The Associated Press has an entire story on North Korea’s Kim building up his nuclear arsenal.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the “exponential” expansion of his country’s nuclear arsenal and the development of a more powerful intercontinental ballistic missile, state media reported Sunday, after he entered 2023 with another weapons launch following a record number of testing activities last year.
Kim’s moves are in line with the broad direction of his nuclear program. He has repeatedly vowed to boost both the quality and quantity of his arsenal to cope with what he calls U.S. hostility. Some experts say Kim’s push to produce more nuclear and other weapons signals his intention to continue a run of weapons tests and ultimately solidify his future negotiating power and win greater outside concessions.
The presumption by experts, or at least the ones that the media quotes, that North Korea and Iran are building up their nuclear programs as negotiating leverage strangely assumes that the only possible use for nukes is in diplomatic bluffs.
Sure, we’ve seen plenty of that over the years. Putin keeps mentioning he has lots and lots of nukes every 5 minutes. And North Korea is unlikely to use nukes against us. Or at least we like to think that they still believe that even the Biden administration would engage in nuclear retaliation. Frankly, I’m skeptical. After 9/11, I’m pretty sure that the response to an American city being nuked by a non-great power would be to go over and make sure that they have democratic elections rather than making them glow in the dark.
But the idea that Iran wouldn’t use nukes against smaller targets, whether Israel or regional powers, or that Kim is collecting nukes for show with no serious intent of using them against regional nations is a serious blind spot. It’s the same kind of blind spot that had Chamberlain waving around his agreement with Hitler, convinced that the Austrian sociopath was not serious about an extended program of conquest.
Just because we can’t imagine that people think differently than we do, doesn’t mean anything.
Presuming that Kim doesn’t want nukes except as a status symbol could turn out to be a very dangerous mistake. Murderous dictators like power. And nuclear weapons are the ultimate form of military destructive power. They do provide a lot of diplomatic leverage, but the ultimate leverage is still force.
“I’m pretty sure that the response to an American city being nuked by a non-great power would be to go over and make sure that they have democratic elections rather than making them glow in the dark.”
Do you mean “Democratic” with a big “D”, i.e., rigged?
I mean nation building, which is popular among both parties.
Korea or any rogue nation could launch a nuke into the low-earth orbiting satellites without violating the air space of any other nation and take out ALL our satellites, sending us back to the dark ages. Nothing would work. Water and gas could not be pumped. Airplanes could not be flown. No electrical power. NOTHING using integrated circuits would work. This short article was written in 1998.. Nothing has changed.
https://spp.fas.org/military/program/asat/at_981015.htm
The Chinese have always wanted the U.S. land and its resources while despising its people. Remember, they have no silly notions of the value of human life. North Korea could launch a low-earth nuke and it would not set them back much, if at all. Remember how dark the North Korean land mass looks on satellite imagery in darkness?
But nukes are not necessary. Biological weapons could also do the trick – kill us and preserve our infrastructure. We have helped China develop biological weapons. They are working out how to use it against us while protecting themselves genetically or with vaccine immunity.
Nothing has changed since General Chi Haotian’s death except the progress of technology to accomplish the goal.
Here’s Newt describing in ashen terms the chaos that might confront Republicans.
I wonder if the other side is ashen at the prospect? All opportunities for them but what we have is Newt.
He doesn’t know what “exponential” terms, one of the most abused and misused mathematical terms these days.
We can assume he is isn’t acquainted with the exponential decline of Christianity in America? A decline that is a surprise to nobody outside of America who isn’t acquainted with cowardice. Ergo, Peter Hitchens who is extremely acquainted.
Thanks Una 🙂
(I meant “means” instead of the first “terms”, my internet is giving me problems)
Ha! I read it as ‘Means” – just the way you meant it. Not as it was typed.
Maybe we have all mind melded and have become the borg here.
I am very honored if we have!
Thanks Cat! I always enjoy your posts 🙂
“No, schmuck.”
You are one of the people who has the absolute least justification calling others shmucks, especially since you never do it to your kin, who deserve it.
” Because Kim and the Ayatollahs in Iran understand that if they use nukes they will get nuked in return. Everybody knows that, which is why nobody has used nukes since 1945.”
There are a few problems with this, starting with the fact that while I wager that would deter Kim, the Ayatollahs operate on a thoroughly different worldview from ours. They have openly espoused the idea that global turmoil will help bring about the emergence of a messianic figure, the Last Imam. And they certainly are not above stirring up chaos to do it.
So do you really want to to wager that they take their religious faith as thinly as Biden does and that this is all an elaborate PR stunt? Especially since they have a pretty good chance of destroying Israel and surviving the counter-nukes due to the difference in sizes?
Another reason it hasn’t happened is because nobody has felt pushed into a corner where they could justify the uses since 1945, which had its own costs (such as how half of Korea is still a totalitarian hellscape decades after the South democratized). But what if they start conventionally, lose, and get pushed into a corner where they feel they have nothing to lose?
Part 2
Of course you didn’t think of those.
“Your cavalier attitude about making people “glow in the dark” is disgusting.”
Words are cheap. Actions are bloody. If Greenfield’s “cavalier attitude about making people glow in the dark is disgusting” then so was MacArthur and Eisenhower’s.
And Biden’s willingness to appease the Iranians so they can get nuclear power on a wider scale is worse.
“It shows no interest in the realities of geopolitics today, or in the past. ”
Mate, you aren’t in a position to lecture about realities period, let alone of geopolitics.
“You can’t compare nuclear diplomacy to Chamberlain-era diplomacy because HITLER DIDN’T HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS.”
No, but he did have precursor components as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute showed. He also had WMD in the form of massive stockpiles of poison gas that he threatened to use in the event of war and that his Italian, Soviet, and Japanese frenemies already had done a few short years ago.
Diplomacy has changed but it has only changed so much.
Thanks Tortoise, great posts, as always.
Beyond your vulgar verbiage….you might want to lighten up. Its a new year after all. However, you may be a leftist (a leftist redneck) if you have no understanding of sarcasm, no sense of humor, no imagination and you’re way too angry.
We feel protective of the few genius thinkers who are brave and good enough to share their thoughts with us.
So, take a chill pill, buddy.
Speaking of schmucks, you obviously don’t know the realities of geopolitics 40 years ago or today, and you sure don’t know anything about the mullahs.. The mullahs cleared minefields the hard way with their own 5 year old boys in the war with Iraq, and muslims have been suicide bombing Americans since the Beirut airport attack. The mullahs say if the Iranians all die to bring back the Mahdi, it’s worth it and they all go to heaven. When it comes down to it, the mullahs don’t even have to die with them, because They have bunkers deeper than conventional bunker busters will reach (come to think of it, so does Kim Da Turd), and dems made sure we didn’t build any nuclear bunker busters.
It’s funny that leftists claim Evangelical Christians want to cause Armageddon to bring back Jesus, yet assure us the mullahs don’t really mean what they say about the Mahdi..