As much as the media likes to call North Korea crazy, they're not suicidal. But given their self-inflicted weak position, they're more willing to take extreme risks to survive. A miscalculation could escalate to war. Trump isn't exactly stable either. We cannot afford to let them develop second strike capability, or we risk nuclear blackmail. If crushing sanctions don't work, or don't work fast enough, our only option is a preemptive strike. But their defenses are so entrenched that Trump might be tempted to make it a nuclear preemptive strike. At that point, can we trust Russia and China to stay out of it?
We can't just contain North Korea instead. They've proliferated every weapon system they've ever developed for cash. What's to stop them from selling a few to Islamic terrorists, who as non-state actors with no territory are immune to the MAD doctrine? This is an apocalyptic culture willing to fly airplanes into buildings. Don't think they wouldn't use atomic suicide bombers if they had them. Civilization will have absolutely no defense against this until Musk's self-sustaining Mars colony. That such a regime has nukes at all is already intolerable.
And the worst part is, they don't even need missiles for second strike capability. What's to stop them from loading one into a cargo container, sailing the cargo ship into New York under a foreign flag of convenience and setting it off before they even unload it? Or load one into a crate labeled "farm equipment" on the next cargo plane bound for D.C.? They could plant one in every major city, and then set them off by remote control in the event of a U.S. invasion.
Q. How hard is it to smuggle a nuke into the country?
A. Easy, you hide it in the next bale of marijuana.
Why do we think they haven't already smuggled some in? Well, it would be an extreme risk. They might get caught. And then they'd really be in trouble. Any other nuclear power wouldn't risk it. But North Korea has lasted this long by being willing to take extreme risks. Why else? It might not be a credible deterrent until after they set one off on foreign soil to prove they can. But that also risks a war. But then so did shelling a South Korean fishing village. A bioweapon would be even easier to smuggle in. But it's also not a deterrent until they prove it works.
How does this not threaten global stability?
As much as the media likes to call North Korea crazy, they're not suicidal. But given their self-inflicted weak position, they're more willing to take extreme risks to survive.
To make a good analysis of what North Korea is likely to do it's helpful to think about it being made of a leadership of humans instead of being an abstract country that makes decisions.
North Korea is very much driven by different North Korean actors having to signal to each other who stronlgy patriotic they are.
At that point, can we trust Russia and China to stay out of it?
W...
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