What should we make of the situation in North Korea?

A local news report on North Korean military's plans earlier this month.
A woman walks by a TV screen showing a local news program reporting about North Korean military's plans to launch missiles into waters near Guam, Aug. 15, 2017.
Lee Jin-man | AP file

North Korea has been flexing its nuclear power, launching several ballistic missile tests in recent months. This past weekend, the country conducted its most powerful nuclear test to date, detonating a device that caused the equivalent of a 6.3-magnitude earthquake.

President Trump on Twitter has said "talking is not the answer" when it comes to dealing with North Korea. So what options do the international community have, and what might the future hold?

MPR News host Tom Weber talked to Sherry Gray, director of the International Fellows and Scholars program at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and Sung-Yoon Lee, assistant professor of Korean studies at Tufts University's Fletcher School, about responding to an increasingly aggressive North Korea.

"The reality is, there's 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and most of them are owned by the United States or Russia," Gray said. "One nuclear weapon, five nuclear weapons, does not give North Korea the ability to do much. It gives them the ability to get attention and maybe deter regime change."

Use the audio player above to hear the full segment.

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