This is a fascinating intersection of the Bush doctrine and the failure to find Iraqi WMDs. Lots of people, primarily but not just the Dems and the left, think this means that preventative war doctrine is dead. But if we're not willing to run the risk of losing a city, and we now know (again) that we can't really have any idea about what's going on in a dictatorship, it is not obvious (to say the least) that the threshold for taking action has been raised.

Andrew Sullivan I believe noted the other day that the failure to find Iraq WMD has killed the Bush preemption doctrine. The NYT has criticized Bush for attacking Iraq over WMD but now wants him to go after NK? I agree Bush should deal with NK before it is too late but it is hard to see how he gets any support to do so.

It depends on what we have to do. If we are sure of our intelligence, and just need to bomb some particular sites, no problem. If we need to invade, problem. This is where the unreliability of our intelligence (make that, of intelligence generally) becomes a real problem.

Daid:

I, of course, think we should regime someone who's obviously no threat--Castro, Chavez, the Burmese junta--just to establish that WMD are secondary.

The Prof's got some interesting NorK news up. It's still a waiting game. Maybe that's why NorK was really mention in the SOTU.

But we can't change the regime in Cuba, thanks to JFK making a promise that never should have been made to a state that no longer exists.

Okay, maybe we CAN. I think I just talked myself into it. :)

I realize some of the comments are tongue in cheek (I think?), but in the case of North Korea would we not expect appropriate sacrifice to be made by our "allies" South Korea and Japan? Please excuse my French.

h-man:

What sacrifice? It's unlikely that N. Korea could respond effectively to a Shock and Awe campaign--certainly not against Japan, though they might lob some artillery into South Korea.

Shock and Awe my b*tt
Infantry will have to go in and I would prefer that it were somebody other than Americans.

h-man:

Why? All we want to do is remove the nuclear facilities and debilitate the regime.

A little patience folks.

If we play our cards right, the Chinese might just do it for us. If NK has nuclear weapons then eventually Japan will have to respond in kind. If there's one thing the Chinese truly fear it's a nuclear Japan. China also has a huge advantage in leverage and proximity. It also would give them the opportunity to preen on the world stage without upsetting us or the Russians.

The Chinese won't act on our timetable, but in the end they'll do the job just fine.

OJ
I catch the gist of your ideas, which I interpret as 1) we have far and away the most potent military. 2) no other power will come to the aid of petty dictatorships around the world. 3) so lets clean out the riffraff now while there is minimum sacrifice on our part.

Not a bad theory, but a country needs to know their limitations and the countries in proximity to North Korea and who will benefit from removing that regime should be willing to bear the cost of excising the problem.

Some people said that Iraq would be a quagmire. They haven't been proven wrong yet. I think they will be proven wrong in the near future, but that doesn't mean that the threat of a quagmire is not real and especially when you are talking about North Korea, unless we have a total commitment by our "allies" Japan and South Korea. I keep putting "allies" in quotes to convey my cynicism.

"Lob artillery shells...."
The Norks have, it is said, 10,000 guns in range of Seoul. Let's say it's only 3000. They're in fortified positions.
If each of them manages to get off twenty rounds before being hit, that's 60,000 artillery rounds in to Seoul.
For smaller guns, that's maybe three minutes firing. For larger guns, not as much as ten minutes.
Of course, gunners would prefer a slower rate of fire to preserve the guns, but in this case, there is no future in trying to save the barrels, so they'll shoot as fast as they can until the guns break down or they are destroyed.
So, actually, 60,000 rounds is 'way on the low side.

Richard:

They aren't just in fortified positions, they are in tunnels dug into mountain sides.

And we don't have enough hardened precision guided munitions to take them all out.

Which underlines your analysis.

Mr. Aubrey:

Why would they get them off?

h-man:

Why do we need to care if we create a quagmire for S. Korea and China?

Richard:

They sound every bit as formidible as the "Elite" Republican Guards.

200 or 300 MOABs dropped in the NK mountains will do a lot of damage to artillery. And 200 more if we need to. Invasion may follow, but not until most of the NK army is dead.

The situation won't be like Iraq, where terrorists can mingle with the population and the hard-core Ba'athists hide in the villages. In NK, the army is just as likely to kill their own people. And once the ROK army decides to go, it will be a fight to the finish, not the rope-a-dope we have seen in Iraq.

I think close to 80% of the NK army would run for the hills as soon as the first bomb was dropped. OJ is right, it would take less time than Iraq and be less of a problem afterwards. But alas, in todays political climate this coming to actually happen is very small. The only way I see it even put on the table in a serious matter is if Bush and the Republicans win in a major landslide.

OJ
You sound like MacArthur, and we know what happened to him.

Seriously, you are starting to make me feel like Noam Chomsky, but all I am saying is that Japan and South Korea will need to supply manpower (infantry) and money. Why should we expect less from them?

The NKo army will not run from combat, although they would be easily overpowered after a few weeks, since NKo cannot supply them for long.

The problem, as Richard outlines, is that Seoul will be devastated, and something like a third of all South Koreans live in or around Seoul.

However, the US will probably do something military in Bush's second term, just because a failing state run by a psychotic dictator cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. The risk of them falling into the hands of those who would be glad to use them against the US is too great.

Although the above is also somewhat true of Pakistan, India is America's failsafe for the Pakistani situation, because the radicals there are more likely to use nukes on India than America.

OJ -- I'm very close to agreeing on Castro, basically on the theory that the Cuban crash is going to be our problem anyway, so we might as well start it on our terms.

Burma? Well, it's not our problem, but it is a lousy government and we don't really care about what comes next. I wouldn't do it but if it can be done on the cheap, I wouldn't object too much.

But Chavez? Sure, he's a dangerous loon, but he's not at a Castro/Burma/Saddam level, we would have to stay to ensure that a reasonable government came next and there's no question that the population will rally round him in hatred of the yanqui invaders. To me, adding Chavez to the list just shows what a dangerously slippery slope the Judd Doctrine is.

MacArthur was right--we should have nuked China then.

They've a semi-competent military ready to take over once we Predator Chavez.

I'll feed the NorKs, we can do it w/one hand tied behind our backs, but they're going to need decades of therapy. They do not have the window to the world the USSR had, (or the jeans and jazz).

I will not pay the therapy bill, that's China and the SorKs problem. And the WSJ had an article on SK's major, MAJOR debt/credit problem. Asia's another house of cards ready to fall.

Re: NK. Richard and HMan have it right. Been there, done that. If you think they're an oriental version of the Rep. Guards your dreaming. The Japanese recruited NKs into their Imperial Marines during WW2. I saw their pictures proudly hung on the walls of their mud huts in the hills and villages. They could routinely hold up a Company advance along the ridgelines for a day with a squad in the right position. The terrain is so rough that often the heaviest ordinance you could bring to bear might be 60mm. mortars. I know our technology and troops today are well advanced but so are theirs. We could prevail against them but at a cost you wouldn't want to participate in. MacArthur was dead wrong on the Chinese ... the proof was in the pudding.

If something must be done we should do so with airpower and let the SK do the rest. SK has to deal with the Seoul problem and we need to get our troops down south to cover the airfields we would be using or get them all out and depend on airfields on Okinawa, Guam and fast moving carrier groups. We need to step up the time table for the troop movements to now ... just in case. They're trying to bluff; we can call them on it. Preferably, I would settle down Iraq and Afghanistan first.

genecis:

I think you may be underestimating the impact of the US' total rule of the skys over Korea.
There WOULD be a tremendous cost in human lives, but it'll be SKo civilians and NKo soldiers who'll spill blood, not US troops in any large numbers.

The last Korean war is of very little help in predicting the course of any future war in Korea, as every single variable has changed, and to America and SKo's favor.

It would be a monstrous gamble to strike without readying the world, politically, to say nothing of Americans; If we get the nukes, all well and good. But if we don't, and D.C. or New York gets nuked, even if the President physically survives, he won't politically survive, and might end up in prison.

It may well be that the world will NOT agree to an ultimatum to Pyongyang, backed by American force. If so, and the US goes ahead with an attack, then America will be blamed for the resulting carnage in Seoul, to say nothing of what happens if a nuke(s) gets loose.

Unless the President is absolutely sure that Kim Jung Il is definitely going to give/sell nukes to American-bound terrorists, the only remaining course of action would be to wait, and hope that NKo gives the US our casus belli.

Seoul is simply in the wrong location for war time use. If we are serious about a first strike we'll evacuate. That move alone could destabalize the NorComs.

THX:

New York gets nuked? This is North Korea we're talking about.

Wouldn't it be smarter for the NKs to use a weapon (as a test, say) on the 300,000 Chinese troops massing on the border? Talk about instability.....

THX,

Everything may have changed since the 50's, except the terrain and a hell of a lot more tunnels. If the Russians and Chinese would agree to move troops over their borders into the far North N.K. that would change the equation along the DMZ. Would they ever agree to do it? If things get bad enough for the N.K. people, and the far North is where starvation is probably the greatest, anything could happen. Some of you seem willing to trade lives, Seoul, NYC etc. cavalierly. Time in a foxhole in harms way might have provided some context.

Genecis--well said.

Jim: MOABs are useless--or close as darnnit is to swearing anyway--against fortified artillery, any more than a MOAB would work against hardened aircraft shelters.

oj:

By a nuke smuggled into New York harbor on a container ship, or tramp freighter.
Worse, loaded onto a small aircraft and detonated over the city.

They don't need missiles, just the willingness to act.

Genecis:

I, at least, am not talking about a land invasion of NKo, but rather destroying all of their WMD and infrastructure from the air, and letting nature play its course.
If NKo invades SKo in response, then MOAB the exposed troops, especially the armor. ( If NKo's rehashed 50s Soviet designs can be dignified with that appellation ).
Which is why I speak of the dangers of missing.

It's not so much that the hawks don't care if NYC, Seoul, etc. are destroyed, but rather that some see it as a choice, that either NYC or Seoul is going to be destroyed in the fullness of time anyhow, so make it Seoul.

My time in foxholes reinforced the notion that it's usually best to act BEFORE it's unavoidable.

Dear OJ: You should make up a table in Excel of all the civilians you want to kill and we could bet on the over-under. I'd say it's 15,000,000, but it could be higher.

Way higher if you include China.

THX has got the nugget. Remember how the N. Koreans killed most of the S. Korean Cabinet? They didn't do it by shelling Seoul, did they?

Easy solution if they don't have atomic bombs, but their having atomic bombs is the reason to want a solution. So nu?