Doug Badow
The Cold War was marked by hysteria over the potential for nuclear conflict. School kids practiced getting under their desks and families built bomb shelters in case the missiles fell. Although there were moments of acute danger, most notably the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world seemed to enter a new age when the Soviet Union collapsed. Small wars continued, but the famed nuclear doomsday clock finally moved backwards.
Yet the possibility of nuclear war again is dominating international headlines. A foreign government is building nuclear weapons and ICBMs to target the United States. And the president of the United States is now threatening to destroy that nation. People have begun to share their parents’ fear of nuclear warheads raining down upon American cities.
Fear-mongering is hardly new in American politics. But President Donald Trump’s decision to match North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un insult for insult and threat for threat creates a serious risk of misjudgment and mistake. Neither the United States nor the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea desires war, but the spectacle of the two nations’ leaders behaving like participants in a cockfight demonstrates that these are unusual times [3].
Most analysts who know the Korean Peninsula realize that war is not an option [4], at least absent a well-grounded belief that conflict truly is inevitable and the only question is how it starts and is conducted. There are some—Sen. Lindsey Graham comes to mind—who suggest that a Second Korean War wouldn’t be such a big deal because it would not be “over here.” Of course, the U.S. military would be involved in any fight and the North probably has the capability to hit American bases in the region.
Even if Pyongyang currently lacks the ability to hit the U.S. mainland, it could let loose murder and mayhem on South Korean and Japanese territory. Too bad the senator doesn’t believe those lives count for much. Most war games discount claims of North Korean forbearance or an otherwise easy victory. Casualties surely would be at least in the tens of thousands and perhaps many, many more. And if the conflict’s impact flowed over the North’s borders into China and Russia, Washington would face additional significant geopolitical dangers.
Yet some analysts—as well as politicians like Graham—appear to believe that the only choice is war or living with a dire and growing North Korean nuclear threat against the American homeland. In which case war, especially if it could be kept “over there,” would be preferred.
Those might appear to be the only choices because the United States insists on remaining militarily entangled in Northeast Asia. However, it is Washington’s commitment to South Korea which has brought America into potential conflict with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. So long as the United States intervenes militarily to protect the South from the North, the latter must prepare to offset Washington’s overwhelming military might, which makes nuclear-tipped ICBMs the obvious weapon of choice.
However, nothing requires Americans to remain forever on station in the Republic of Korea. The ROK was a wreck in July 1953 when the armistice was signed. South Korea trailed its northern adversary in economic strength and political stability until the 1960s. But over time Seoul lived up to the Biblical promise that the last would be first. Today the South vastly outranges the DPRK, enjoying a 45-to-1 economic edge and 2-to-1 population advantage. Long ago South Korea gained the ability to field a military capable of deterring the North and defeating the latter’s forces if deterrence fail
https://scout.com/military/warrior/Article/How-America-and-North-Korea-Could-Start-a-Nuclear-War-108715270
