Continuing the discussion from Why should I care if country X gets a nuclear weapon?:
The below idea about North Korea is repeated again and again in threads relating to Iran and other topics, often enough that I figured it deserves its own thread:
That’s got absolutely nothing to do with nuclear weapons. No US president has gone to war with North Korea not because of nuclear weapons but because of the fact that war between the US and North Korea is war between the US and China.
Immense Chinese intervention is what kept North Korea from losing in the first place, and that was very shortly after World War II, when China had barely recovered from decades of civil war and brutal Japanese occupation, when it had basically no real industry, and when it relied on throwing masses of barely armed peasants into the meat grinder. In the modern world, China has an enormous and powerful industry and military.
That is a far better deterrent than a handful of tiny nukes. Not least of which because China’s protection comes with its own nuclear umbrella.
If the nukes are a deterrent to anyone, it is to China. Before North Korea had nukes, the Chinese control over their client state was much more solid. In fact, this is why China opposed North Korea developing nukes; but they weren’t willing to risk pushing hard enough to threaten the regime, because at the end of the day having a friendly puppet buffer with South Korea (which they view as an agent of America) was more valuable to them then ensuring that North Korea gets no nukes.
That’s simply not true. Being allied with China is one of the reasons the US never attacked North Korea (as is the fact that the years 2001-2006 the US had some other things on their collective mind). But absolutely another reason is post 2006 they had nuclear weapons. You can argue about which was more important but you cannot say North Korea having nukes had no influence on the fact they were never attacked by the US.
Another big factor is that Chinese support could stop anytime China gets a better offer and it’s something North Korea has to bargain for. But the North Koreans have control of their nuclear weapons.
That’s ridiculous. Chinese support is nukes, and many more of them (and with actual realistic means of delivery) than North Korea itself has to offer.
If I’m surrounded by three six foot five armed bodyguards, and I’m also carrying a pair of brass knuckles, it would be pretty silly to argue that the brass knuckles are deterring people from attacking me. Maybe if the body guards weren’t there, someone would notice my brass knuckles.
Right, that’s basically what I was getting at here:
North Korean nukes are a way of telling China, “you can’t push us around too far because we don’t rely on you at an existential level”. But they aren’t keeping the US from invading North Korea because the US would never even consider invading North Korea as long as it means war with China. If China withdrew its protection from North Korea, then North Korean nukes would be a factor in detering American attack, and maybe a sufficient one or maybe not. But as long as the Chinese protection remains, North Korean nukes don’t even come into play in the decision making.
There is a massive difference between having an ally how has nukes and having nukes yourself. The US has attacked plenty of Soviet and Chinese allied countries over the years and neither the Soviets or Chinese nuked them.
China has certainly been one factor. Another factor (historically speaking) has been that the North Koreans themselves were capable of causing immense damage to South Korea. They maintained one of the largest standing armies in the world, their leadership was highly ideologically motivated to go to war again, and Seoul is close to the DMZ.
Babale, I’m not hijacking, but I’ve seen you argue this point in other threads, and I’m just curious what your motive or interest or angle/whatever is. You seem to believe quite strongly with fervor that a powerful ally like China is more useful than nukes as a deterrent. Whether that’s true or not - setting that aside - what prompts you to come at it with this angle? Does it have something to do with Iran by analogy, or what are you trying to get at? By arguing that North Korea’s nukes don’t do it that much deterrence good, are you trying to argue indirectly that Iran having a nuclear arsenal won’t serve as a deterrent? Or that maybe Israel’s own arsenal isn’t all that deterring either? I’m just a bit confused.
Nukes aren’t brass knuckles. Nukes are a hand grenade.
You’d be crazy to pull the pin and just let it blow while holding it, but if I start something, and you literally believe you’re going to die anyway, that pin is coming out and we’re both dead.
That is part of the reason nobody has tried a regime change in NK, but we’re all too ready to try it elsewhere.
A better analogy would be having body guards wearing suicide vests versus having your own suicide vest. Those are only equivalent if your body guards are as fanatical and willing to kill themselves and everyone around them in order to avenge an attack on your person as you are.
Except that China is fully capable of ruining any attempt at regime change without resorting to nuclear weapons, because they are near peer in strength and right there.
We know this because they successfully thwarted the American attempt at toppling the Communists in 1950, after Americans pushed the North Koreans all the way to the Chinese border. And at the time they weren’t even close to a near peer; the situation is exponentially worse now.
In 2026 they are probably are, and may be willing to do so (even though that would mean getting into a shooting war with the US)
In 2006 they were probably neither willing or able to help North Korea (to the point of getting into a war with the World super power) if the US attacked them
The Chinese border being the important point here, they didn’t intervene out of concern for their communist brethren, they intervened because US troops were a few miles from Chinese territory, and fought the US to a stalemate at the cost of up to a million Chinese casualties. I don’t think that’s a reason China would be very keen to get into another shooting war with the US
The US seriously considered a war with North Korea in 1994 when it became evident that NK was going to get nuclear weapons.
Washington, D.C., December 8, 2017 – The Clinton administration made plans for war against North Korea during the 1994 nuclear crisis. While U.S. officials believed they could “undoubtedly win,” however, they also understood “war involves many casualties,” according to documents posted today by the George Washington University-based National Security Archive.
President Bill Clinton’s negotiators took a tough stance in meetings with North Korean leaders, including warning of “serious, negative consequences” if Pyongyang continued to pursue its “unacceptable” missile program. At the same time, the administration decided flexibility was critical given the unpredictability of events, including the prospect that a “starving North Korea” might create a “dangerously chaotic situation.”
…
William Perry, Clinton’s special envoy for North Korea and former secretary of defense told South Korean President Kim Dae Jung that during the 1994 nuclear crisis the U.S had planned for war. “Of course, with the combined forces of the ROK and U.S., we can undoubtedly win the war,” Perry added. “But war involves many casualties in the process.” [Document 7]
The reason nobody has gone to war with North Korea is because they have the ability to do a lot of damage to South Korea and Japan. Their artillery are pointed at Seoul, and they have chemical and biological weapons. They also have a huge special forces invasion force, and they had plans to attack Japan.
So nobody attacked them because the costs are too high from what they’d do to South Korea and Japan.
however now North Korea is exporting nuclear technology to the world. They’ve helped Syria, Iran, Myanmar, Libya and probably other countries advance their nuclear weapons programs.
MAD only works when both parties understand they lose more than they gain.
I am curious how you could possibly be so certain about this, since in 2006 they were exponentially better prepared and more capable than they were in 1950 when they actually did successfully intervene when the world superpower was about to defeat the North Koreans.
Not relative to the US. The technological gap between the US and China in 2006 was much greater in 2006 than 1950, particularly in terms of air warfare (which is all that matters, there is no world in which a POTUS orders 100s of thousands of US troops across the DMZ).
And again they did not intervene to help North Korea in 1959 they intervened to stop a US invasion of China, and it cost them a million casualties.
This is another large factor, much larger than nukes. But if it wasn’t for China, this is a solvable problem. You could get around that problem through extreme effort, say smuggle everyone out of Seoul and accept the loss of infrastructure; but there’s no way around the fact that China will join any war against North Korea.