Ex-Defense Sec. Cohen: US Must Stop China, Russia From Aiding NKorea

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen said Wednesday that North Korea's weapons' activities have "gotten worse" and that the best way for the United States to respond is to "go after the countries supporting the North Korean regime," including China and Russia.

"This has been going on a long time," Cohen, a former Maine Republican senator who served Democratic President Bill Clinton, told John Berman on CNN. "The South has exercised, as has the United States, great restraint.

"There are some 800,000 troops on the border of South Korea, on the DMZ, that could rain havoc on Seoul," he added. "Nothing has changed, except it's gotten worse."

Cohen said that Pyongyang's strongest allies, China and Moscow, have fueled its economy – giving dictator Kim Jong Un the "guns and butter" that he has needed to stand against the U.S.

"We used to say you can't have guns and butter," he told Berman. "Well, he's had guns, but he's also had butter.

"The reaction has to be to go after the countries supporting the North Korean regime, saying if you do business with them, you can't do business with us.

"That raises the issue of China itself.

"We're not going to get into a trade war with China," Cohen continued, "but we are and should take a number of sanction steps against those companies, those banks who have been moving money through in order to help North Korea have the butter as well as the guns."

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