David Bosco calls for sanity amid reports that the North Korea nuclear test may not have been nearly as successful as Pyongyang would like everyone to believe:
Some reputable folks were advocating military strikes well before the test, and they may seize on the latest developments to reissue the call.
We should be wary. The fundamental strategic and moral problem with military action against North Korea is not their nuclear arsenal—it’s their ability to wreak havoc on the south through conventional weapons. In this sense, the nuclear test—successful or not—has not changed the strategic picture on the peninsula dramatically. What it has done, one hopes, is create the political unanimity required to take the steps we should have already taken: namely, enhancing scrutiny of ships leaving North Korea to prevent any leakage of their fissile material and missile technology and bolstering regional missile defenses.
Spot on, and besides putting in place needed embargo measures on North Korea the current political climate affords China the opportunity to prove itself as a rational and important international actor as I suggested the other day.
As far as military strikes being considered by reputable policymakers at this point… it’s highly doubtful, or so I would hope. If I’m wrong, the American foreign policy apparatus is completely defunct until a new administration steps in. Any form of military action aimed at destroying North Korea’s nuclear stockpiles would not wipe out the entirety of the country’s nuclear material. While aerial strikes would severely set back Pyongyang’s ability to threaten its neighbors with nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles (despite the fact that they not so much fly as go diving directly into the ocean), more than enough material would be left behind to sell for use in dirty bombs or other shady nuclear projects outside the peninsula. While North Korea may not sell nuclear materials or know-how now out of fear of a military strike, kinetic strikes now would certainly act as an impetus. An embargo, however, backed by the international community would guarantee that terrorist or other unsavory forces will not gain access to North Korea’s nuclear accoutrements.
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