again devastate North Korea, before it is vanquished Pyongyang can unleash widespread devastation of its own against South Korea, US troops and even Japan.While the North does not have a delivery system for its roughly 30 nuclear bombs, it has a vast array of conventional missiles pointed at the Southern capital that do serious damage to the city, threatening hundreds of thousands of people.Facing this enormous cost in the face of victory, the US has again called for drastic economic measures against the North.While Russia has, with China, condemned the latest nuclear test, President Vladimir Putin recognises the futility of yet more sanctions after more than a decade of such measures failing to resolve the crisis.“They’ll eat grass, but they wont abandon their programme unless they feel secure,” Putin said on Tuesday.In other words North Korea must be given the security guarantees it has been virtually begging for.Still many exasperated citizens in the West do not understand why North Korea repeatedly violates UNSecurity Council resolutions by testing nuclear weapons (its sixth over the weekend) and banned ballistic missiles.They throw up their hands and yell, “What does Kim Jong-un want”.According to the North Korean leader’s own words and those of his government, he wants the US to stop its war games with South Korea simulating the destruction of his country, which in the early 1950s the US did destroy – it killed 20% of the North Korean population and ran out of bombing targets.There is a reasonable proposal for a mutual freeze on the table – North Korea ends its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, and the US and South Korea end their war games.Then serious negotiations can begin to end the Korean War, which is still technically going on as there has never been a peace treaty, only an armistice.It would mean compromises on both sides and sharp reduction of tensions leading to North Korea’s nuclear disarmament and recognition by the US with security guarantees.Russia, China, North Korea and even South Korea have agreed to try this approach.Only the United States, and Japan, are opposed.But what other options does the United States have to this or another diplomatic formula other than “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”