This post has been updated with additional details of North Korea’s Thursday ballistic missile test. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after boasting Pyongyang intended to remain a nuclear power, hasn’t completely shut the door on diplomacy with Washington, a panel of security experts said Wednesday. Retired Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, the former U.S. commander in Korea, said Kim’s “nuclear arsenal is not an end to itself, but a lever” to be used for regime survival in a very broad sense. During a Hudson Institute online forum today, he asked rhetorically, “what’s worked? Nothing yet,” regarding denuclearizing the peninsula. But … Continue reading UPDATED: North Korea Positioning Itself to Play ‘Nuclear Blackmail’