General McMaster said: “I don’t want to get into the specifics of military plans and estimates but I will tell you that the President has asked us to continue to refine our military option should we have to use it.
“Of course, we are working on that very closely with our very close ally South Korea, who is the closest to this danger, and with Japan. But what we have to do is everything we can now to resolve this sort of war.”
General McMaster – who serves as Mr Trump’s National Security Advisor – said the US needed to work hard to put an end to Pyongyang’s threat to world peace as the rogue state continues to taunt the international community with its defiance.
Speaking to PBS, he said: “The grave danger is not just the direct threat that North Korea poses to any nation but also the threat that’s posed by the breakdown of that non-proliferation regime.
“And we should point out that this regime has never made a weapon that it didn’t try to sell.”
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has been engaging Mr Trump in a continuously escalating war of words which experts claim is putting the world on the brink of World War 3.
It comes after South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said the possibility of military conflict still remains low but predicted a significant upwards shift in the possibility if Kim Jong-un fires another test missile.
Senator Graham said: “I should say there’s a three in ten chance we use the military option.
The US President has also promised to “take care” of the situation in a huge warning to Kim Jong-un.Despite expected economic difficulties, it remains to be seen whether Pyongyang will reverse its position clinging to nuclear weapons development, according to the think tank, which is the research arm of the Seoul’s National Intelligence Service.
It said: “North Korea may put further focus on building the economy while holding on to its policy line of becoming the most powerful nuclear state.”
NSS chiefs expect North Korea to use South Korea’s hosting of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics as an opportunity to offer dialogue with Seoul.
