# You're POTUS: Would you nuke North Korea? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 14, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445 "2015-12-14T20:15:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/41 "2015-12-15T16:06:56Z")
This right here is why foreigners get occasionally concerned over America’s over-generous gun laws. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/42 "2015-12-15T17:39:58Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Nobody wants to kill two million people. But sometimes the threat of killing two million of their people is what keeps them from killing two million of our people. Eh. I don’t think it’s fighting the hypothetical too much to say that there must be reasonable options, both diplomatic and military, that don’t involve the instant destruction of 2+ million civilians (as well as X number of civilians effected by fallout across the region). ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/43 "2015-12-15T17:54:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sorry, but it’s a hard premise to accept as viable. It’s like asking _“Somebody is planning on murdering you. Your only two choices are to do nothing and let yourself be murdered or kill the murderer and his entire family. Which do you choose?”_ Why wouldn’t I seek an option where nobody gets murdered? > > Your scenario creates a similar false dichotomy. The only options you’re offering is to let North Korea launch a nuclear attack against us or to launch a nuclear attack against North Korea. Why wouldn’t I seek an option that prevents both nuclear attacks? Still, the question is “When would you nuke North Korea pre-emptively?” not “What other responses would you take?” If the answer is that you’d try diplomacy until you got hit first, then option 2 is the one you want. After all, if the diplomacy works, you will not get hit first and you will not use your nukes. If the answer is that you’ll try diplomacy only and will never retaliate with nuclear weapons, then option 1 will fit. I agree that there are still problems with the poll answers, but you can’t think of it as a comprehensive question about your response and focus just on the issue of when you launch nukes. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/44 "2015-12-15T18:09:13Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Sorry, but it’s a hard premise to accept as viable. It’s like asking _“Somebody is planning on murdering you. Your only two choices are to do nothing and let yourself be murdered or kill the murderer and his entire family. Which do you choose?”_ Why wouldn’t I seek an option where nobody gets murdered? But the question isn’t _“What should you do?”_ The question is _“When, if at all, should you act?”_ Should you act first, or second? If you act first, should you be 100% sure your actions will prevent a nuclear strike on America, or can you justify acting on a lower level of certainty given the stakes? Not acting first is a perfectly valid option, as is not acting at all, but for the question to be meaningful, there can’t be an option in which no-one dies. That’d be a bit like having your cake and eating it, too. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/45 "2015-12-15T18:35:23Z")
Given their chronic NK saber rattling without meaningful action, a preemptive strike against NK would be a political disaster. Even if a neutral 3rd party found viable warheads at ground zero, NK could still deny any intent of launching them at us. We’d be labeled as paranoid, jumpy, and dangerous. Once their warhead detonates in the US, we’d pretty much be obliged to retaliate in kind \* 10 lest some other yokel get the idea we’re opposed to defending ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/46 "2015-12-15T18:51:26Z")
Missed edit–and you can’t launch while theirs is still in the air because it could be a dud, or full of dandelion seeds, or we might knock it out before it hits its mark. Anything less than their bomb working over a US city demands we be the bigger soul and keep our nukes sheathed as we commence to dismantle NK’s leadership by other means. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/47 "2015-12-15T19:05:56Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > Missed edit–and you can’t launch while theirs is still in the air because it could be a dud, or full of dandelion seeds, or we might knock it out before it hits its mark. Anything less than their bomb working over a US city demands we be the bigger soul and keep our nukes sheathed as we commence to dismantle NK’s leadership by other means. That part I’d disagree with. Mutually assured destruction is an important policy, and it needs to be based on an action that your enemy controls. They don’t control whether their attack is effective; they control whether or not they launch. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/48 "2015-12-15T19:19:36Z")
Well, the difference between MAD as a general policy, and MAD as applied during the Cold War, is that the USA and USSR had 1) credible working nukes, 2) credible delivery means, and 3) sufficient supplies to end the world in a single volley. MAD in the hypothetical doesn’t apply because 1) NK hasn’t got enough to end the USA, let alone the world, and 2) NK is notorious for theater and trolling on a level that doesn’t sound like my memories of the USSR. Sure, there were mutual taunts, but USSR never launched a dare. There was a line that both sides respected. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/49 "2015-12-15T19:29:28Z")
It never fails to amaze me how people will simply refuse to take hypothetical questions as they are presented. I get why politicians won’t do it, but I am truly boggled about why the majority of posters on a message board would refuse to take the premises as stated. I figure Pyongyang has about 2.5 million people. A major American city has about 5 million people. The life of a North Korean is worth as much as the life of an American, in my calculus. So, putting aside the political and other consequences for a moment, the question could be stated as how certain you have to be that two people would be killed before you preemptively kill a third person. It’s basically a trolley problem. And the utilitarian answer is 50%+ certainty. That threshold will save the most number of lives most of the time. If you factor in all the consequences of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, I think you’d need to ratchet that number up by some margin. Maybe 60-70%. Obviously, it’s a hypothetical that has little real world value because we never know the certainty of our intelligence. But that wasn’t the fucking question! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/50 "2015-12-15T19:33:19Z")
ETA: @ **GreatSunJester**. Agreed. Launch by NK is the dividing line. As confirmed by reliable instrumentation. Nobody, not even the vaunted US really controls what happens after ordnance is in the air. It’s all a crap-shoot at that point. There will be duds. There will be off-course warheads. There will be fratricide. NK choosing to pull the trigger is them choosing to eat the consequences. The US gains nothing by waiting the 20 minutes or whatever it takes for NK’s shots to arrive. Even if they all turn out to be duds there’s plenty of _casus belli_ to justify our response. And for sure it won’t stop with destroying Pyongyang but somehow leaving a rump NK government in place in their alternate bunkers. The complete destruction of all remnants of the NK hierarchy is the minimum price they’ll pay. Which will probably require a conventional roll-up invasion on NK soil. Every tin-pot dictator with a nascent nuclear program will be watching this play out. It’s important that they all take the correct lesson. The US does not want to play “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” The central US blunder here was letting NK get so far into heavily-armed-and-crazy that they had the both the means and the (confused) motive to attack. Not letting that happen again is really job #1. Completely destroying the NK government is simply a step in accomplishing that job. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/51 "2015-12-15T19:35:17Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It never fails to amaze me how people will simply refuse to take hypothetical questions as they are presented. I get why politicians won’t do it, but I am truly boggled about why the majority of posters on a message board would refuse to take the premises as stated. > > I figure Pyongyang has about 2.5 million people. A major American city has about 5 million people. The life of a North Korean is worth as much as the life of an American, in my calculus. So, putting aside the political and other consequences for a moment, the question could be stated as how certain you have to be that two people would be killed before you preemptively kill a third person. It’s basically a trolley problem. And the utilitarian answer is 50%+ certainty. That threshold will save the most number of lives most of the time. > > If you factor in all the consequences of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, I think you’d need to ratchet that number up by some margin. Maybe 60-70%. > > Obviously, it’s a hypothetical that has little real world value because we never know the certainty of our intelligence. But that wasn’t the fucking question! Thank you! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/52 "2015-12-15T19:42:22Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It never fails to amaze me how people will simply refuse to take hypothetical questions as they are presented. People just want to dodge the issue or be more clever than the question. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/53 "2015-12-15T20:42:37Z")
> [@The Great Sun Jester](#): > > Given their chronic NK saber rattling without meaningful action, a preemptive strike against NK would be a political disaster. Even if a neutral 3rd party found viable warheads at ground zero, NK could still deny any intent of launching them at us. We’d be labeled as paranoid, jumpy, and dangerous. That is the exact opposite of how reality works. If somebody has a history of threatening to murder your children, that makes it _more_ justifiable that you believe he’s enough of a psycho to actually go through with it one day. With their chronic saber rattling, North Korea has proven that they have no respect for the tools which sane nuclear powers use to try to prevent nuclear war. They have squandered their ability to make an ultimatum on pointless bullshit, and if they were not dangerously stupid people, they would not have done that. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/54 "2015-12-15T20:52:50Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It never fails to amaze me how people will simply refuse to take hypothetical questions as they are presented. I get why politicians won’t do it, but I am truly boggled about why the majority of posters on a message board would refuse to take the premises as stated. > > I figure Pyongyang has about 2.5 million people. A major American city has about 5 million people. The life of a North Korean is worth as much as the life of an American, in my calculus. So, putting aside the political and other consequences for a moment, the question could be stated as how certain you have to be that two people would be killed before you preemptively kill a third person. It’s basically a trolley problem. And the utilitarian answer is 50%+ certainty. That threshold will save the most number of lives most of the time. > > If you factor in all the consequences of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, I think you’d need to ratchet that number up by some margin. Maybe 60-70%. > > Obviously, it’s a hypothetical that has little real world value because we never know the certainty of our intelligence. But that wasn’t the fucking question! I figured the OP was fine with taking other things into account, such as the ramifications of a first strike beyond just the immediate deaths. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/55 "2015-12-15T20:53:50Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I figured the OP was fine with taking other things into account, such as the ramifications of a first strike beyond just the immediate deaths. Sure. That’s different from posts that quibble with the certainty of the intelligence or the ability for a strike to wipe out the weapons, etc. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/56 "2015-12-15T21:25:59Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > It never fails to amaze me how people will simply refuse to take hypothetical questions as they are presented. I get why politicians won’t do it, but I am truly boggled about why the majority of posters on a message board would refuse to take the premises as stated. > > I figure Pyongyang has about 2.5 million people. A major American city has about 5 million people. The life of a North Korean is worth as much as the life of an American, in my calculus. So, putting aside the political and other consequences for a moment, the question could be stated as how certain you have to be that two people would be killed before you preemptively kill a third person. It’s basically a trolley problem. And the utilitarian answer is 50%+ certainty. That threshold will save the most number of lives most of the time. > > If you factor in all the consequences of preemptive use of nuclear weapons, I think you’d need to ratchet that number up by some margin. Maybe 60-70%. > > Obviously, it’s a hypothetical that has little real world value because we never know the certainty of our intelligence. But that wasn’t the fucking question! Agree that that is a nice summary of the actual hypothetical, not the one so many folks (including me) have been discussing. Taking your lead … Various real world POTUSes and the real American public have recently demonstrated that the acceptable exchange rate is somewhere between 100 and 1000 enemy citizens or soldiers killed per US death. When we lose more than that we start making either “Ramp this up and finish it off right” or “Not worth the bother; time to withdraw” noises. Or more often, both. At the 100:1 desired exchange ratio and assuming 5 million US deaths in LA or wherever vs. 2.5 million in Pyongyang, trolley logic says we need about 0.5% confidence in the intel to preemptively launch on warning. At the higher 1000:1 ratio it’s 0.05% confidence. I suspect the US government and public is more willing to bear military than civilian casualties. US military casualties over \*there \*certainly come with less collateral damage than US civilian casualties over _here_. So for this scenario something more towards the 1000:1 end is probably the better estimate. Sleep tight Li’l Kim. We’re thinkin’ 'boutcha. And the Trumpster has your address. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/57 "2015-12-15T21:26:39Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Killing 2 million innocent people is not an option I would ever chose for the sake of “retaliation.” Well, that answer isn’t wrong, either. I think in the longer-term global context, it’s better for our nukes only to strike in retaliation than to strike first. But I could be persuaded not to order a nuclear strike at all. But if we’re not firing at all, we might want to just pack up the nuclear arsenal and admit the deterrent is an empty bluff. Which, honestly, might be the truth. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2015, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/58 "2015-12-15T22:33:10Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Killing 2 million innocent people is not an option I would ever chose for the sake of “retaliation.” This. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2015, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/59 "2015-12-16T00:41:27Z")
How can we tell an ordinary rocket launch from a launch with a nuke? Only when it lands or detonates really. So I’d have to wait. But I’d be putting US Forces on DefCon 1 and going public. It worked for JFK. I don’t know to what if any extent China supports NK with the latter’s nuke and rocket programs but if they do provide support, I’d be telling China that if a NK nuke goes off in America, Japan, etc, then not only will NK be glass, so will they. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445/60 "2015-12-16T01:14:25Z")
Why was there no “I’d take the opportunity to nuke North Korea even if there was no intel about a threat”? I’m not saying anyone would take it, but it should’ve been an option. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-north-korea/740445.md?page=4)