Degree of Difficulty High

Right now the risk level for America versus Japan and South Korea in regard to dealing with North Korea is immense.

It seems as if the consensus that North Korea has not yet mastered the technology of ballistic missiles that could hit America. But North Korea may have nukes that can reach Japan and South Korea.

That's what I've been assuming, and Strategypage notes that North Korea's arsenal is "believed to be as many as twenty" warheads.

Which means that if America launches an attack to disarm North Korea, any failure to get them all means that Japan and South Korea rely on missile defenses to get any that are launched in retaliation.

It is possible that North Korea will just absorb the hit and rebuild--or possibly wait to launch when South Korea or Japan are less vigilant.

So the fact that Japan and South Korea are cooperating with us is kind of amazing all things considered. They have every reason to be extremely cautious about attacking North Korea.

Although I can't rule out that they believe striking now with the risk is superior to waiting until North Korea has a bigger nuclear arsenal.

And it is possible that Japan and South Korea are actually eager to strike now while North Korea can't strike America because when North Korea can hit big cities in America, America might be unwilling to launch an attack on North Korea to disarm them.

I have no idea what we or our allies want to do.

But what I do know is that if North Korea has as many as 20 nuclear warheads that could be launched at shorter ranges, we missed the Holy Imminent Standard that our Left assured us was the proper standard for launching a preemptive strike on a hideously evil regime pursuing nuclear weapons.

Surely, the combined power of Western intelligence agencies can see that phase when it happens in time to take action, amiright? What could possibly go wrong?

As a related aside, I thoroughly oppose the concept of a "bloody nose" strike on North Korea to warn them of future pain if they don't agree to abandoning their nuclear plans.

This is nonsense. Everyday life without American precision munitions hitting is a constant bleeding out on the pavement. Small strikes would add nothing to the national pain.

As a rule, if you strike a king, kill him. So if we lead a strike on North Korea's nuclear arsenal the strike should be planned to destroy the nuclear infrastructure in its entirety. We might be wrong on our ability to achieve that, but we should plan on doing that as best we can, if we choose that route.

Have a super sparkly day.

UPDATE: On the "bloody nose" concept (perhaps based on drawing a broader lesson from the Trump-ordered Syria strike over chemical weapons?),  you'd think liberals would love it as an opportunity for North Koreans to ponder the "why do they hate us?" question that 9/11 was supposed to inspire in America.

And while I oppose a bloody nose attack, why would that strategy mean "the world goes up in flames" as these two say?

Would North Korea launch nukes in response to a small attack when that would justify American use of nukes on North Korea?

Even if North Korea launches nukes, they don't have many and they likely aren't very large yet. Not to downplay the agony and destruction of even a small salvo that gets through missile defenses, but that isn't the end of the world unless China and Russia bizarrely decide to join in on the nuclear launches.

Mind you, I do agree that it is dangerous to start to take Vienna if you don't plan to take Vienna, counting on the threat to compel retreat.

Oh, and I love the false notion that if only Bush 43 hadn't been too busy with "other wars" (that's plural, so Afghanistan is no longer the "good" war?)  he could have stopped North Korea. As if.

Also, while the authors rightly point out the risks of attacking North Korea, they don't admit that there are serious risks relying on any policy, including deterrence.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that darn the luck, we missed that Golden Imminent Standard liberals said we needed for a preemptive strike against a WMD-pursuing thug ruler.