Why is there fear of North Korea’s nuclear power?
Were North Korea to launch a Nuclear attack on Los Angeles or, I assume, Seoul, the United States would respond with an all out nuclear attack and there would be no North Korea.
This being the case, why is there the fear of North Korean nuclear power?
(While it is, I suppose possible in principle that the NK leader is so crazy as to be willing to make this trade, this would seem extraordinarily unlikely.)
“Extraordinarily unlikely” is not unlikely enough when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Sure, but the damage would be already done. Wiping North Korea off the map is little consolation for the loss of a million Americans and damage done to the U.S. economy and psyche that would dwarf 9/11. It’s not like revenge somehow heals the damage.
Prevention is key.
First, the underlying basis of U.S. nuclear policy is a strong emphasis on deterrence (making one’s opponent not take an aggressive action because they fear the consequences). Most Americans would not be satisfied with a war in which Los Angeles is destroyed, but so too is Pyongyang. That would seem like a poor trade, so U.S. policy has been to up the threats against our adversaries (such as by rejecting a “no first use” policy) with the goal of making us look so aggressive that our opponent cannot see how they could “win” a nuclear war.
So, with that in mind, there is some debate as to whether North Korea is deterred from using nuclear weapons in the same way that Russia or China may be deterred by our nuclear policies. Just as the average American would probably think that trading Los Angeles for Pyongyang is a bad deal on our end, do North Korean leaders think that it is a good deal on their end?
Or, do they think that if they get in a conventional war with South Korea/the U.S., that they are going to lose horribly anyway, so why not blow up Los Angeles regardless of the consequences?
The bottom line is that there is some debate as to what is needed to deter North Korea from using nuclear weapons. And the fact that we don’t know precisely what it does take to deter them makes many people very nervous.
Yeah, the North Korean leadership is inherently unstable and unpredictable. Their primary goal is to maintain power in an increasingly unbalanced national polity.
So they could, at some point, do something that appears irrational from the outside if they feel their hold on power is sufficiently threatened. And losing Los Angeles is not made up for by the destruction of NK’s ability to also destroy San Diego or Las Vegas or something.
North Korea is also big on exporting it’s military tech to other countries. They don’t care who buys their missiles as long as it’s in a hard currency.
If the DPRK gets it’s nukes business running well enough, they will definitely be selling bombs and missiles to some really skeevy folk.
There are also basic ways to deliver a bomb to the US via ships. A nuke going off in a major US harbor is nothing to snort at.
North Korea is also still technically at war with South Korea. The US would rather not have the headache of figuring out what to do if a nuclear NK marches on Seoul. It’s bad enough that they can flatten Seoul with conventional weapons.
Well, OK, Little Kim nukes LA and the US turns North Korea into glass…
LA is still a glow-in-the-dark crater. And the rest of the US is downwind of LA. Granted, the US won’t be nearly as bad off as North Korea, but it’s still gonna suck for California and to a lesser extent the rest of the country.
Sure, it’s unlikely but that’s not the same as impossible.
There’s also the issue that “nuking LA” isn’t the only possible use of nuclear weapons. We’ve been so conditioned by decades of the Cold War that people have forgotten this.
One aspect of US power projection is the ability to move an aircraft carrier fleet to basically anywhere in the world, which gives the US the capacity to establish air superiority almost anywhere. Now, imagine a new Korean war starting, and the US has to consider the effects of a NK armed with intermediate range missiles carrying nuclear warheads. How long do you think a carrier fleet that’s within range of NK would last?
Currently, the probability of North Korea being able to successfully destroy Los Angeles is fairly low. The probability of them being able to destroy Tokyo is somewhat higher. The probability of them being able to destroy Seoul is very high.
Yes, this would entail the reduction to radioactive kimchee of Pyongyang, all the other cities in NK, all the sites from which a missile could be launched, all the sites from which a missile might be launched, all the sites where somebody lives who can spell “missile”, and several others just for good measure. But it wouldn’t help.
Kim is either [ul][li]crazy, []wants the rest of the world to think he is crazy, or []some exciting combination of the above.[/ul]I’d prefer not to find out which it is. [/li]
Regards,
Shodan
I’d be rather surprised if North Korea could hit a carrier strike group maneuvering at sea in wartime with a nuclear missile.
The OP is assuming that NK’s leadership cares what happens to its population.
And ten years ago, we’d all have been surprised at a discussion of NK actually building working nuclear weapons.
You might be right, but at this point, I’m giving NK the benefit of the doubt that they’ve earned.
Yes, we assume Putin is sane and Kim is crazy. That’s the way the money lies, anyway.
I don’t think the NK leadership is under any illusions that they will survive starting a nuclear war. They wouldn’t.
You are entirely correct that they care very little for their population. But they care very much about holding onto power. That’s the point of Kim acting crazy - to plant doubt in the minds of his enemies that he is crazy enough to be willing to die, along with his whole country, rather than give up power.
As well as keeping power by defying the West and keeping the populace in a war mentality.
Regards,
Shodan
Two big problems with a bad actor getting nukes:
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Nuclear blackmail. Kim doesn’t have to fire off a nuke. He just has to threaten to do it unless conditions are met. The danger is that if you do it you just encourage him to make an even bigger demand next time, or if you refuse you run the risk of nuclear war. Nuclear brinksmanship with a sane large power like the Soviet Union is one thing, but nuclear brinksmanship with an insane man who thinks he’s a living God and has total control of his government is quite another. In a way, an unstable maniac’s only advantage is that you can’t count on him to behave rationally, so you don’t have much in the way of leverage in hard diplomacy.
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Proliferation. The North Koreans have been selling nuclear and missile technology to bad people all over the world, including Iran, Pakistan, and no doubt others. North Korea might not launch a missile at the U.S., but they might sell a bomb to Iran, which might then try to smuggle or fly it into Israel or use it against U.S. forces or a U.S. city. They might sell high level waste to a terrorist group for use in radiological bombs. Imagine if suicide bombers had a few ounces of plutonium dust mixed into their bombs. Every suicide attack would turn into a massive radiological clean up.
Assume Kin Jung Un’s kid(s) are safely out of the country and he has 3 months to live. What’s to stop him from nuking Seoul?
There wouldn’t be any North Korea for his kids to run. The smart play for him (for various values of “smart”) is to convince the world that he doesn’t care about that. Because then he can blackmail the world into doing things that will keep him in power - give him aid, treat him as if he were not a nutcase, etc.
Regards,
Shodan
[Moderating]
And the factual question here is…?
Moving to GD.
The generals in his CoC who would execute the order. If the North Koreans have road-mobile ICBMs capable of carrying a multistage device—something which hasn’t been proven to exist as a whole, even though the individual parts probably exist—Kim likely doesn’t have a direct communication link with the crew in the MZKT-knockoff TEL that’ll fuel and launch the damned thing. He has people who can do that for him. Those people are subject to his whim, but they and especially their bosses, might not be as eager for Götterdämmerung as Kim.
The order would probably go over a lot easier if the US and SK were actively in full blown hostilities at the time. Which is a risk of going to overt military action against the North Koreans.
Surprised this sort of question has stayed in GQ this long.
I swear I didn’t see Chronos’s moving the thread beforehand