Bob Maginnis, a national security analyst at the Family Research Council, warns that North Korea will eventually have the capability to threaten neighbors South Korea and Japan with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile and eventually the West Coast of the United States, too.

“And of course there’s very little internal opposition that’s evident to the outside,” he warns, “and therefore continue to march in the same direction until stopped.”

And the Trump-led White House warned this week that North Korea poses an “urgent national security threat” to the reclusive country’s neighbors.

Earlier this week, U.S. senators gathered near the White House to attend an unusual briefing on the situation in North Korea. The senators who attended heard from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis among others.

Some Democratic senators complained that they heard few details but U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) called it a “sobering meeting.”

“There is a chance,” Trump told the Reuters news service this week, “that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea.”

Trump is relying heavily on China’s president to pressure its unpredictable neighbor but the U.S. is also deploying an aircraft carrier and a U.S. submarine to the region in an obvious show of force.

Against the backdrop of a possible outbreak of war, Maginnis says the main objective of Kim Jong Un and his cronies is survival.

Kim Jong Un has to be convinced, says Maginnis, “that if he were to take certain actions that it would guarantee the defeat of the regime.”