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Article snippet: Days after President Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” tensions have remained high. On Thursday, the president doubled down on his warning, suggesting that perhaps his first comment wasn’t “tough enough.” Senior administration officials have sent mixed messages on the subject, with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson stressing diplomacy and telling Americans that they “should sleep well at night,” while Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said North Korea risked “the end of its regime and the destruction of its people” if it did not “stand down.” What follows is a collection of writing from across the political spectrum responding to the developments. Have feedback on this series? Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com. For an archive of all the Partisan Writing Roundups, check out Our Picks. • Charles Lipson in Real Clear Politics: “No one knows if Trump’s strategy can change Beijing’s calculus, but his willingness to use force on the peninsula is credible in ways Obama’s and Bush’s were not.” Mr. Lipson explains that Mr. Tillerson’s seeming contradiction of President Trump’s alarmist talk is not a sign that the White House is in “disarray.” Instead, he writes, it’s “good cop, bad cop.” Mr. Lipson admits that the situation with North Korea is dangerous, but writes that the “tepid diplomacy” of the Bush and Obama administrations “was dangerous, too.” Read more » _____ • Mark Tooley in National Review: “Christian responses to public-policy challenges of today... Link to the full article to read more