February 12, 2018
Frustrations at the White House and the Pentagon
In early February, months-long tensions between the White House and the Pentagon over how to address North Korea spilled out into the public scene. As officials revealed to the New York Times, National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster had demanded that the Pentagon provide a menu of detailed military plans, including a “bloody nose” strike against North Korean nuclear facilities, in order to bring credibility to President Donald Trump’s threats. But the Pentagon, these officials noted, appeared reluctant to deliver on the request, seemingly worried that the White House lacked an appreciation of how quickly a military strike could escalate.
The reality is more nuanced. The Pentagon’s apparent refusal to deliver the White House’s desired military plans most likely derived from a number of factors unrelated to the Department of Defense’s feelings about the president or his foreign policy. In this case, the parameters likely set by the White House—low risk to U.S. forces, low risk to South Korea, low risk in provoking a North Korean response, but high damage to Pyongyang’s nuclear program or broader conventional force—may have simply been untenable. There is, after all, no effective surgical strike option for North Korea, no “bloody nose” that could reliably inflict determinative damage on military facilities without prompting devastating retaliation. The Pentagon always works more slowly than desired in the development of military plans, but ultimately cannot deliver on an impossible request—and is likely disinclined to offer less robust options.
Read the full article in Foreign Affairs.
More from CNAS
-
Repairing the Breach
Reports
U.S.-India relations stumbled badly during the second half of 2025. Differences between U.S. and Indian officials over how a ceasefire was reached between New Delhi and Islama...
By Lisa Curtis, Keerthi Martyn & Sitara Gupta
-
Video
Indo-Pacific Security / Middle East Security
Iran U.S. War Latest Updates | ‘U.S., Israel Making Gains’: Lisa Curtis On Week 3 of Iran WarThree weeks into the Iran conflict, Lisa Curtis, senior fellow and program director at the Center for a New American Security, says the United States and Israel are making tac...
By Lisa Curtis
-
Reports
Defense / Indo-Pacific Security
U.S.-Japan-Philippines Trilateral CooperationExecutive Summary Growing challenges from the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) massive military modernization, rapid technological advancement, and coercive military activ...
By Lisa Curtis & Ryan Claffey
-
In Brief: Increasing Tensions Between China and Japan Create Risks for the Region
Commentary
This article was originally published in War on the Rocks. China’s latest pressure campaign targeting Japan serves multiple purposes for Beijing. One is to redirect domestic p...
By Jacob Stokes
