The biggest challenge to containment is that it is much harder to enact and sustain than it is to discuss. The United States cannot afford to let a containment policy revert to extended deterrence as a sole means. Containment has its own risks, but it also has rewards that have not been achieved in the past. A containment policy is not about containing the expansion of North Korea, obstructing China’s economic growth, or a Korean reunification. It is about containing, stopping, and eliminating the spread of nuclear weapons—and the materials necessary to make those weapons—in accordance with international regimes and U.S. policy. Pyongyang values only one thing other than its nuclear capability: its survival as a regime and family legacy. This is why a long-term containment policy that enables all instruments of governmental power can best achieve such a critical and mutually shared global interest.

Daniel Morgan is an active duty Army infantry colonel. Colonel Morgan served in the White House in 1998–2001 supporting the U.S. National Drug Control Strategy and has participated in multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe. He is currently serving as the Army’s senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army War College, the United States Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.