North Korea must choose either to have a future or to have nuclear weapons "but it cannot have them both"

That's all fine and good, except there is the issue of proliferation to think about.

Best thing I've read on the whole situation yet.

I agree with the first sentence, but not the second. I suspect that the U.S. Govt has much more information regarding the effectiveness of the test than the media, and will (hopefully) use that information to gain some sort of strategic advantage--but that advantage can, as a practical matter, come only through diplomacy.

Tom's post raises a really good point, although I think we have more of stake in NK's future than he does, particularly given the number of troops we have in SK. Also, I think whether or not NK is fully nuke-capable makes a major difference in whether that power vacuum becomes a spoken issue vs. an unspoken one.

Aren't you guys worried at all that KJI will actually deploy a nuke (if it actually has one) in the service of remaining in power? Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't think that the strategic constraints on the use of nuclear weapons that kept them in check during the cold war are operative any longer, and if MAD doesn't apply, seems to me that a limited/regional nuclear conflict becomes far more likely.

And if the ROK believed with any certainty that KJI was intent on and capable of detonating an atomic weapon anywhere near Seoul, the numbers would probably add up in favor of going ahead and assimilating medieval East Germany. I think they have a better sense of the real detente than we do, as do the Chinese. They can't afford not to.

http://www.cnsnews.com/Pentagon/Archive/1998-2000/DEF20000417a.html

"U.S. Aid Helps N. Korea Build Nukes, Congress Told"

And really, just how combat effective is that 4th largest army? Does NK *really* have the logistics to send that army anywhere or is KJI just going to holler "FREE LUNCH BUFFET IN THE SOUTH!" and hope for the best?

only if you think that 500+ tons of TNT going off in non-DPRK territory is really any more acceptable than a "non-dud" nuke.

I've always understood this less in terms of winning or losing in combat than in terms of wrecking the South Korean economy.

I admit I don't know shit about explosives, but I'm going to guess that a delivery system for 500+ ton conventional weapon is impractical. I may well be wrong.

MOAB has about a 15 ton yield, I think. Big BLU, if it ever gets built, will be about half as powerful again (although neither are as powerful as the T-12, at around 30 tons).

It's not in writing, I suppose, by which I mean some kind of formal treaty, but isn't this essentially what NK has been looking for?

Ooh, scary.

in part:

"Our problem set is no longer containing the Sovs, but we act like we can and should tackle today's problems and the Long War by relying on the same aging cast of allies. North Korea won't be solved by having Japan and South Korea on our side, but by doing whatever it takes to get China to deal with that problem with us and on our behalf. That's the obvious direction our socialization of the problem should go.

Ditto for Iran on Iraq. No one country in the region is going to be able to help us more on settling Iraq than Iran.

Don't want to ally yourself with such a nasty regime? Well, then get the hell out of the Long War, because you're not a realistic strategist who's determined to win but rather a naive tactician who thinks it's cool to take on all-comers at once.

Bush and company are backtracking in both East Asia and the Middle East because they're simply not imaginative enough to see this Long War through in all its strategic implications. Yes, we will make some strange bedfellows in the near term. Such is war. But the real question is whether you want to look good or win.

Me? Like many of my military friends, I don't believe in fair fights. When I enter a fight, I believe in doing whatever it takes to get through it as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. Then I move onto the next challenge.

But this Bush administration has not done that. They came into power all excited to transform the military for future war with China, simply substituting one bogeyman for another. 9/11 pulled this crew into the Long War, but it did not cure them of their Cold War thinking. They added new enemies but no new allies. They got so excited at the prospect of going from A to Z in the Persian Gulf that they forgot all about B through Y as pathways.

Well, now that journey is inescapable.

Want to fix Iraq? Then fix your relationships with Iran and through Iran with Syria.

Want to fix North Korea? Then build strategic alliance with China that can incorporate that solution set.

What we [don't] do now with each is boss them around. Hasn't worked up to now and it won't work in the future. Instead, they'll free-ride us to death--quite literally if we let them. And in the end, they'll get what they want regionally at virtually no cost to themselves. Meanwhile, we'll be bankrupted.

Or, we'll get something much smarter on Jan 2009 and let the bidding begin.

And yes, since you ask, I do realize that in penning this post I've basically restated all of my arguments I laid out to the Bush administration at the beginning of their second term (the Esquire Mar 05 piece, called, "Dear Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term, Secure Your Legacy, and, oh yeah, Create a Future Worth Living." It was what I believed then and it's still what I believe now. To me, a serious grand strategist isn't somebody with a new answer every week. He gives you the answer you need when you need it. How long you waste before taking his advice is your problem."

"Gnarly Chaos".

Barnett is a lifelong Democrat, a guy who will almost certainly end up advising foreign policy for someone in 2008.

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/003862.html

liberal hawk, bush of ghosts fan

Senior Bush administration officials wanted North Korea to test a nuclear weapon because it would prove their point that the regime must be overthrown.

This astonishing revelation was buried in the middle of a Washington Post story published yesterday. Glenn Kessler reports from Moscow as he accompanies Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

---
Before North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device, some senior officials even said they were quietly rooting for a test, believing that would finally clarify the debate within the administration.
---

Until now, no U.S. official in any administration has ever advocated the testing of nuclear weapons by another country, even by allies such as the United Kingdom and France.

One of these officials may have been Rice herself, Kessler hints. Rice, he reports, “has come close to saying the test was a net plus for the United States.” Rice has been trying to counter the prevailing view that the test was a failure of the Bush administration’s policy.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/24/world/asia/north-korea-propaganda-photo.html

from robert neer's napalm: an american biography

http://i.imgur.com/AnT5LqO.jpg

well why are they so damn truculent

yes remind me why the us took part of the korean war and what "containment" is

George Kennan's corpse to thread

perfected by LBJ, McNamara, Henry K & Tricky Dick in Southeast Asia of course

https://www.ft.com/content/9427a7bc-24e1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16

While the US wants to tighten the screw on the Kim Jong Un regime to force it to give up its nuclear programme, China — North Korea’s main trading partner — has argued that basic trade must be maintained to prevent millions of refugees from fleeing a failed state.

JUst come across a book from 4 years ago called The Impossible State by Victor Cha. It was mentioned on a 2013 Stephen colbert episode I caught. Was it any good?
Would like to know more about the state of the country, though that is 4 years ago.

By nearly every standard of description NK has long sounded like a failed state hanging on by the barest of threads to some sort of artificial stability. But wouldn't it take a total collapse to even announce to its citizens that the time to flee is nigh? Regardless, it seems sensible for China to perhaps devise a refugee plan, because such a mass exodus seems inevitable, eventually.

Good read:

http://observer.com/2017/04/north-korea-missile-test-cia/

Then there’s the problem that nobody seems to understand what makes North Korea tick. Most Western “experts” on the regime have no idea what they’re talking about, as I’ve explained, and there’s a very good case that the DPRK actually may welcome confrontation with the United States—even nuclear confrontation. While Pyongyang’s bluster about preemptive nuclear strikes against friends of America (read: South Korea and Japan) sounds far-fetched, it’s best to side with caution and accept that the DPRK really might do exactly that.

a mass exodus seems inevitable

Can't be so sure. NK border security is Donald trump's wet dream. Except they excel at keeping emigrants in, not immigrants out.