2. Cyberwarfare. The U.S. should also unleash cyber capabilities it has steadily built over the last decade. Computer viruses alone can't prevent North Korea from launching nuclear missiles, but they could degrade the Kim regime's ability to conduct research and development, test and control weapons and gather intelligence. Cyberwarfare could also complement economic sanctions by freezing North Korean offshore bank accounts, paralyzing communications and disrupting Chinese companies that continue to trade with Pyongyang.

3. Space weapons. With launch costs falling (thank you SpaceX), and the capabilities of precision-guided munitions improving, the U.S.could rush the development of a space-based anti-missile system. Though still on the drawing board, space weapons will someday be able to target intercontinental ballistic missiles during their initial boost phase, when the large plume of their engines makes them easiest to detect and their slow upward ascent makes them most vulnerable.

Using advanced technology should appeal to a commander in chief who rails against the "waste" of American blood and treasure expended abroad and at the same time deplores "the very sad depletion of our military." "Fire and fury" and "America first" mesh poorly, unless technology is employed to resolve the paradox.

The potential is clear. In the Kosovo air war, the U.S. Air Force dropped graphite bombs to disable the Serbian electrical grid; in the Iraq invasion, allied air power crippled Saddam Hussein's military and civilian transportation network. New technologies can create those pressures and more with far greater effect, less permanent damage and less risk to troops. They can be deployed quickly and precisely in a crisis, and they provide strategic deterrence as well.

The main obstacle to deploying such weapons will be hearts and minds in the West. There are already calls to ban new weapons because they are destabilizing. United Nations officials, for example, attacked President Barack Obama's drone campaign because it made war too easy to wage. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, recently called artificial intelligence "the greatest risk we face as a civilization" and predicted that it could trigger wars. These critics fear a new technology arms race that will encourage the promiscuous use of these weapons.

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3 US technology solutions to war with North Korea - Dallas News