North Korea has hit a new level of brinkmanship in reacting to President Donald Trump's in-your-face rhetoric.
The rising tensions have some comparing the issue to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 – which was earlier episode of America going eye-to eye with an international adversary who had nuclear ambitions. At that time, it was not North Korea, but the Soviet Union.
Conservative commentators and policy analysts says the United States has never fully flexed it full muscle on Pyongyang outside of military operations.
Some, like the Heritage Foundation, suggest that solutions can be found right now in the American toolkit -- like financial sanctions as tough as those placed in Iran and more pressure on the Chinese, which moves money and goods for the North Korean regime in ways that most countries won't.
Heritage analyst Bruce Klingner, an ex-CIA expert on Korean matters, has said that years of negotiations in a multitude of forms haven’t – and won’t – move Pongyang’s longtime position that will never negotiation its nuclear weapons away.