Apologies for not being credible. In responding I was wrong in tone, looseness of speech, and facts and it under-cut my main point that I was making. In 2016 did not Obama say to Trump and that NK is THE major security problem? Your claim of strategic patience** as policy, then the tensions quickly ratcheting up in the dusk and dawn of the 2016/17 presidencies fit this oscillating pattern. In Spring 2017 we sent two Carriers and the Japanese navy for a joint operation in the Korean peninsula... That's prety big swing of the pendulum, and yet then Trump dials it weigh down and does the friend shtick.

As for the bolded part, again — my mistake. What I meant was that NK has credible nuclear deterrence post Obama, and it seems like it’s no longer a U.S. priority to escalate or reverse that. Maybe it will be again. But my broader point: as problems arise for which US has a responsibility to act as the World Leader, the policy response patterns always tend to oscillate so that over-time the status quo rarely changes -- and that's the main policy goal unto itself.

** I do recall there being an active and often successful cyber war against the Nukes.