It's a challenging issue, all right. The important part that I don't see many people discuss is the nature of international relations, most of which is based on

It's a challenging issue, all right. The important part that I don't see many people discuss is the nature of international relations, most of which is based on how other national leaders and decision-makers will perceive your actions. Consider: North Korea is run by madmen who have at least some primitive nuclear capability. They regularly make wild accusations and threats against the US. Say they do manage to mount a nuclear device on a long-range rocket. What's to hold them back against launching it at a major US city? Whenever people discuss North Korean (or Iranian or...) nuclear capability, the usual line is that we don't need to worry about it that much, since it would obviously be crazy for them to use them against the US, or any other nuclear power. What is it that makes it crazy, when they've already done so many terrible things to their own people? It's crazy because, according to MAD, any such attack, or even a specific threat to make such an attack, would result in a full-scale launch against their country. Millions of casualties, the total destruction of their culture and way of life. Everyone in the world, most especially leaders in North Korea, and China, fully believes that the US will carry out this threat if attacked with nuclear weapons. Now, let's say Iran manages to detonate a primitive nuclear device in a coastal US city. The textbook MAD reply is a total destruction of every Iranian city. You can make the case that this is crazy on it's face - there is no imminent threat to stop, and those millions of people who would die didn't do anything to deserve it. Say that what Hering and the article author seem to want happens - that no weapons are launched, and a more measured, conventional reply is used. What do you think the North Korean leaders will think then? Or China and Russia? That's the more important question to ask. After that, might North Korea think that they can use a nuclear attack to try and extract some sort of diplomatic concession from us? They're a harder nut to crack with conventional weapons, and they have more firm backing from China. If they get the idea that our MAD policy is toothless, they might try something that could lead to a much greater war, even possibly a much bigger nuclear war. We've been living in a world for a long time now where the Kim Jong-uns of the world have very good reason to be terrified of using nuclear weapons against the US. Are you willing to see what happens if that is no longer true? There are terrible people in this world who are prepared to do terrible things to everything we hold dear. To keep the world safe and stable, those people must believe that we will do even more terrible things to them if the situation calls for it. Keeping that belief in place may sometimes require us to actually do some terrible things ourselves,