Kim Jong Un is on a roll. After firing a second missile over Japan, successfully testing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and successfully detonating a larger-yield nuclear weapon, the North Korean threat has grown significantly more dire in just a few weeks. General John Hyten, who commands U.S. Strategic Command, recently stated that he assumes that North Korea has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. He also explained that while North Korea has yet to demonstrate a reliable ICBM that could deliver a nuclear warhead, “it’s just a matter of when, not if.” What happens next will profoundly influence the future of the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.

Unfortunately, with each North Korean success, America’s prospects of preventing North Korea’s further nuclearization grow dimmer. Economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation can and should be intensified, but China’s willingness to implement severe sanctions against North Korea is uncertain at best. Moreover, Pyongyang has for decades demonstrated its willingness to bear incredible poverty and isolation as the price of a credible nuclear capability.

Many outside analysts have speculated that encouraging regime change from within North Korea may be the most viable way out of this conundrum. Of course, as seen several years ago in the Arab Spring, even the most robust-seeming regimes may suddenly collapse, given the right circumstances. Regrettably, Kim Jong Un’s recent successes — getting closer to fulfilling the decades-old dreams of his father and grandfather — have likely strengthened his own domestic legitimacy, and diminished the chances that North Korean elites may choose to depose him.

Finally, preventative war is highly unattractive for the United States and its allies, because of North Korea’s ability to kill potentially millions of South Koreans, Japanese, and Americans. While the United States would ultimately be successful in a conflict with North Korea, in all likelihood that victory would come at a horrendous cost. Pyongyang knows this and does everything it can to emphasize the costs of war, which means that threats to attack North Korea therefore are likely to ring somewhat hollow to Pyongyang. This fundamentally undermines every attempt to negotiate with North Korea, as it severely diminishes U.S. leverage over what Pyongyang values most — its own survival.

Given the remarkable pace of successes North Korea has seen in recent days and weeks, and the inability of the United States and the rest of the international community to convince Pyongyang to choose a different path, the implication is clear: The United States will likely have to live with a nuclear North Korea. This does not mean we should accept it. Nor does this mean we should abandon efforts to convince North Korea to give up nuclear weapons. But it does mean that the United States should recognize the reality it faces: These capabilities are real, and it cannot get rid of them without paying a catastrophic price.

Can the world live with a nuclear North Korea? Yes, for a time. But not without significant danger.

Can the world live with a nuclear North Korea? Yes, for a time. But not without significant danger. Despite the words of H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, North Korea can be deterred — at least at the nuclear level. Kim Jong Un is not suicidal. In fact, the need to survive and preserve his regime seems to be the primary impulse behind North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. The American nuclear deterrent remains robust, and the addition of a North Korean nuclear capability is not likely to change that dynamic. Both Russia and China have maintained the ability to strike the United States for decades, and nuclear deterrence has held. There is no reason to believe that North Korea would be any different in this regard.

Yet the same cannot be said of a potential conventional conflict on the Korean Peninsula. For 64 years, the combined might of the U.S. and South Korean militaries, including the American nuclear umbrella, have prevented a general conflict from breaking out again on the Korean Peninsula. The introduction of a North Korean nuclear weapon fundamentally and dangerously changes this dynamic.

If North Korea’s leaders feel safe behind their own nuclear deterrent, they may be emboldened to lash out against their adversaries. Recall the events of 2010, when North Korea first sank a South Korean military ship and then fired artillery at a South Korean island, killing a combined 50 South Koreans. Such dangerous provocations, and worse, may become more common in a world with a North Korean nuclear weapon.

A nuclear North Korea may also pose a significant proliferation threat, especially as more drastic economic sanctions take their toll. Other rogue regimes and terrorist organizations could be willing to pay top dollar for North Korean material and know-how. For a regime whose only ideology is survival and isolation, dealing with terrorists and other zealots would pose no ethical problem.

These are the primary challenges that living with a nuclear North Korea will pose. Can they be addressed? To a degree, yes. The United States can work with its South Korean and Japanese allies to buttress their military posture in and around the Korean Peninsula in order to strengthen their ability to deter and defend against future North Korean provocations. The United States could also build an international coalition to contain the North Korean proliferation threat, and let it be known that proliferation would come at a terrible price.

Yet such efforts will not be sufficient in the long run. The combined dangers of North Korean aggression and proliferation are simply too great to accept into perpetuity. Over time, the United States will have to substantially change the fundamentals of this challenge if it hopes to achieve North Korea’s eventual denuclearization. While this strategy could involve negotiations with North Korea to limit, monitor, and eventually do away with its nuclear capabilities, the United States should pursue a strategy that reinvigorates a preventive attack as a more acceptable option.

Building toward prevention will require significant investments by the United States and its allies that enhance defense and deterrence, but more broadly it will require us to reorient our posture toward capabilities that what would be needed for preventive attack — a combination of offensive and defensive capabilities that would be several orders of magnitude beyond what is presently deployed to the Korean Peninsula and the immediate vicinity. It would also require substantially increasing investments in missile defense capabilities and technologies in order to deny North Korea’s ability to successfully strike the United States. Such a force would not only give the American president more viable options; it would imbue American negotiators with more leverage when they sit down with North Korean counterparts.

China will certainly object to a major buildup of American military power, and that of its allies, in its neighborhood.

China will certainly object to a major buildup of American military power, and that of its allies, in its neighborhood. China’s objection to the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile battery to South Korea has been substantial, and a greater U.S. military buildup would be far larger and more problematic for Beijing. Yet American leaders could explain that this is the price to be paid for decades of Chinese excuses, denial, and unrealistic pleas for restraint. Unfortunately, Beijing is likely to be far more effectively motivated by the threat of a major buildup of American military power than by the threat of a North Korean nuclear weapon.

In international politics, leaders are often forced to deal with problems not of their making. Trump did not create the North Korean nuclear issue, but it is now his responsibility. Denying that the problem exists, or pursuing a strategy that has little to no hope of success, only damages the security of the United States and those of its allies. Unfortunately, we must recognize the reality we face and put in place a strategy that hopefully secures a less dangerous future for generations to come.

Photo credit: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images

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Each week brings fresh reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s tenure at the State Department is a self-inflicted institutional disaster. A mass exodus of nonpartisan staff. Crippling proposed budget cuts, blessed by Tillerson. Near-total failure to install a leadership team (80-plus percent of bureaus lack even nominees to lead them). Empty offices, disempowered stand-in officials, and a demoralized, marginalized rank-and-file. There’s even talk of an abrupt “Rexit.” And then there are indignities, like President Donald Trump’s thanks to Russia for saving money by expelling American diplomats.

In short, Tillerson and the Trump administration — through action and inaction, word and deed — are downgrading American diplomatic capacity in ways that risk weakening America’s hand internationally for years to come. In a world where China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are poised to capitalize on U.S. retrenchment, and in which the next Islamic State or Ebola could already be out there percolating, that’s dangerous.

Congress needed to step in. And last week, it did — in a big way. After declaring Trump’s cuts “dead on arrival,” Senate appropriators sent forward a “foreign ops” bill with $11 billion more than Trump requested (albeit $1.9 billion less than last year). The markup included amendments designed to prevent the dismembering the State Department’s refugee and migration bureau or bulking up its policy planning staff to circumvent the rest of the bureaucracy.

The bill marks a significant step toward a more assertive legislative role in setting State Department priorities, with support from Republican and Democratic Senators alike. Now Congress needs to carry forward the momentum, on matters of both money and management, to ensure that a robust foreign affairs budget becomes law and to push the administration to either leave the tools of American diplomacy stronger than it found them, or simply do no harm.

Of course, nobody thinks the State Department is perfect as is. And in mid-September, Tillerson will report to Congress on his plans to reform and reorganize it. Where he makes a compelling case, Congress should be supportive, including of plans to carefully streamline bureaucratic bloat. But the Trump budget’s ideologically driven, slash first and ask questions later approach represents an altogether different spirit. And regrettably, some of Tillerson’s opening moves, including reported disengagement from much of the Department’s work, raise concerns that he may share that spirit — or at least be more interested in streamlining American diplomacy than strengthening it.

As the administration shifts gears to negotiate budget legislation and put forward plans for reorganization, here are a few suggestions for an assertive response:

Hold the line against massive cuts. The Senate last week took a significant step to kill the 30-percent budget cut it declared “dead on arrival.” But it needs to stay dead. House appropriators put forward a far lower number. The Senate mark likely represents a high-water mark as appropriations language makes its way into law, via conference or as part of a larger spending agreement to come. Congress has a scary amount on its plate in the next several months: tax reform, an eventual debt-ceiling hike, and now the fates of 800,000 young immigrants, as well as the budget. It’s going to require sustained, vocal, bipartisan vigilance to prevent devastating cuts to the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development from sneaking back into any final spending deal.

Bar the backdoor. Even if Congress rejects proposed cuts in legislation, some worry that the administration might be tempted to implement them unilaterally through the backdoor by simply not spending the money. In 1974, Congress prohibited President Richard Nixon from precisely that. The Supreme Court upheld the law the following year. And while an unnamed State Department official denied it on the record, rumors persist, and one former State Department budget expert speculated that workarounds exist. The administration might even want this fight (including before today’s very different Supreme Court) against wasteful spending. Senate appropriators recognized the risk, and included language making clear their expectations and the precedents behind them. Absent further assurances, Congress needs to do what it can to raise the political costs of disregarding appropriations law. Votes to confirm nominees such as Tillerson’s top management official, former Senate Budget Committee staffer Eric Ueland (labeled a budgetary “evil genius” by a Senate colleague), should depend on Tillerson’s and Ueland’s public commitment to foreswear impoundment.

But simply rejecting cuts isn’t enough to address the current and future management issues Tillerson has raised. Additional steps are needed.

Hold spending on Trump and Tillerson priorities to demand action on management issues. Having worked at both the State Department and the Senate committee that oversees it, I have seen how informal negotiations over the release of funds (putting “holds” on “notifications”) can be part of constructive consultations. Previous Congresses would hold up political appointee nominations, for reasons of principle or pique — but what do you do when the problem is an administration willfully starving the department of leadership? Congress needs to seek out points of leverage over an administration with unconventional priorities, be it arms deals or the very bureaucratic changes Tillerson has prioritized.

Tillerson has suggested that some freestanding special envoy offices belong within existing State Department bureaus. It’s a reasonable idea in many cases. But it only makes sense if those bureaus are actually staffed and empowered. Tillerson and Trump may or may be concerned about whether we have empowered envoys fighting for disability rights, against war crimes, or to address climate change, but Congress should be. At a minimum, might there be holds (written into legislative language if needed) that could block expenditures for the relocation of any special envoy to a position within an existing bureau until that bureau has a confirmed assistant secretary?

And as the administration engages Congress on the reorganization, it will also be important to seek a clearer answer to a very simple question: What is the “theory of the case” underlying this large-scale reorganization? What problem does this large-scale effort exist to fix? As one Senate committee staffer told me, Tillerson and his team have yet to offer a clear response.

Define an end strength for the total size America’s diplomatic corps, just like we do for the Marine Corps. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees already legislate the number of troops (or “end strength”) authorized to serve in each of America’s service branches. Why not legislate an end strength for the Foreign Service? Or mandate a minimum number for the entire State Department? Even legislating a ceiling (as the military does) rather than a floor would express the will of Congress. Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s amendment weighing in on the size of the policy planning staff was tightly targeted to forestall an attempt to create a handpicked cadre that Tillerson might use to marginalize the rest of the department. But, if Tillerson’s efforts to prune the workforce intensify, a broader directive as to the size of the department’s staff may be called for. Under those circumstances, it would be up to Tillerson or his successor to make his case directly to Congress for large-scale changes. Reportedly, Tillerson began talking about an eight-percent staff cut long before seriously reviewing the State Department’s missions or requirements — a technique perhaps common in hostile corporate takeovers, but unwise for an irreplaceable public institution. Such tight Congressional strictures are far from ideal. But they could prove a necessary response under exceptional circumstances.

Last week’s legislative deal making points to the promise of a more fluid environment on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. But nobody knows yet what, if anything, this will mean for American diplomacy. The Trump administration, minus former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s bureaucratic “deconstruction” and personnel obstruction, could accept defeat, abandon its cuts, and move to shore up the department’s managerial gaps — under Tillerson or a successor. Or, it could be as bad as it has been.

Congress needs to be ready to respond to both outcomes: ready to say yes, and just as ready to say a firm no.

What happens next matters a great deal — far beyond Trump’s legacy, or Tillerson’s — because each president inherits the State Department his predecessors built: the platforms in 190-plus countries, the functioning institutions, and the pipeline of highly trained, hardworking public servants stationed in dangerous places to keep the country safe. Institutions can be unraveled overnight, but take years to build and rebuild.

One of the surprising insights for many first-time foreign policy professionals is that often the how (resources, capabilities, people, and execution) matters just as much to the final outcome as the what (elegant policy whitepapers, shuttle diplomacy, etc.). Without a how, you’re sunk before you even start.

Trump’s own Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, succinctly captured the stakes back when he was the Middle East’s combatant commander: “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.”

In normal times, Congress is a vital partner to presidents in sustaining America’s capacity to lead. These aren’t normal times. Congress: America’s diplomats are depending on you.

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