After years of futile diplomacy to keep North Korea from going nuclear, that last resort of force is approaching:
South Korea has won the economic, social and cultural dimensions of the Korean War. The only unsettled component is the one that puts the KTX [NOTE: A South Korean high-speed rail line], Seoul's nightclubs and the lush rice fields at risk: the military confrontation. Unless China acts decisively to end North Korea's nuclear quest, this week's multi-kiloton blast may lead South Korea and Japan to conclude the military dimension must be won as well.
North Korea's nutso behavior could well persuade South Korea, Japan, America, and even China that regime change is the only option left to prevent North Korea from becoming a nuclear-armed threat.
Perhaps I'm guilty of seeing Iran and North Korea as nails because we have the best hammer in the world, but I think decades of not using military force demonstrates that these states really are nails.
And given my belief that North Korea's nuclear and missile programs are linked to Iran's nuclear and missile programs, I'm starting to think that a strike campaign has to be carried out on both states simultaneously. Anything that survives in one state will be used to regenerate the programs in the state that we strike if we only go after one.
Heck, is there anything in Venezuela that Iran wants safe from an American or Israeli attack on Iran?
And how likely is it that we would strike Iran and then in a few months go after North Korea? Or go after Iran again when North Korean technicians fly into Iran to rebuild?
No, better to do it all at once.
But every budget problem seems to be a screw for the military. No worries about shattering our military's readiness now with sequestration cuts and poor decisions on coping with sequestration. eh?
