Will There Be a Continuation of the Korean War

• KOREAN WAR II: A CONTINUATION OF POLICY

  

  From my Blog ,  110soldier.com

  http://110soldier.com/korean-war-ii-a-continuation-of-policy/

  "War is a continuation of policy by other means", so said Carl von Clausewitz.  The North Korea situation has reached that point which the past four presidents had worked in vain to avoid. U.S. policy has deteriorated to where there is but a single remaining option. On July 27, 1953, a peace of sorts was established between the parties fighting the Korean War. The ensuing 64 years resulted in a tension filled with hostilities but without actual troops fighting. For some this was called a policy success: the absence of war.

  Today, North Korea's nuclear successes have changed this equation. North Korea has now become an existential threat the United States that can no longer be ignored. People have often wondered, what if one could go back in time and kill a heinously evil person before that person did the harm that would eventually come from them.  Nuclear security has been maintained throughout the years from a simple concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), meaning you might kill me, but I will kill you as well, thus, no one could win a nuclear, so why fight it. The only winning move, is not to play. No nuclear weapons were used in the many regional wars which were fought by the United States, Russia, China, or Israel.

  Most recently when tensions began to rise between the Pakistanis and Indians, both nuclear nations, the world stepped in to explain to both parties the rules of the club. Nuclear nations are not allowed to fight each other. Seems going nuclear was bad in the sense that it prevented the petty perennial wars that these nations had fought off and on since the 1950's. They were forced to change policy and attitudes, because war was no longer an option. And they have been somewhat successful in this policy shift.

  Furthermore, and despite the cries of foul by U.S. conservative Republicans, Iran has been certified to be abiding by the terms of the nuclear deal it made with the US and the P5+1 ( the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, + Germany). Finally, Japan and Saudi Arabia, both nations which have the technological ability to develop nuclear weapons, have refrained from doing so.

  Then there is North Korea, which has publicly made it a national ambition to develop nuclear weapons. The nuclear desires of North Korea, aka the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a policy goal comparable to US policy to place a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. The past four presidents have done all they could to prevent the development of nuclear weapons. Once the DPRK had developed nuclear weapons, then the policy changed to preventing the projection of those nuclear weapons on missiles to neighboring nations such as South Korea or Japan. When that policy failed, the goal shifted to preventing the DPRK from developing an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile with the range to threaten the United States.

  That policy has now failed. Yet, our leaders continue to talk of a negotiated means to end the DPRK's nuclear program. This will never happen, quite simply, because while there have been successes in limiting the nuclear weapons programs of nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, the DPRK is keenly aware of what happened to some nations that gave up their nukes.

  In 1994, Ukraine agreed to destroy its entire nuclear arsenal and to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Most observers conclude that had Ukraine kept its over 2000 nuclear weapons, Russia would not have acted so brazenly. As well, in 2003, Muammar Gaddafi agreed to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction programs. Once this had been largely accomplished, Gaddafi was deposed and killed in 2011.

  North Korea remembers the Ukrainian and Libyan follies and has vowed never to follow that course. Thus, the talk of meetings, negotiations and sanctions are all just spitting in the wind. With a North Korean ICBM a reality, there is only one option remaining. We as a people would be foolish to trust that the DPRK would not use this threat to the detriment of the US and its allies. The only option that remains is to re-light the Korean War and end this nuclear program by force.

  The US has asked China to intervene, but the glaring fact is that China is powerless to end the nuclear program of the DPRK. And this is not from a lack of Chinese interest, it stems from the die-hearted desire of the DPRK. The only true leverage that China has is to leave the DPRK without food or fuel. China would never starve out the people of the DPRK and neither would we.

  This nuclear program, however, must be ended. Quoting Clausewitz again, "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."  There is no other option. I have seen pundits cry that any attack on the DPRK would bring a massive retaliation against South Korea. In essence, fear of the North Korean response, should prevent the United States from eliminating an existential threat the mainland United States and its people. No. As a super power that spends $700 billion dollars on defense every year, the DPRK should be the ones worried about consequences. Sure, war in North Korea would cause a massive loss of life. However, imagine the world where Kim Jun Un has nuclear weapons and missiles to threaten the United States homeland. Kim is not that stable person that would be concerned with mutually assured destruction. He has already shown that he would be willing to die as long as the US died as well. He has absorbed sanctions that have left his country on the brink of insolvency, yet continues to focus on nuclear weapons.

  Let's face the truth, Kim Jun Un is emboldened by his confidence that the United States is a blustering giant with no real will to back up its rhetoric. That is the worst of all kinds of mistakes to be made. If the United States does not have the will to prevent an enemy that has sworn to destroy it at all costs from developing nuclear weapons that could target the US, would it really have the will to retaliate with nuclear weapons when that same nation pops a single nuke in Washington D.C.? Or would the debate over how many innocent North Koreans would be killed, paralyze the USA? Kim Jun Un is the kind of guy that would calculate that he could get away with a small nuclear strike without a nuclear response. Kim would use our humanity against the US, we should not allow our humanity to paralyze us to the point of suicide.

  We should bomb and move into North Korea while we can. Once the Chinese intervene and cross into North Korea to confront us, we should back off and yield to the Chinese. They would then be allowed fix the problem or risk a wider war. But, these nuclear facilities must be destroyed and the nuclear program halted.

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Source: https://110soldier.tumblr.com/post/163571355719/korean-war-ii-a-continuation-of-policy

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