Military action against North Korea is not a viable option for the United States at the moment, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark said Wednesday.

Clark addressed the topic during an appearance on "MSNBC Live with Craig Melvin."

"I think it's off the table in Korea, because there's no real good military option," Clark said following North Korea's July 4 test of an ICBM. "We don't have enough intelligence to be 100 percent confident that you know everything you want to hit, and you'll never have 100 percent confidence that you can hit it even if you know where it is.

"So, I don't think there's a good military option here for the United States to sort of make this problem go away. It's not going to happen."

Clark later said what others have suggested in recent months regarding the problem posed by North Korea: China needs to step up.

North Korea and China have a diplomatic relationship. Reuters reported that the truck carrying the North Korean ICBM appeared to be one made in China.

"China has its hands on the controls," Clark told MSNBC. "It sort of jiggles them back and forth. It puts pressure on Korea, then it let's the pressure up. It gives it some technology with one hand, with the other hand, it says bad things about it. They're playing a very subtle, long-term game."

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