Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Sunday that “all options” should be on the table when considering a pre-emptive military strike against North Korea.
“We’ve always had all options on the table,” Carter told ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. “I wouldn’t take any off.”
Carter served as secretary of defense under former President Barack Obama. His comments come as questions about what to do about North Korea’s nuclear missile tests are expected to be a central part of discussions next week between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Carter said that he worked on a pre-emptive strike plan back in 1994 under then-President Bill Clinton. “We have those options. We shouldn’t take them off the table,” he said.
He said North Korea would likely respond to our attack by attempting to invade South Korea. But he is confident that “the outcome of that war … would be the defeat of North Korea.”
Carter warned that it would be a war with an “intensity and violence that we haven’t seen since the last Korean War.” He said the U.S. needs to proceed carefully because any conflagration would likely be very destructive. He emphasized deterrence as the best option for now.
