N-Korea, N-Test
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
We are talking about literally millions of lives at stake -- perhaps many more if it gets out of control and becomes a war involving both China and the US.
I don't have a solution, but I think we need to be prepared for tough choices. It may be that no good outcome is possible at this point.
IMHO, KJU has nothing to gain and everything to lose by provoking other powers into a forceful response. The erratic behavior of him and his government is the defensive tactic itself. The ability to cause destruction overseas is of secondary concern, and it would seem to be a negligible one in the face of a potential response.
Trump employs something similar--act unpredictably and people keep their distance. Create the next sensationalist headline and people will 1) stop and think about what exactly is going on and 2) stay their distance. Do this enough times, often enough, and you're relatively shielded from serious threats to your power.
Of course, there is a limit, but so far they both are acting within tolerances.
No, that's my primary concern.
If your calculation is off, and they do attack, or scare someone else enough to attack them, the result will be horrific.
And you seem to assume the situation there is stable and KJU will behave rationally. If domestic politics in NK get complicated or KJU gets too paranoid, there's no telling what he will do.
I also find it hard to believe that the US, China, and Russia don't all have sophisticated countermeasures in place in case a rocket is launched with a trajectory toward something important. It may still cause horrific damage, but not on the level of a megacity.
Your primary concern is not his. That is my wager. Let's hope my optimism wins out...
North Korea, China and Russia all think Trump's bellicose attitude towards North Korea has been unhelpful. This test is a quite rational response to the pressures that are being turned up on North Korea.
We've banned chemical and biological weapons. Why not nuclear? They post a much greater threat to humanity, and that threat is growing as states like North Korea improve their capability.
If you waved a magic wand and eradicated all nuclear weapons and other forms of mass destruction, you'd return us to a world of bloodshed and horror. It's counter-intuitive, but it's true.
The threat still is and always has been a real nuclear power loosing off their arsenal either in anger or by mistake - that's how you end the world.
There are some pretty big and serious reasons for being specific about this.
We (US) and the world enable China by allowing manufacturing to be offshored to China, an authoritarian government which has horrific track record of censorship, human rights abuse, pollution, etc.
We need to stop, and punish China for supporting North Korea.
How?