A 3-Part Plan is One Part Short

A RAND study calls for a contain, deter, and transform plan to cope with a nuclear North Korea rather than risk war.

I do think we can contain the weak North Korea--as long as South Korea remains stable and strong.

And I do think that we can deter North Korean use of nuclear weapons. I've never said they aren't rational even if we don't fully grasp their rationality calculations (this could be rational, for example).

I'm not sure if the third part is feasible, but I do know that the plan to deal with a nuclear North Korea doesn't deal with a fourth part of the problem: the ability of North Korea to sell nuclear missile technology--or even the missiles themselves--to Iran.

Iran even under the nutballs isn't irrational for the most part. But does anyone doubt that there are very irrational actors within Iran who should not even have the chance of getting even a single nuclear warhead?

So where in the RAND plan does it include preventing North Korea from proliferating nuclear weapons to dangerous actors?

Remember, it isn't a successful policy of North Korea isn't the one who nukes us or an ally with a North Korean-designed or -built missile.