I don't want to be reductive, but isn't this obvious?
While I'd rather there were no nuclear weapons, there are some regimes that I trust more than others to have some technologies. Is it unreasonable to think that?
The reason the world shakes when India and Pakistan are squabbling is because thier nukes are not up to standards they likely have less failsafe than what the US had during WW2, they lack the required central command structure and launch capability lies within the hands of field commanders it’s quite different than what the established nuclear powers have.
This whole moral relativism has to stop.
In such a state, if nuclear delivery vehicles could conceivably be taken out in a first strike by an opponent, it is essential that everything be done to prevent that from being possible.
Notably, this means compressing the detection-to-launch schedule as much as possible. Which in turn usually means allowing battlefield commanders to launch under certain conditions.
Where does this information come from? I doubt Pakistan is allowing anyone to inspect their weapons.
But those warheads are not what we in the west would define as warheads they are much closer to the cartoon version of a nuke you would imagine.
All their missiles are based on N. Korean or Chinese designs with the Shaheen 1 being the only one who's actually in somewhat operational ready condition.
The Shaheen has a range of only about 900KM and with a nuclear warhead that range is estimated to be closer to 700-750KM which means to use their Nukes the pakistanis would have to drive them to the border pretty much.
Beyond that they have the Shaheen 2 has about 2000 KM and is a 2 stage missile It's basically 2 Shaheen 1's Chinese M9's but it's not clear what it's operational status is or how much trust Pakistan has in the system.
Most things in life can be objectively quantified and evaluated despite the spirit of relativism which is way to prevelant today.
North Korea is an objectively horrid regime and I would not wish it on my worse enemies to live under such conditions.
We aren’t arguing about who’s better Belgium or Norway places like North Korea is about as black and white as it can get.
And it’s also a huge fallacy that from their point of view it’s XYZ anyone in Norh Korea that is capable of having a point of view knows exactly where they stand and why they do the things they and what the situation is.
If we still conclude they should not or must not have nuclear weapons, and I tend to agree with that, then we have essentially three options. We can nicely ask them to stop and optionally offer some kind of reward or compensation if they do what we want. If that does not work, we can impose sanctions on them and we can do so without any additional justification [1], if we don't want to trade with them because they have nuclear weapons, that is our decision alone, it does not really matter what our reasons are. Obviously some objective justification would make us look much better.
If that still doesn't work we can either either give up and let them have nuclear weapons or we can use force against them, whether sabotaging centrifuges or bombing reactors. But now we need a solid justification for our actions unless we are willing to accept that the same actions against us would be equally justified. Also note that we are just eroding the sovereignty of countries.
We could treat the world as a kind of democracy, if most countries [2] agree that a specific thing is not okay, then we are legitimized to enforce this with all means necessary. We may or may not be able to objectively argue that nuclear weapons in the hands of North Korea are an exceptional danger but that doesn't really matter because our legitimization comes from the majority vote and not from any good reasons. It would of course again make us look much better if we could come up with some reasonable objective justifications for why some countries may and others may not have nuclear weapons.
There are of course also implications here, for example if the majority of the countries decided to ban nuclear weapons altogether [3], then any state including the USA would have to give up their nuclear weapons.
[1] There are of course complications, we may, for example, very well punish innocent citizens for the actions of a few at the top of the state.
[2] Maybe weighted by population or something along that line.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_N...
And no there shouldn't be a debate if N. Korea should be allowed to attain nuclear weapons this isn't an issue for debate, my stance on that would be similar even if it was Iceland but if we were talking about them I would at least humor the possibility.
North Korea is and I can't believe I'm using Trump's rhetoric to put it mildly a shit hole run by a an absolute turd and that is if we are lucky and he actually has a grip on the situation.
It's also a fallacy that some world wide consensus or justification is either needed, warranted or even wanted. The majority of the world's population doesn't care about N. Korea, nor should they. The only consensus that matters in this regards is the one between NATO, Russia, China, S. Korea and Japan with a warm FYSA to India and Pakistan.
Set in motion in part because USA had placed missiles in Turkey and USSR attempted to do the same in Cuba.
Never mind having launch codes set to all zeros for a number of years.
And more than a few soiled pants moments where live nukes have been mismanaged (like having a B-52 fly across the nation with a live one in the bay, because someone got it and a training bomb confused).
Sorry to say but USA all too often come across as teenagers seen by foreign eyes.
Counterpoint: nuclear weapons have forced countries to find alternatives to war. And have likely saved more lives as a result.