This is the part that should be more worrisome than the author implies by dismissing this as theater with scripts:
Throughout the entire month of March as North Korea has stepped through their well orchestrated script for escalating tensions in the region, the US has been following a script of their own; a script written long ago for the Foal Eagle exercises and supported fully by the White House. In my opinion, everything North Korea is doing - even through today - is part of their script, and everything we have been doing has been part of our script. The intelligence officials in the WSJ report are right, there is no evidence that North Korea is off script. We do not know what their script is, but there does appear to be broad agreement that North Korea didn't write a script that ends with them being wiped out in a war. Neither script was written in a way that predicted the others actions, and public affairs and the use of media by both North Korea and the US is solely responsible for connecting the activities of the other side.
I don't dismiss worry about these events merely because they were scripted. Mostly because in the past the Pyongyang script has been for a play that I have called Dead South Koreans Theater. Given that South Koreans are tired of their non-speaking role that just allows them the chance to dramatically die on stage, I don't take this scripted approach lightly. North Korea could yet spark a war if Pyongyang believes that one more escalation on their part will get South Korea to back down--as they have in every other performance of Dead South Koreans Theater.
Then there is this statement, which I strongly disagree with:
One of the key strategic differences between ballistic missile defense as a deterrent and mutually assured destruction as a deterrent is that the United States is basically saying the enemy can shoot first, and if the attack is a nuclear attack but is also successfully defended against, then the United States reserves the option of responding without using nuclear weapons. This is a critical point critics of ballistic missile defense apparently don't believe is important, because a successful nuclear attack against US allies or territories requires a nuclear response. The option of not having to respond to a nuclear attack with nuclear weapons is the value of successful ballistic missile defense, and why smart investment and stewardship of ballistic missile defense is in the best interests of the United States.
Whoa. So missile defense allows us to replace nuclear retaliation with a policy of nuclear "no harm, no foul?" Really? We're going to let our enemies know that they get a free nuclear shot at us? If they succeed, they killed a lot of us--and perhaps threaten to hit more cities if we retaliate with nukes; but if they try and fail, we won't respond with nukes, giving that enemy the opportunity to try again in the future? That's madness. It declares open season on American cities.
As I've long held, the first time we accept a nuclear attack--shot down or not--deterrence is mortally wounded. Who will believe our pledges to strike after that? We have to respond with nuclear weapons if we are attacked with nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean massive retaliation. That doesn't mean we slaughter civilians in the enemy country. But it does mean that we retaliate with at least some nukes--most likely on military or command-and-control targets--even in a mostly conventional retaliation campaign.
Oh, and there is one more thing I'd like to highlight. The author thinks that a nuclear mine might be a morel likely way that North Korea would attempt to deliver a nuclear weapon strike. That's interesting.
I suppose the North Koreans could also bury a nuke north of the DMZ on the invasion route to Pyongyang. Then they could start bombarding Seoul and provoke a South Korean attempt to physically control the territory north of the DMZ that artillery can reach Seoul from. then North Korea could detonate the buried nuke when South Korean or American ground forces move over it.
Kim Jong Un hasn't had the lead role in this script for long. Who knows what he'll sing at the end?
