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North Korea is absolutely at, or very near, a strategic position wherein attacking better-armed foes is a winning strategy. Consider: 1. NK's economy is in sh

North Korea is absolutely at, or very near, a strategic position wherein attacking better-armed foes is a winning strategy. Consider: 1. NK's economy is in shambles. The regime has almost nothing to lose. 2. NK's regime does not care about human life (as evidenced by abuses against the people of NK). They would have no qualms about killing many many foreign civilians. 3. NK's populace/military would either not know about such an attack, would be convinced by state media that it was a justified attack on a military target, or would not be in a position to do anything about it. 4. Every country which NK has threatened (US, Japan, SK) is in all ways the opposite of the above: economically robust; government/military respecting of human life (of course there is room for debate there); populace respecting of human life and wary of war. That means that any attack from NK against one of the above countries plays out as follows: 1. NK obliterates a population center. It has now demonstrated a capable threat. 2. NK makes demands (food, money, land, autonomy, whatever). 3. Victim country (say Japan) can either retaliate with precision strikes, retaliate in kind, retaliate with massive force, do nothing, or give in to demands. 3.a. Retaliating with precision strikes takes too long. NK launches another devastating attack. It is clearly not an option for the victim to lose another population center. 3.b. Retaliating in kind would be unacceptable to the government and populace of the victim country and the world at large. And if it were, it would not be worth the chance of a second attack from NK. 3.c. Retaliating with massive force (the "Trump" option) is absolutely not an option. Like the previous response, it would be completely unacceptable to the rest of the world, but most importantly, you would now be in a war with China who has to contend with a flood of refugees from a destroyed country. 3.d. Do nothing. Another city gets destroyed. NK is desperate, and there are lots of cities it can blow up until it gets its way. 3.e. Give in to demands. This is the only outcome that is all-around tenable. NK is happy, and further massive loss of human life is prevented. NK is in an even better position if they can win their demands by merely demonstrating capability of destroying – or accidentally destroying – a city (e.g. by launching missiles over Japan), because they can repeat that trick more frequently than by actually destroying a city.

maxerickson 9y ago
I've wondered if the best strategy might be to flood them with material goods. Just an absolute torrent of everything they could want. Or maybe do insane things like put really nice billion dollar ships offshore and blow them up once a month. Somehow demonstrate the asymmetry to a larger portion of the population.
- matt4077 9y ago
  I think this is quite an interesting idea, although there are probably endless reasons why it couldn't work in practice. It reminds me of the advice to start arguing with others in your group if you're mugged, or to start singing, or anything similarly absurd.
- hintss 9y ago
  and then they tell their population that you're giving them the material goods because they defeated you in a war, and that they blew up that ship.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Not one ship, dozens of them, month after month after month. But that was mostly a silly suggestion, the idea is to try to think of a way to make the idea that things are better elsewhere more available to the broader population. No idea if it is possible, but I think trying to do that might be more humane than ever harsher economic sanctions.
matt4077 9y ago
I believe there are two mistakes in your thinking: 1. Is wrong because the decisions aren't made by the average North Korean, but by the leadership, which is living quite a comfortable life. At least more comfortable than death, or a war crimes tribunal. 3. The international community would absolutely tolerate proportional retaliation. For a nuclear attack (the only option North Korea would have against anything but Seoul), it is widely assumed that the US would retaliate with nuclear weapons. Even if some US president were to stop short of nuclear retaliation, there is no possibility of NK leadership surviving an attack. The game theory mechanics aren't really that complicated. It's mostly the same as the cold war's Mutually Assured Destruction. Except the cold war scenarios always had the wrinkle of "if our enemy has already destroyed our country, and killed almost everybody–what is the purpose of retaliating against their population (which, by and large, would be just as innocent as ours)". NK doesn't have the ability to create destruction on such a level. Therefore, there would still be a United States (and many other countries) to protect. And such protection would be achieved by denying NK the ability to strike again, and by setting a precedent to discourage such actions by others.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I'd like to add that most (all?) of those conditions have been met for years. My presumption is Mr. Kim has run out of money for Scotch. Someone will send him some aid. He will settle down.
  - colanderman 9y ago
    Yep. It hasn't gotten to the point that they've had to resort to actually destroying a city yet, or even demonstrating that they can. Just hinting that they might be able to has thus far been enough to keep the aid flowing.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      If it wasn't against the law, I'd send him a few cases of Scotch. By which I mean, I'd chip in to calm him down. I'll buy him a gently used Toyota, tomorrow, if it means he will settle down. I'm not even kidding. I'd even take him at his word. Hell, set up a PayPal account, and make it legal, and I'll send him money every month that he doesn't harass his neighbors. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Hmm... We should crowdsource Un's Scotch fund. I'm only partially kidding.
mlinsey 9y ago
I think that after the loss of a major population center, public sentiment from the rest of the world would be much more accepting of massive retaliation, especially if such retaliation was non-nuclear but still used very large scale conventional arms to effectively destroy NK.
nradov 9y ago
You don't understand how it works. Every time the US homeland has been attacked the government has responded with overwhelming violence. The same principle applies regardless of who happens to be president at the time. Regardless of the consequences we can't appear weak.
- MBCook 9y ago
  But this time not only is the country already on the tip of its own disasters, it's RIGHT next door to a bunch of our allies. It's not in "the middle of nowhere" like Afghanistan. Either way if North Korea or to do something nuclear we've never answered the question of how we respond to that other than mutually assured distraction. However I don't think we can do that without causing serious problems to South Korea, China, and probably Japan. That policy was really designed for Russia, not something like NK. We thought messing with Afghanistan and Iraq repaired, how in the world do you try and unwind something like North Korea?
  - nradov 9y ago
    None of those other factors have any weight on the decision making process. If North Korea attacks the US homeland or military with a nuke then the US will hit back with multiple nuclear counterattacks and to hell with the consequences. Appearing weak in the face of blatant aggression would mean the end of the US as a superpower so the leadership will never allow that to happen even if it seems like the rational choice.
    - MBCook 9y ago
      Homeland yes. I'm assuming they would attack somewhere in East Asia, almost certainly Japan or South Korea.
knorker 9y ago
I don't consider 3.e tenable at all. Anyone playing along with that know that they will go down in history as making a worse decision than Chamberlain. Not only will giving in to demands allow NK to do it again, if they've actually done it once we have to assume they will have done it again or that some other state will because you can get away with it. In other words: Choosing 3.e means saying "we will allow this to happen again at least once, if not from NK then someone else". Of all the impossible choices with NK, this is the impossiblest. It will cost more lives than the other options. Is 3.c completely unacceptable to the world? I'm not so sure. "You would now be in a war with China"? No you wouldn't. China would also react to such a thing, and having a "buffer state" is not the same thing as having a sort of ally that is in a hot war of choice with super powers. Or to put in other words: I Turkey blew up St Petersburg in order to extort Russia, do you think the US would be unconditional allies to Turkey? After many decades of MAD theory it's on increasingly shaky grounds because we also know that a Russia-US war has environmental impact that just may kill all of humanity even if precision aimed at the enemy. But this ain't MAD. Destroying a population centre is killing the hostage and asking for another one. On the "nothing to lose": Of course they do. The leaders are omnipotent beings in their own absolute dictatorship. The proles are not in good shape, but they don't get to decide whom to attack. The deciders have literally everything to lose. In the book "The Threatening Storm" the former CIA analyst essentially says "Saddam is under the impression that if you have nukes then you can do whatever you want. That ain't how it works, son. Saddam has no understanding of the last 50 years of deterrence theory". Now, you don't have to agree with me or Pollack, but I think it's fair to say that his interpretation of the theory of deterrence is more likely to be predictive of US kinetic foreign policy actions. Also the US is used to counting "megadeaths", but since this again isn't MAD, it's not American megadeaths. I don't know which other option would be best, but I wouldn't visit Soul any time soon. Edit: This reminds me of the Moscow theatre hostage situation, where they demanded Russian military leave Chechnya. They could have as well asked for the Moon to be plucked from the heavens. If Russia had already been on their way out from their own choice, they almost would have had to go back in just as a precedence-setter. If you let your national security and military options be dictated to you, then you are not a superpower.
Veratyr 9y ago
> Retaliating with precision strikes takes too long. The US has airbases in the area. Precision strikes won't take nearly as long as you think. > Retaliating with massive force (the "Trump" option) is absolutely not an option. Like the previous response, it would be completely unacceptable to the rest of the world I don't think this is true. See the US in the middle east. > you would now be in a war with China who has to contend with a flood of refugees from a destroyed country. China has stated that if NK launches the first strike, it will stay neutral, so no war with China. South Korea has planned for reunification for a very long time and has an enormous fund to help deal with it so though the flood of refugees is a serious problem, it's not unresolvable.

maxerickson 9y ago

I've wondered if the best strategy might be to flood them with material goods. Just an absolute torrent of everything they could want. Or maybe do insane things like put really nice billion dollar ships offshore and blow them up once a month. Somehow demonstrate the asymmetry to a larger portion of the population.

matt4077 9y ago
I think this is quite an interesting idea, although there are probably endless reasons why it couldn't work in practice. It reminds me of the advice to start arguing with others in your group if you're mugged, or to start singing, or anything similarly absurd.
hintss 9y ago
and then they tell their population that you're giving them the material goods because they defeated you in a war, and that they blew up that ship.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Not one ship, dozens of them, month after month after month. But that was mostly a silly suggestion, the idea is to try to think of a way to make the idea that things are better elsewhere more available to the broader population. No idea if it is possible, but I think trying to do that might be more humane than ever harsher economic sanctions.

matt4077 9y ago

I believe there are two mistakes in your thinking: 1. Is wrong because the decisions aren't made by the average North Korean, but by the leadership, which is living quite a comfortable life. At least more comfortable than death, or a war crimes tribunal. 3. The international community would absolutely tolerate proportional retaliation. For a nuclear attack (the only option North Korea would have against anything but Seoul), it is widely assumed that the US would retaliate with nuclear weapons. Even if some US president were to stop short of nuclear retaliation, there is no possibility of NK leadership surviving an attack. The game theory mechanics aren't really that complicated. It's mostly the same as the cold war's Mutually Assured Destruction. Except the cold war scenarios always had the wrinkle of "if our enemy has already destroyed our country, and killed almost everybody–what is the purpose of retaliating against their population (which, by and large, would be just as innocent as ours)". NK doesn't have the ability to create destruction on such a level. Therefore, there would still be a United States (and many other countries) to protect. And such protection would be achieved by denying NK the ability to strike again, and by setting a precedent to discourage such actions by others.

KGIII 9y ago
I'd like to add that most (all?) of those conditions have been met for years. My presumption is Mr. Kim has run out of money for Scotch. Someone will send him some aid. He will settle down.
- colanderman 9y ago
  Yep. It hasn't gotten to the point that they've had to resort to actually destroying a city yet, or even demonstrating that they can. Just hinting that they might be able to has thus far been enough to keep the aid flowing.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    If it wasn't against the law, I'd send him a few cases of Scotch. By which I mean, I'd chip in to calm him down. I'll buy him a gently used Toyota, tomorrow, if it means he will settle down. I'm not even kidding. I'd even take him at his word. Hell, set up a PayPal account, and make it legal, and I'll send him money every month that he doesn't harass his neighbors. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Hmm... We should crowdsource Un's Scotch fund. I'm only partially kidding.

mlinsey 9y ago

I think that after the loss of a major population center, public sentiment from the rest of the world would be much more accepting of massive retaliation, especially if such retaliation was non-nuclear but still used very large scale conventional arms to effectively destroy NK.

nradov 9y ago

You don't understand how it works. Every time the US homeland has been attacked the government has responded with overwhelming violence. The same principle applies regardless of who happens to be president at the time. Regardless of the consequences we can't appear weak.

MBCook 9y ago
But this time not only is the country already on the tip of its own disasters, it's RIGHT next door to a bunch of our allies. It's not in "the middle of nowhere" like Afghanistan. Either way if North Korea or to do something nuclear we've never answered the question of how we respond to that other than mutually assured distraction. However I don't think we can do that without causing serious problems to South Korea, China, and probably Japan. That policy was really designed for Russia, not something like NK. We thought messing with Afghanistan and Iraq repaired, how in the world do you try and unwind something like North Korea?
- nradov 9y ago
  None of those other factors have any weight on the decision making process. If North Korea attacks the US homeland or military with a nuke then the US will hit back with multiple nuclear counterattacks and to hell with the consequences. Appearing weak in the face of blatant aggression would mean the end of the US as a superpower so the leadership will never allow that to happen even if it seems like the rational choice.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Homeland yes. I'm assuming they would attack somewhere in East Asia, almost certainly Japan or South Korea.

knorker 9y ago

I don't consider 3.e tenable at all. Anyone playing along with that know that they will go down in history as making a worse decision than Chamberlain. Not only will giving in to demands allow NK to do it again, if they've actually done it once we have to assume they will have done it again or that some other state will because you can get away with it. In other words: Choosing 3.e means saying "we will allow this to happen again at least once, if not from NK then someone else". Of all the impossible choices with NK, this is the impossiblest. It will cost more lives than the other options. Is 3.c completely unacceptable to the world? I'm not so sure. "You would now be in a war with China"? No you wouldn't. China would also react to such a thing, and having a "buffer state" is not the same thing as having a sort of ally that is in a hot war of choice with super powers. Or to put in other words: I Turkey blew up St Petersburg in order to extort Russia, do you think the US would be unconditional allies to Turkey? After many decades of MAD theory it's on increasingly shaky grounds because we also know that a Russia-US war has environmental impact that just may kill all of humanity even if precision aimed at the enemy. But this ain't MAD. Destroying a population centre is killing the hostage and asking for another one. On the "nothing to lose": Of course they do. The leaders are omnipotent beings in their own absolute dictatorship. The proles are not in good shape, but they don't get to decide whom to attack. The deciders have literally everything to lose. In the book "The Threatening Storm" the former CIA analyst essentially says "Saddam is under the impression that if you have nukes then you can do whatever you want. That ain't how it works, son. Saddam has no understanding of the last 50 years of deterrence theory". Now, you don't have to agree with me or Pollack, but I think it's fair to say that his interpretation of the theory of deterrence is more likely to be predictive of US kinetic foreign policy actions. Also the US is used to counting "megadeaths", but since this again isn't MAD, it's not American megadeaths. I don't know which other option would be best, but I wouldn't visit Soul any time soon. Edit: This reminds me of the Moscow theatre hostage situation, where they demanded Russian military leave Chechnya. They could have as well asked for the Moon to be plucked from the heavens. If Russia had already been on their way out from their own choice, they almost would have had to go back in just as a precedence-setter. If you let your national security and military options be dictated to you, then you are not a superpower.

Veratyr 9y ago

> Retaliating with precision strikes takes too long. The US has airbases in the area. Precision strikes won't take nearly as long as you think. > Retaliating with massive force (the "Trump" option) is absolutely not an option. Like the previous response, it would be completely unacceptable to the rest of the world I don't think this is true. See the US in the middle east. > you would now be in a war with China who has to contend with a flood of refugees from a destroyed country. China has stated that if NK launches the first strike, it will stay neutral, so no war with China. South Korea has planned for reunification for a very long time and has an enormous fund to help deal with it so though the flood of refugees is a serious problem, it's not unresolvable.