Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Friday that the United States needed to conduct "coercive diplomacy" with North Korea in curbing its nuclear ambitions.
"The reason it can't be tolerated is it won't just sit there," Carter, who served in the Obama administration, told Jake Tapper on CNN of Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal.
"There are people who say: 'Well, just let it go. As long as we don't bother them, they won't bother us.'
"They will be provocative in ways they wouldn't be willing otherwise to do," he said. "It sets a bad example for nonproliferation."
Carter, 63, a former Harvard University professor, expressed confidence that current Defense Secretary James Mattis and other Trump administration officials will "continue to recognize that until and unless we're able to turn North Korea around, deterrence and defense are essential.
"That means constant strengthening of our forces there, the reinforcing forces, working with the South Koreans and the Japanese and introducing new forces on the peninsula as needed."
But the United States must take a different tact on diplomacy by specifically outlining the consequences of Pyongyang firing off its arsenal.
"The right approach mixes the military and the diplomatic," Carter told Tapper.
"It's good to slap pressure on and to get the Chinese to slap pressure, but an even better way to do it is to say to the North Koreans, don't launch another missile that is long range.
"If you do, here is what will happen," he added.
"And if you don't, here is what the Chinese might do for you or the Japanese or the South Koreans.
"Don't detonate another underground nuclear test," Carter said. "If you do, here is what happens.
"Don't wait until they do something and then do something to them," he told Tapper. "That's justified, makes us feel better, but it doesn't get anywhere with them.
"That's how you conduct coercive diplomacy."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.