Summary

In Chapter 12, Woodward describes Obama's struggles to contain the growing nuclear threat from North Korea, which said they had developed a nuclear bomb that could be placed on a ballistic missile. Obama considered whether to launch a strike against North Korea to take out their nuclear capacities. James Clapper, Obama's director of national intelligence, believed the North Korean leader, Jim Kong Un, was building a nuclear weapons arsenal. The Pentagon determined that the only way to get rid of the North Korean nuclear program was a ground invasion, and Obama decided not to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea. Instead, backchannel diplomatic meetings continued between the U.S. and North Korea. Obama also considered a cyber-attack on North Korea, but he knew that would also unleash a cyber war. North Korea had hacked Sony's computers after the movie company released "The Interview...