LIVING WITH A NUCLEAR-ARMED NORTH KOREA?: Admiral Scott Swift, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, discussed options with The Sydney Morning Herald.

Asked to clarify whether that meant the world might have to live with a nuclear North Korea that could strike other continents, Admiral Swift said: “It’s not for me to say. It’s part of the dialogue is what I’m acknowledging. When people say, ‘everything is on the table,’ in my mind I think it includes a dialogue with respect to North Korea as a nuclear power. I don’t know if that’s acceptable. I’m not part of those discussions. But I know that’s part of the dialogue because people are reporting on it.”

Asked for his response to the fact that the stated US position is that it cannot tolerate a nuclear North Korea, Admiral Swift said: “I’m not a policy-maker. That may very well be the policy that the United States arrives at. But that now becomes the starting point for the dialogue.”

He said that military intervention was also part of the dialogue.

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He said that no simple solution was going to emerge and this was going to be a complicated and long-term process.

Here are some other course of action options for dealing with North Korea’s nuclear quest. They aren’t good, they aren’t simple.