Japan Nukes

Just one thing to say to those who think we should encourage Japan to get nukes to counter North Korea, and apparently to teach the Chinese a lesson for not restraining Pyongyang: are you nuts? If the Japanese start deploying nukes, the Chinese will end their restrained attitude toward nukes. They so far have appeared to follow a minimum deterrence posture and have not tried to mimic the Soviet attitude of more is always better. If the Japanese get nukes, the Chinese will start building them, and if they go to overtime on deploying these, I wouldn't count on the Chinese building only short-range nukes capable of reaching Japan. A Japanese-Chinese arms race would endanger us. If the North Koreans get nukes, we will need robust anti-missiles big time to keep the Japanese from arming and to keep a chain reaction from starting. If the Japanese ever think that they can't shoot down a North Korean nuclear strike, they will worry whether we can reliably defend them. If the North Koreans get nukes that can reach us and overwhelm our defenses, Japan will question our commitment to lose Seattle and San Fransisco for them. Indeed, with such a possibility facing us, it might be necessary to consider pre-emptive strikes using our nukes to disarm North Korea and destroy their armed forces. We'd be sacrificing Seoul but letting this spiral into an arms race in Asia will not be in our interest.

Wily North Koreans, indeed. They may yet spark a war with their paranoid view of the world. We've been happy enough to let them starve in their Stalinist hell hole for fifty years without destroying them yet they think they are always outwitting us and stopping our imminent invasion. Nukes will finally stop us for good they think.

Nuclear-armed dumbasses who can't feed their people. Wonderful. Squeezing the North to try to force their collapse before they can build dozens of nuclear missiles may be risky, but it may be the least risky choice we have.