Mr Morell told CBS News that “Russia’s strategy globally is to undermine the United States wherever it can.
“So Russia’s interest here is to simply make our life more difficult and make it more likely that we will not be successful in North Korea.”
When asked to comment on Mr Trump’s approach to the North Korea’s threat, Mr Morell said: “I think if you’re going to make a threat and you’re going to say ‘If you don’t give up your nuclear programme then we are going to take military action’, then you have better already decided to do that.
“If North Korea doesn’t blink and they move forward and you end up doing nothing you have lost a tremendous amount of credibility.”
He added that the language chosen by President Trump is “quite dangerous” in that respect.
Donald Trump told the rogue state’s leader that he would take “all necessary steps” to stop his nuclear and missile programme.
Former US ambassador to the UN John Negroponte said: “The problem is, the more you contemplate a military approach to this matter the more horrific or horrendous the outcome would appear to be.”
Mr Negroponte added: “There is probably no way if it does come to blow, of avoiding some kind of retaliation from North Korea against South Korea, since the city of Seoul is so vulnerable to even conventional artillery attacks from the north.
“I think once you go down the road of a military approach to these things, the going could get very rough.”
Speaking about Kim Jong-un, Mr Morell concluded: “I think this programme is incredibly important for him from a security perspective and from a political perspective. He’s not going to stop until he has demonstrated the capability of putting a US city at risk of nuclear attack.”
