Facing test of resolve, Trump pushes ahead with North Korea review

Faced with a growing test of resolve for a new U.S. president who vowed while campaigning to get tough on North Korea, Donald Trump’s aides are pressing to complete a strategy review on how to counter Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear threats. Pyongyang’s latest missile launches and the assassination in Malaysia of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother have added urgency, driving home the need for Washington to confront the security challenge.

‘Madman Theory’ of foreign policy working – so far

A man watches a TV news program showing a file footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with letters reading: “The North fired a missile” at the Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017. At the heart of Donald Trump’s foreign policy team lies a glaring contradiction.

5 things for Wednesday, February 15, 2017: Trump and Russia, Kim Jong Un, Netanyahu

High-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials tell CNN. President-elect Trump and then-President Barack Obama were both briefed on details of the extensive communications between suspected Russian operatives and people associated with the Trump campaign and the Trump business, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

Donald Trump’s tough talk toward North Korea could come back to haunt him

“It won’t happen!” Trump wrote after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Sunday his nuclear-capable country was close to testing an ICBM of a kind that could someday hit the United States. Preventing such a test is far easier said than done, and Trump gave no indication of how he might roll back North Korea’s weapons programs after he takes office on Jan. 20, something successive U.S. administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have failed to do.