News analyst Charlie Sennott joined Boston Public Radio today to explain why he believes the Trump administration’s approach to North Korea is lacking.

He said the emphasis on military action is counterproductive.

“There was virtually no groundwork built for this diplomatically,” Sennott said. “What you had was President Trump willing to rhetorically come out with these really powerful and dangerous statements and threatening military action and building up on a military approach to back those words up.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has kept quiet about the logistics of a potential meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, but Sennott says the White House has been preparing for military confrontation.

“That’s been underway now for some months,” he said. “What they haven’t done is the diplomatic groundwork.”

Charlie Sennott is a news analyst at WGBH, where he also heads up the GroundTruth project.