Containing North Korea.

AuthorKazianis, Harry J.

Aspecter is haunting Washington--the specter of nuclear war with North Korea. The idea that the Trump administration should endorse a military solution--and a full-blown war if necessary--to degrade or destroy North Korea's nuclear-weapons program is acquiring a new prominence. Advocates of war argue that the time to hit North Korea is now. They say that time is running out, and that Pyongyang will soon perfect its ability to attack America. Their contention is that America can knock out North Korea's nuclear program with some "shock and awe"--style bolt from the blue. Finally, they say that a war "over there" would be better than the death of innocent Americans "over here."

Such thinking is redolent of the Iraq War. Just as the war in Iraq evaded the prediction that it would be a "cakewalk," so a conflict over North Korea would likely issue in a calamity. There is no widespread public support, as a recent Washington Post--ABC News poll indicates, for a preemptive American strike on North Korea: 67 percent of Americans say Washington should act only if North Korea attacks it or our allies first. Before Washington experiences a fresh spasm of war fever on the Potomac, it's imperative to examine just why a conflict with North Korea is inimical to America's national interest. For the notion that America can "totally destroy" North Korea, as President Trump put it, with impunity is not quite persuasive. The result could even be a wider conflict, one that draws in great powers such as Russia and China that would seek to defend what they perceive as their own national interests.

Today, we live an age where America's greatest strategic advantage--two big oceans that protect us from the great geopolitical struggles in Europe and Asia, both past and present--is no longer the strategic safety blanket it once was, thanks to modern missile technology. Put simply, while the American military is the most destructive force ever devised in human history, such a force cannot guarantee that Washington will eliminate every single North Korean nuclear weapon. Nor can we ensure that if Pyongyang retaliates, potentially with whatever nuclear weapons we miss, thar our missile defenses can keep us safe. Quite the contrary.

The truth is that a war with North Korea could be nothing like the First Gulf War, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, the Second Gulf War or Libya. Such a conflict could be an epic struggle in which millions of people, on the Korean Peninsula, in Japan and...

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