Replies

"But look at the heat Bush is getting over Iraq which was a no-brainer. Can you imagine the flack for starting a nuke war over there with this fruitcake?"

Assuming they had nuclear weapons before we went into Iraq, they lacked the means to deliver them. The Tae-po Dong II was not even flight tested by itself, let alone with a nuclear warhead, when we went into Iraq. It would not have been a nuclear war, but a conventional war; albeit a massive one. The difference between that war and the Iraq war is that once the North Korean military (or rather, the North Korean government) is beaten, the citizenry would actually embrace us and help root out any remaining loyalists.

That said, it would not have been an easy war. North Korea has been planning for an American invasion for the past 50 years. The DMZ is a death trap. We would have needed a massive commitment of forces to handle the situation. However, it would have prevented the current nuclear crisis that faces us now. The longer we wait to deal with North Korea, the better the chances that we'll be unable to do so without risking the nuclear destruction of several American cities.

Diplomacy doesn't work with these psychos. The notion that we're going to talk them down is absurd. Bill Clinton tried doing that in 1994, when the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea first surfaced. The Agreed Framework was a good agreement, but they didn't respect it and we didn't enforce it. Now we're back to talking again (though we're not talking right now), while North Korea builds more bombs and tests more powerful delivery systems. We're going to end up in a situation where we're talking to nutcases who are threatening Washington, DC with nuclear destruction. MAD doesn't work when your enemy doesn't give a damn. Flak? How much flak is it worth enduring to keep that situation from coming to be?

"To deal with it properly now means anniliation of Seoul."

Unfortunately for South Korea, Seoul is probably going to be destroyed one way or another at this point. I doubt that's something that can really be helped. We may, however, be able to save Tokyo if we can figure out a way to get manpower and equipment there quickly and quietly.

"This is politically unacceptable to any president."

It should be more acceptable to any President than the nuclear destruction of several major American cities.

"I think the only answer is small swat teams taking out pieces of NK slowly over time."

Everything I've seen on the subject says that even getting HUMINT in North Korea is extremely difficult because they're so incredibly paranoid. For us to wage a successful guerrilla war would seem to be nearly impossible in my opinion, simply for the fact that I don't see how we get enough boots and equipment on the ground to make it happen. It's not an open society like our's. The closest example of their society would be the one depicted in Orwell's 1984. Successfully infiltrating and carrying out the types and volume of missions necessary to destabilize Kim Jong-il's regime seems, to me, to be very risky business with little chance of success.