@oralloy,
oralloy wrote:
... he is proposing that we can successfully create a Mutually Assured Destruction understanding with North Korea that will deter them from using (or selling) nukes.
Regardless, there is no such thing as a conventional war between nuclear powers. If the US and North Korea go to war with each other, no one should have any illusions that it will be anything other than a full scale nuclear war.
Except that NK is not a "nuclear power," it's a rogue state with nukes, and the "assured destruction" consequence has been pretty obviously implied ever since it got its nukes. Do you (or more precisely, Morell) think NK just doesn't realize this but can be brought up to speed at a conference?
I suppose it's possible that the North Koreans have all along been worried that the US will one day, out of the blue, rain nukes down on them and this is the only reason they felt the need to obtain them, but that's crazier than anything else they've said and done.
A lot has happened since the Korean War including, but not limited to, their seizing the USS Pueblo (an incident that included the killing and torturing of US service personnel) and sinking a South Korean ship and the US didn't fire a shot, let alone invade. Clearly, nuking them was never on the table. If these sorts of highly provocative incidents didn't result in a serious military response of any kind (let alone a nuclear attack), it doesn't seem likely that the North Koreans have spent the last few decades worrying about a nuclear attack by the US.
So a MAD agreement (assuming any president was stupid enough to think it was worth spit) would assure NK what? That if they launch a full scale invasion of South Korea that we won't use nuclear weapons on them? What about if they were to lob one over at Japan?
By taking nukes off the table we would be inviting an invasion of South Korea. I don't imagine that Seoul would consider such an arrangement a good deal.
I understand that you are merely referencing what you heard from Morell, but it really doesn't make much sense. I wouldn't trust Fat Boy as far as I can throw him and whether or not he's full blown crazy, he's certainly paranoid and I doubt believe he would ever trust us.
It would be helpful to have the answer to an obvious question: Is it at all possible to take out NK's nuke without them having the ability to use even one? No one who actually knows is going to provide us with the answer though, but even if it was "Yes," it's likely to actually be "Yes, we probably can, but no guarantees," and even if was "Absolutely yes!" the NK's with conventional weapons could still kill a lot of South Koreans and US military personnel, so even if that option exists, it can't be used without the likelihood of some pretty terrible consequences.
Unfortunately, it seems that there is no good solution, only varying degrees of bad ones which is why so many presidents have chosen to essentially do nothing. None of them wanted to be responsible for even the least of the possible bad results. Understandable, but it was still kicking the can down the road to the worst of the bad results: a nuclear strike on the US homeland.
Obviously if such a strike occurs the US will utterly destroy NK and everyone in America will praise the president, or, at least, acknowledge he had no choice. Meanwhile there will millions of dead and dying, catastrophic economic repercussions and the possibility of war spreading throughout the world.
Again it's understandable why presidents have chosen to take a very non-aggressive position against a very aggressive adversary, but, again, with each passing year and each NK missile test we draw closer to the point when events move beyond any ability we have to do anything but react.
