To resolve the problem of North Korea's nuclear weapons, U.S. President Donald Trump should take a page from the book of Ronald Reagan, learning from when that president confronted a similarly fraught situation at the height of the Cold War. First, some background.
The Soviet Union and its puppet East European Communist regimes wielded a massive conventional arms and manpower advantage over the combined resources of Western countries in the NATO alliance. But tactical battlefield nuclear weapons fielded by the United States, France and Great Britain offset the Warsaw Pact's conventional edge and achieved a rough strategic balance on the European continent.
Yet, Moscow, with its aggressive designs on Western Europe, wanted not a balance of power but an imbalance that worked in its favor. So, in the 1970s, the Soviet Union began deploying medium-range theater ballistic missiles to its bases in Eastern Europe. By targeting bases in France, Germany, Italy and other NATO countries, the Soviet SS-20s would neutralize the West's tactical nuclear deterrent and the strategic standoff would revert to its default posture: advantage, Soviets.