"Internal" rebellions in nations tend to be sponsored and supported by other nations. A leaked diplomatic cable [1] from 2009 described Gaddafi as "an important

"Internal" rebellions in nations tend to be sponsored and supported by other nations. A leaked diplomatic cable [1] from 2009 described Gaddafi as "an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends." The "common enemy" Senator Lieberman was referring to are groups we were calling terrorists at the time. They're the same groups that we would decide to arm, support, and ultimately help overthrow Libya 2 years later. This is hardly a secret and a retaliatory strike from Libya would have been justified. And ultimately that's what nukes provide. North Korea is not deterring a US invasion by threatening to nuke our invading soldiers. They're deterring an invasion by implicitly threatening to nuke South Korea. If the US invaded North Korea and it ended up costing millons of lives and billions/trillions of damage in South Korea, the responsibility for that change would lay with the US as they threw the first punch. On the other hand, if North Korea engaged in any substantial preemptive attack themselves - then any loss of life could be argued as saving even more lives; similar to how we ended WW2 by nuking hundreds of thousands of otherwise innocent civilians. [1] - https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TRIPOLI677_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TRIPOLI677_a.html