North Korea Needs Nukes Because of Its Religion

[TomSea]

North Korea Needs Nukes Because of Its Religion

Kim Jong Un can’t stop his nuclear program without threatening the national ideology that keeps him in power.

    By Paul French
    July 7, 2017

Another missile test, another step forward for North Korea’s ambition to successfully deliver a nuclear weapon, another round of hand-wringing, anger, and editorials globally. It’s all become rather familiar — as have the solutions proposed, from lunatic first strikes to final ultimatums to careful programs of engagement.

But we have to face an uncomfortable truth: There is no negotiating stance that can convince the North to abandon its nuclear program. North Korea’s ideology, Kim Jong Un’s own sense of familial destiny, and the sheer amounts of money and time spent on the project all work to ensure this. And, as 19th-century Americans said about their own conviction that their “manifest destiny” was to dominate the continent, the North sees possessing a deliverable weapon as both justified and inevitable.

It doesn’t matter what any outsiders propose. It is now essentially a done deal. Any military response is doomed to fail. But even engagement strategies can’t stop the relentless move toward a deliverable North Korea nuclear arsenal.

Lessening the sanctions regime, or perhaps even abolishing it, would make little difference to Pyongyang. The economy is humming along OK, and trade with China is continuing. Additionally, various illegal sources of money, from meth to gold to weapons tech, are virtually impossible to stop. Predictions of the North’s economic collapse have been many and constant — but there is no actual reason the current level of austerity and some black market dealing cannot sustain the population indefinitely.

Continued: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/07/north-korea-needs-nukes-because-of-its-religion/

[Jazzhead]

There aren't many good choices left - not after years of pussyfooting around.    We may well need to adapt to NORK as we do to, say, Pakistan,  recognizing that it possesses a nuclear deterrent capacity and learning to live with it. 

Pakistan possesses nukes because it perceives an existential threat from India.  NORK wants nukes because it perceives an existential threat from, well, from us.   The beauty of the nuclear deterrent is that,  with 60 plus years of experience with it, it works.   Pakistan and India have lived with each other's ability to annihilate the other for decades,  and perhaps the new reality is that Kim has achieved the right to survive on his own terms.   But that doesn't mean mushroom clouds over Hawaii or Pyongyang.   More likely,  it means the threat of mutually assured destruction will continue to preserve the peace. 

Of course, the wild card is the personalities and temperament of the respective leaders of the two nations.  Is Kim in any sense a rational actor?   And can we say the same with certainty about our own President?    
  

 
 

[HonestJohn]

While this is all true, we continue to ignore mitigation measures and instead, focus on escalating our rhetoric.  Which, in turn, feeds North Korea's paranoia.

Instead of focusing on North Korea's nukes and missiles, which the article rightly points out is a non-starter for the regime, we *CAN* focus on negotiations to reduce North Korea's ability to use them.  For North Korea has a narrow set of reasons that would trigger their use.

That being:

1. Regime survival
2. Keep Japan/US out of any new Korean war.

So if we negotiate for North Korea troop reductions in return for a peace treaty. we eliminate both of their nuclear weapon trigger points.  For the North Korea leadership believes that a peace treaty will ensure their survival (not kidding, it's one of their chief demands)... and reduced troop strengths will make it even more impossible for them to start a war on the peninsula (which is the only time they might use them).

This is possible as the North Korean's military pride is now focused on their nukes and missiles, not their conventional forces. In essence, North Korean leadership is 'distacted' by their new, shiny toy.

Then, after some time, we might come back and negotiate a nuclear weapons-free peninsula under the guise of "what's the point now?"

[Cyber Liberty]

The NORKS don't negotiate in good faith, never have.

[HonestJohn]

The NORKS don't negotiate in good faith, never have.

We've only ever tried on the one issue they'll never budge on.

Furthermore, they did follow through with the shutdown of their Panghyon reactor in return for the promise of a light water reactor.  They only restarted it after years of US/SK/Japanese failures to actually build the thing... and after Bush II cancelled the treaty.

[Jazzhead]

While this is all true, we continue to ignore mitigation measures and instead, focus on escalating our rhetoric.  Which, in turn, feeds North Korea's paranoia.

Instead of focusing on North Korea's nukes and missiles, which the article rightly points out is a non-starter for the regime, we *CAN* focus on negotiations to reduce North Korea's ability to use them.  For North Korea has a narrow set of reasons that would trigger their use.

That being:

1. Regime survival
2. Keep Japan/US out of any new Korean war.

So if we negotiate for North Korea troop reductions in return for a peace treaty. we eliminate both of their nuclear weapon trigger points.  For the North Korea leadership believes that a peace treaty will ensure their survival (not kidding, it's one of their chief demands)... and reduced troop strengths will make it even more impossible for them to start a war on the peninsula (which is the only time they might use them).

This is possible as the North Korean's military pride is now focused on their nukes and missiles, not their conventional forces. In essence, North Korean leadership is 'distacted' by their new, shiny toy.

Then, after some time, we might come back and negotiate a nuclear weapons-free peninsula under the guise of "what's the point now?"

Well reasoned and very sensible,  HJ.   Kim appears crazy and paranoid, but let's not forget that the Korean war ended in a stalemate and no peace agreement over sixty years ago.   When all is said and done,  nations seek nuclear weapons for geo-strategical reasons, not vanity.   They seek such weapons to counter perceived existential threats.  It may be time to try dealing with NORK as we do other nations, without preconditions and in good faith.   

[Cyber Liberty]

...like Iran.

[Idiot]

Reminds me of this.....