Assuming that our goal is a denuclearized Korean peninsula, it seems highly, highly unlikely. This is one of North Korea's existential goals, and they're going to pursue it no matter how many folk starve.
Assuming that our goal is a reunified (South-dominated) Korean peninsula, that's not going to happen, either. China is distinctly against a US ally on its borders, as much as it, too, dislikes a nuclear DPRK.
Assuming our goal is to bomb North Korea back to the Stone Age — well, yeah, we could) do that, but only if we don't massive casualties in North Korea, South Korea, and Japan, not to mention the international fall-out (literal, if the DPRK gets nukes onto a warhead … or simply smuggles devices into other countries).
I would feel a lot better that this won't end in rivers of blood if we didn't have our current President — but his predecessors haven't had much luck in actually accomplishing anything, either, not for long. There are no good options here, only bad one and worse ones, and we've never been a country (under any President, but particularly, I suspect, the present one) that's been any good at pursuing the least-worst option as policy.
Five Blunt Truths About the North Korea Crisis
The Trump strategy toward North Korea is failing. Then again, the Obama and Bush strategies failed, too — but here’s what might work.
Okay, so here's the thing about North Korea which I don't "get". Everyone seems to be hung up over if/when North Korea develops the capability to launch a nuclear weapon at the USA. But to me, this seems to implicitly assume people living in Los Angeles are human beings but the people living in Seoul are not human beings.
I mean, seriously. Is there a moral reason to find a nuclear attack on Seoul perfectly acceptable but a nuclear attack on white Americans is something to care about?
Now, it is something to be concerned about, to be sure, but I just don't get this obsession. I mean, I know how extremely racist the Republican deplorables are. But what about all of the liberal whites, especially dominant in the NYT and other left leaning media?
+Isaac Kuo You may be conflating a couple of things: the DPRK getting nuclear warhead capability (something they don't yet have; they have detonated nuclear devices, but that's a different level of technical sophistication), and the DPRK getting missiles that can reach to the US.
I don't think anyone is discounting lives in Seoul, and nobody is suggesting a nuclear attack on that city would be "perfectly acceptable" — indeed, it's usually pointed out (as in this article) that, even without nuclear capability, the DPRK could already devastate Seoul using conventional weapons alone firing across the border, which is why an attack on the North is such a bad idea even today.
That said, Americans are going to be more sensitive to the idea that the DPRK can hit American soil. It's not about race, it's about nationality.
The nuclear weapon issue intersects with the ICBM one, as nukes carry with them a particular horror. A nuclear attack on any nation by DPRK would be unacceptable to the point of retaliation.
The news media and various folks do conflate the development of a long range missile and the development of a long range missile with sufficient payload for a NK nuclear weapon, but I am aware of the distinction. Unfortunately, I think North Korea has been making progress in developing sufficiently lightweight compact nuclear warheads that the distinction may be less and less significant.
As for whether or not it has to do with race – the obsession is with California, not Hawaii. Okay sure, there are a lot of white folks in Hawaii, but it's still not perceived as "real" America.
+Isaac Kuo I do agree that Hawaii is sometimes not considered "real" America by some in some weird sense (as was clear during Obama's Presidency, or in Jeff Sessions' infamous, "I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power").
That said. they're talking about California, not Oregon or Washington, either. In part that's because of population density — all of Hawaii has about 1.4M; Portland metro 2.4M; Seattle metro 3.7Ml the San Francisco Bay Area alone has 7.2M; the greater LA area has more like 19M.
And nobody in the US press has dwelt on Vancouver, Canada, or Australia.
(And, that said, much of the discussion about the latest missile test by the DPRK has been precisely that it may mean Hawaii and Alaska are now within range.)
Oh, I get that no one in the USA cares about Australia or Canada. I'm just noting that there's also a lot of racism about Asians, which I'm particularly sensitive to. The existence of nationalistic myopia does not negate the other.
+Isaac Kuo I have no doubt there is racism about Asians, both implicit and explicit (having just blocked one yahoo), amongst white Americans, and I've no question that you have a different sensitivity to it than I do. I'm just saying that I think the "nationalistic myopia" is primary here.
And I also wouldn't say that nobody in the USA cares about Australia or Canada (or Hawaii, or Japan, or South Korea); DPRK nuclear attacks on any of those (esp. Hawaii) would draw a frightful wrath from the American public, and not just those with relatives in the attacked locale. It's just that the first voiced concern (esp. from a headline selling standpoint) is going to be over (mainland) America as a target.
It would be fair to say that Americans are more concerned about Americans, or less concerned about non-Americans, but there's a difference between less and none. Our concern for terrorist actions in England, France, or Germany is lower than it would be for similar actions in the US, too.
I've noticed that our concern for terrorist actions in England, France, or Germany is far higher than for similar actions in the US, depending on the race of the perpetrators/victims. We've got a really disgusting blind eye for white terrorists, whereas anything that can be used to drum up fear of muslims and excuse the Muslim ban is blared.
Sure, there's a bit of a nationalistic angle to it, but mainly in service of racism – it's a way to deride other countries for deserving to be attacked since they aren't sufficiently white supremacist racist.
In contrast, according to the (Putin managed) perception among white supremacists that Russia is sufficiently white suprmacist racist, well…they just love Putin and love Russia (well, the Putin-aligned part of Russia, they of course hate the protesters). I can hardly think of anything less nationalistic than their love of Putin and de facto welcoming of domination from Russia. (They also love the Nazis, of course, but since Hitler's Nazi Germany is not actively trying to take over the world today, that's a bit different.)