North Korea appears to be on the brink of conducting it’s sixth test of a nuclear bomb. The “Day of the Sun” holiday, which comes up on Saturday, is a point where North Korea has several times conducted tests or demonstrations designed to show their military prowess. The possibility that, this sixth test will happen sometime near that date are high.
And so are international tensions.
There’s Donald Trump ...
The U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test, multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.
And there’s Kim Jong Un ...
“If the U.S. comes up with a dangerous military option, then the first card is in our hands. We’ll deal with it with our pre-emptive strike.”
Sabre-rattling, and even small-scale military action by North Korea isn’t unusual. The idea that they are under constant assault by “the West” is the whole basis of their government. It’s their national identity. However, there’s no doubt that the United States military could overwhelm North Korea in short order, rolling their archaic air force, sinking their navy, destroying the massive force of infantry and artillery just across the DMZ. While occupying and “reforming” North Korea might be a project of infinite duration, taking down the threat represented by it’s military could be the work of days.
The only problem would be the millions of people killed. Not all of them in North Korea.
North Korea has been conducting a series of more ambitious missile tests, but there’s little reason to think that they’re about to land a nuclear weapon on a US city. There are problems with reducing the size of their weapons, improving the accuracy of the missiles, and the not inconsiderable factor that a single incoming missile stands about as much chance of striking a US target as … something with very little chance.
But that doesn’t mean that North Korea might not find a way to deliver one or more of it’s nuclear weapons somewhere in the world by missile, plane, in the belly of a ship, or through some other means. It also doesn’t mean that the banks, and banks, and banks of artillery aimed at South Korea can be silenced so quickly that they don’t get off enough rounds to level blocks of Seoul suburbs.
And then there’s the people in North Korea who would be under the bombs of any attack. Sure, the majority of them may be military, but it’s not as if the North Korean military is an all volunteer force. North Korea has universal conscription for men, and a high level of conscription for women. It’s not as if the people looking up at any incoming MOABs are there because they go to bed with a picture of Kim under their pillows. They are there because they have zero choice in the matter. North Korea is a place where you could not hit a single civilian, and still kill millions of people who are perfectly innocent in any conflict.
There are good reasons to worry about Trump. He’s bragging about taking the lid off the military.
"What I do is, I authorize my military,” he said. “We have the greatest military in the world, and they’ve done a job as usual. So we have given them total authorization, and that’s what they’re doing. And, frankly, that’s why they’ve been so successful lately."
And while tough-talk is the only kind of talk that ever comes from North Korea, these sabers are rattling so loudly the noise is getting scary.
On Wednesday, North Korea said it would "hit the U.S. first" with a nuclear weapon should there be any signs of U.S. strikes.
On Thursday, North Korea warned of a "merciless retaliatory strike" should the U.S. take any action.
Threats of retaliatory actions are actually quite comforting. A nation that’s attacked is naturally going to make a response.
But two nations leaning in over discussion of mutual preemptive action seems like a contest for the itchiest trigger finger.