North Korea’s once-unthinkable nuclear and missile capabilities are, as long as the country wants, here to stay.

With each North Korean nuclear or missile test, American officials go through a ritual that appears increasingly at odds with reality.



They declare that they will not tolerate the rogue programs they have demonstrated little ability to slow, much less remove. They organize more of the talks or sanctions that have failed to alter North Korea’s strategic calculus. And they issue threats that, if carried out, would either change little or risk an all-out war.

But the best that Washington can hope for, analysts and former officials increasingly say, may be to freeze the program in place. Even this would most likely come at a steep cost, a grim recognition both that the threat is severe and that American leverage is limited.