
Why Kim Jong-Un would not be irrational to use a nuclear bomb first - lisper
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-kim-jong-un-wouldnt-be-irrational-to-use-a-nuclear-bomb-first/2017/09/08/a9d36ca4-934f-11e7-aace-04b862b2b3f3_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
======
dalbasal
I’m not totally convinced that mutual deference is sensible but this doesn’t
make _any_ sense, unless I’m missing something:

 _Pyongyang’s conventional inferiority requires it to degrade the United
States’ ability to sustain the attack against it. This means it essentially
has no option but to use nuclear weapons first against targets such as
Andersen Air Force Base in Guam…_

Pyongyang can’t affect the US’ ability to respond in any meaningful way. Even
if Guam sinks into the sea, there’s still South Korea, Japan, ICBs & the US
Navy. On top of that, there’s no guarantee that North Korea could even hit
Guam without getting intercepted, and trying but failing would certainly means
a massive counterattack.

I think the big new issues with a Nuclear North Korea is probably
proliferation related. North Korea has a tiny economy with exports of just
4-5bn, less than a small US city. Selling an occasional bomb could triple
their exports bring in foreign currency, which they are starving for. Even if
they got caught, would the US respond to a nuclear armed country?

~~~
vtange
The article explicitly stated how North Korea might feel free to hit or try to
hit places like Guam, S.K. and Japan without fear of retaliation because the
author guesses the average American would be OK with losing Tokyo and Seoul
but not S.F.

~~~
stuartaxelowen
I... I live in Tokyo.

~~~
jdale27
You are not an "average American". But really, it doesn't matter what the
average American thinks; it's about the strategic calculus of showing that
Japan and South Korea are under US protection.

------
jlg23
In January 1992[1], long after the Cuba Crisis, Robert S. McNamara attended a
meeting with Castro. He asked Castro: 1) Did you know the warheads were there?
2) Would you have recommended to Chruschtschow to use the in the face of an US
American attack? 3) If he had used them, what would have happened to Cuba?

His response: 1) I knew they were there. 2) I would not have recommended to
Cruschtschow, I _did_ recommend to use them. 3) What would have happened to
Cuba? We would have been totally destroyed!

I think this story should be kept in mind when trying to predict behavior,
esp. when the stakes are this high.

[1] Retold by Robert S. McNamara in "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the
Life of Robert S. McNamara":
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/)

~~~
edison85
We've been a few moments away from world destruction a few times. This was of
course one of the biggest but so was that one malfunction when the Soviets
believed we had launched a nuclear strike and ordered the same but the soldier
declined to do so. Turned out it was an error. Many don't realize just how
precarious a world is with ICBM technology. If they did I don't think they
would hesitate for 1 minute to destroy NK years ago before they were first
able to create mid range missles

~~~
dogma1138
It was after the fall of the USSR; AKA How did a Canadian rocket paid for by
NASA, launched by Norwegian scientists almost doomed the world:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/how-boris-saved-
the-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/how-boris-saved-the-
kremlin-1571317.html)

------
rgbrenner
I don't know.. maybe.

Russia is said to be currently supplying arms to the taliban. Their goal there
(to disrupt american efforts) would be the same as in NK. And China is NKs
ally today, and has said they would assist if the US restarted the war (except
if NK uses nuclear weapons). Both helped them during the Korean war. Both
share a border with NK, making it easy for them to do so again. And both have
been clear they don't want a pro-american state at their border (in Russia's
case, on their western border).

If war breaks out, it's very likely it'll be NK+China+Russia again (unless
there's a very clear wrong by NK). In other words, NK will likely have more
military options than the article admits once a war breaks out.

But if NK uses nuclear weapons, that may change. Would China and Russia
continue to back someone who used them? That's the question, and it's not a
given that they would.

~~~
balance_factor
> Russia is said to be currently supplying arms to the taliban. Their goal
> there (to disrupt american efforts) would be the same as in NK.

And of course, the original supplier of arms to the people who formed the
Taliban was the United States. The goal for the US was to arm and empower the
Islamic extremists who had launched a jihad against the secular Afghan
government, and to disrupt Russian efforts to support it.

~~~
thehardsphere
The US did not arm the Taliban; the people who formed it were too young to
fight in the Afghan war against the Soviets.

~~~
rhino369
Some of the Mujahideen armed by the US eventually joined the Taliban, but only
after the Taliban became the main power in Afghanistan.

But large parts of the Mujahideen were actually part of the Northern Alliance
that fought against the Taliban until liberation in 2002.

The CIA reactivated many of the same contacts from the Soviet war in 2001 to
help them against the Taliban.

------
Benjamin_Dobell
Click bait title, article is not actually suggesting Kim Jong-Un will
instigate nuclear warfare (or would be rational if he chose to do so), even
though the title comes across that way.

The article specifically talks about retaliation against military attacks by
the US i.e. the article never suggests it would be rational to fire a nuke off
as a "first" move, but rather simply fire them before the US does. The title
is quite unclear in that regard.

~~~
zzalpha
_Click bait title, article is not actually suggesting Kim Jong-Un will
instigate nuclear warfare_

Actually it does:

 _This scenario to stave off an invasion with a limited nuclear attack on a
U.S. military target is not irrational, although it is clearly risky and
terrifyingly tragic. One wrinkle is that North Korea’s arsenal is currently
small and vulnerable, and U.S. military strategy, reiterated by Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis, is to try to find and destroy all of Kim’s nuclear
systems in the event of a war. That gives Kim an incentive to go first, go
early and go massively if he is not confident about surviving a U.S. attempt
at disarming him. If Kim thinks we are coming after him or his forces, he
cannot afford to be wrong and he cannot afford to launch second._

That last sentence is key, so if you're skimming this comment, go back and
read it.

To summarize: The basic thesis is that, if Kim believes an attack is coming
(not that it has started, that it is simply _coming_ ), his rational choice is
to use nuclear arms on bases in the region and thus force the US to the
negotiating table.

------
trgv
The missile NK recently fired over Japan recently was launched at 5:58 AM. At
6:02 AM the Japanese government sent a text alert. At 6:12 it landed in the
ocean. We know about NK missiles launches very quickly after they are fired. I
wouldn't be surprised if we know about them before they're fired. This
suggests to me that these missiles can be intercepted.

I don't know what kinds of interception technology is deployed in the area,
but I would guess there is some and I would also guess that a (hypothetical)
NK ICBM would not have significant countermeasures.

I think the real question here is what NK/Kim's aims are. When Iran was
actively developing a nuclear capability, it seemed clear that their goal was
to get as close to a weapon as possible without actually finishing a weapon.
The closer they were, the more bargaining power they had in terms of getting
the US/UN to lift sanctions.

With NK, I'm less clear about strategy. In the past, it seemed like NK actions
had the aim of extorting aid money from the US/allies. That may still be the
case. Here's a chart showing US humanitarian aid to NK since 2001:
[https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PRK](https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd/PRK)

~~~
rgbrenner
It takes 30-40 minutes for an NK icbm to reach the US. About 20 minutes to
guam.

But the US missile defense has never seen combat.. only tests. They had 10
successful tests (the last 10) out of 18. But those are planned ahead of time
(with trajectories already mapped out), and the missiles don't have
countermeasures (which they would in a real conflict). So there's a big
question about whether the system will work at all. I don't think anyone is
eager to find out.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-
usa-d...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-usa-
defense/lack-of-real-world-testing-raises-doubts-on-u-s-missile-defenses-
idUSKBN1AP2R3)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Of course, there are also questions about how well NK missiles can do
countermeasures...

------
phkahler
After thinking about the situation I always fall back on the realization that
China continues to support them. Imagine if they used nukes to attack the US
bases in the region. China steps in to stop them and takes the islands that
were formerly US held. It's all a major incident that can be blamed on
N.Korea, but China gain territory and less US military presence in the region.
Plausible?

~~~
mullen
Not plausible at all. If China took Guam, the United States Military would
kick the crap out of China from one end of the Pacific to the other. Within 60
days, China would completely defeated on the oceans and in the air.

Any resulting peace treaty would be of China accepting Taiwan independence,
dropping all support for North Korea and giving all ambitions to the South
China sea. China has a lot to lose if it went to war against the United
States.

~~~
munificent
I the US military actually _that_ much more powerful than China's? I'm asking
honestly, I don't know much about this stuff.

~~~
jdale27
Yes. China has more manpower, but that's about their only advantage. Navy, Air
Force, the US dominates. And as everyone knows, you never get involved in a
land war in Asia...

~~~
mullen
This.

I will add, the US military may not be the largest in the world by manpower,
but it is the best equipped, best trained and has a world wide network of
allies and military bases. Certain parts of the US military are the largest,
for example, the US Air Force is the largest and best equipped air force in
the world. The second largest is the US Navy.

The only thing China has going for it is that it is not only geographically
large, but also has a huge population.

------
SomeStupidPoint
Tangent, but I've always wondered what the cost of dropping rice (or similar)
into country to disrupt it is.

I'd guess that you can drop enough rice to feed the population of NK for
around $1-2bil/mo. The cost of the Iraq war was around $8-10bil/mo. So you're
talking about 10-25% of the cost of a war effort. (I'd guess towards the
higher side.)

But! There's a lot of goodwill to be earned by dropping a steady supply of
food across the country during the conflict. At the end of the day, starving
people usually care more about food than kings. (Also, for marginally more you
can include other kinds of supplies.)

~~~
planteen
The regime will simply say the rice is a tribute that the enemy is paying. Or
that is is poisoned, etc.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I don't know if anyone is still watching this, but:

It's kind of hard to hide that there's also bombs being dropped, so it doesn't
seem like claiming it's tribute would be effective. Claiming that it's
poisoned might be viable -- but with enough starving people, someone is going
to try it, and some number are going to decide (when it doesn't kill that
person, because it isn't poison) that a slow poison is better than fast
starvation.

It just seems that NK (and a number of other places) keep large segments of
the population in near starvation and/or slavery, and suddenly throwing
surplus food across the _whole_ country does a lot to disrupt the economics of
that. How many people are putting up with NK bullshit because it's the only
way to survive?

I'm not saying "rice not bombs", I'm saying "25% less bombs, 100% more rice"
is probably an effective trade-off in warfare, even in wealthy areas, because
many citizens aren't prepared for serious, sustained armed conflicts and you
save yourself a lot of trouble if the populace doesn't hate you for
generations when the bombing stops.

------
hacker_9
This is complete and utter media hype. The most that will happen is we will
continue sanctions, and NK will develop a nuclear deterrent. They will not
actually use it to bomb anyone, but just so they can be safe in the knowledge
they will not get invaded because of said deterrent. Like any other country
with nukes (there is a lot of us).

I do not support their regime, but I also do not support everyone ganging up
on them and deciding that military invasion and mass slaughter is somehow the
solution. Like with any country, change is slow and has to come from within.

~~~
s17n
It could come quickly and from without if the rest of the world (eg, China)
cut off oil supplies. Regime would be gone in a matter of years.

~~~
ben_w
If you were leading NK, and your options were either 1) step down and probably
get put on trial and die in prison for warcrimes, or 2) have an insufficient
army and be hanged or die in a sewerpipe like Hussein or Gaddafi, or 3) have a
really good army that will allow you to conquer enough farmland and natural
resources to stave off 1 and 2, and possibly make any attempt to put you back
in your box a phyric victory, which would you choose?

~~~
polotics
Gaddafi prolly wished he died in a sewer pipe when he was dying. Do not look
it up.

~~~
ben_w
"Sewer pipe" was the story that got in the news I saw.

------
gumby
In the 1980s I took some classes at MIT on strategic nuclear doctrine and
related subjects. Even then it seemed a bit irrelevant, and the more I
learned, the more so. It is disturbing to be paging back all that game theory
bullshit 35 years later.

(At that point MIT was still heavily into public policy rather than
entrepreneurship. Though I am far, far from libertarian, that orientation also
seemed outdated at the time).

------
Thriptic
I'm perplexed by the logic here. If NK initiated a preemptive strike on local
bases, there wouldn't be an opportunity for a second wave of attacks against
the US mainland. The United States would retaliate so savagely that there
wouldn't be any infrastructure for people to initiate a second strike with.

~~~
zzalpha
_I 'm perplexed by the logic here_

I'm perplexed that you're perplexed. The article does a good job of laying out
their argument. In short: The claim is that Kim believes the US _wouldn 't_
"retaliate so savagely" because the US wouldn't be willing to risk losing a
major populated area to a successful ICBM strike.

So preemptive nuclear strikes on local bases make sense to degrade the US's
ability to stage a conventional invasion, while acting as a deterrent by
threatening a strike on the domestic US.

You can choose to believe or not believe that argument (it depends on your
measure of risk in that scenario), but the logic is clear and reasonable.

------
vtange
Reading this makes me relieved that Nazi Germany did not obtain nuclear
weapons - else a regime change ousting Hitler might not have happened at all,
and it would've been free to carry on its agenda with less fear of Allied
intervention.

~~~
Benjamin_Dobell
I'm not so sure about that. Nazi Germany invaded many neighbouring countries.
You can bet that if North Korea invades South Korea the presence of nuclear
arsenal won't cause the UN to simply ignore their actions.

~~~
vtange
Every nuclear power since WWII has had the ability to invade many countries
with minimal fear of retaliation.. Of course, lots of fingers point to the
U.S., but China and Russia have invaded places as well.

The article basically postulates that any state with nuclear weapons
guarantees its basic territorial integrity. That means sure, we might have
landed in Normandy and secured France and the USSR might've secured Poland,
but the German heartland would've been a no-go for the Allies for fear of a
nuke to Paris or London, and a safe-zone for Hitler and his agenda for Jews,
etc.

------
clavalle
If the US didn't act massively and immediately to any strikes to our close
allies, our alliances would be rendered meaningless.

There would not be time for public debate. The US would respond within minutes
of a move like that.

------
bauer
archive to bypass adblock wall
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170908173242/https://www.washin...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170908173242/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-
kim-jong-un-wouldnt-be-irrational-to-use-a-nuclear-bomb-
first/2017/09/08/a9d36ca4-934f-11e7-aace-04b862b2b3f3_story.html)

------
sharemywin
So, his trading partners and the UN wouldn't tighten sanctions after that?
Seems like even humanitarian aid would be questioned.

~~~
vidarh
Of course it would. But their argument is that he might end up in a position
where it may seem to him that there is no alternative if he wants to secure
his own survival.

Consider Iraq. Hussein apparently believed the West would eventually believe
him when he said he had no weapons of mass destruction. Instead he was killed.

Why would any future dictator facing escalation from the west play along?
Playing along now has a proven risk of getting you killed.

The argument then is that to someone like Kim Jong-Un it may feel like the
only alternative is to be so unhinged and so willing to escalate that the
price of taking him out is too great for anyone to want to take it.

Of course it's a tricky line - overplay your hand and you seem so unhinged
that nobody can afford to let you live.

~~~
thehardsphere
Minor correction: Saddam Hussein did not "play along", he pursued a policy of
nuclear ambiguity. The resulting ambiguity is what caused his regime to get
kicked over.

Libya's Gaddafi did play along though, and still got killed by the US anyway,
so the analysis is still correct even though the example illustrating it is
wrong.

~~~
jimmytidey
This thread seems a bit naive to me. The UK & US knew Iraq didn't have WMDs,
but wanted to invade anyway. The intelligence that the invasion was based on
was risible.

If you look at Bush's approval ratings, you can see the incentive he had to
fight his reelection campaign in the context of a military response to 9/11\.
That was the reason for the invasion.

The West didn't care about the facts of his having WMD or not.

Now, we're paying the price of a capricious attitude to regime change in other
countries: nothing that can be said will persuade NK that it isn't in
existential danger.

------
lwhalen
Every year, the IQ necessary to destroy the world drops by 1.5 points.

------
wslh
The problem with this assumptions is that you have only one shot.

Edit: when I said one shot I was referring to being right or wrong about if
you would be attacked or not. I was not referring to nuclear missile shots.

~~~
thehardsphere
No, actually the article clearly assumes that North Korea would have multiple
shots, but not enough to eliminate the US. The strategy for them would be to
hit Guam first to degrade American conventional war capability and then
explicity force a choice of "we can stop now, or you can lose San Francisco."

------
voxadam
Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?

------
graycat
IMHO: On North Korea (NK), Trump is building rings and layers of responses and
forces, at first to defend the US, South Korea (SK), and Japan and then to get
rid of Kim and his military equipment, missile program, and nuke program. So,
Trump's rings and layers are first defensive and then offensive.

The urgent purpose of the defensive parts are to deter Kim from shooting at
the US, SK, Japan, Guam, Australia, England, .... Here the message is clear:
If Kim explodes a nuke, the US will respond so that Kim's first nuke will he
his last one.

For the defensive parts, he has been pursuing UN sanctions and lining up other
countries against NK. He has positioned off the coasts of NK a Nimitz class
aircraft carrier, several smaller ships, an attack submarine (in case Kim does
something hostile with a submarine), and an Ohio-class missile firing
submarine (SSBN) (in case Kim explodes a nuke). Apparently the British are
sending a ship with some Mach 3 missiles maybe able to destroy an ICBM during
launch or boost phase. Trump has positioned USAF planes at least in Guam and
maybe in other west Pacific bases and held joint exercises with SK. He has
authorized SK and Japan to buy some more advanced US weapons and has
authorized SK to have more throw weight on their missiles (somehow the US
retains some legal rights, soon to end, over SK from the Korean War). SK has
been deploying US THAAD anti-missile systems. The US has been testing its
anti-ballistic (ABM) systems, the ones designed to intercept a warhead during
reentry.

Trump had a White House meeting on NK with Mattis and Dunford and likely also
Kelly, McMaster, and others and then had Mattis, with Dunford, make a strong
statement that, to translate, if NK exploded a nuke then the US would make
that first nuke the last one, and for this the US has several options, some
nuclear, some non-nuclear.

So, maybe for such largely defensive steps Trump's goal is to keep Kim from
exploding a nuke right away.

So, there are geographical _rings_ from SK to Japan, Guam, and the US, e.g.,
short range defenses and long range defenses. And there are diplomatic
_layers_ from SK, China, Russia, the UN, the US, other countries, etc.

For offense, Trump claims he talked with Xi and got him to say that he agreed
that NK should not have nukes.

It looks like Trump has decided that NK will not have missiles or nukes. If
Kim wants to give up missiles and nukes peacefully, then maybe that will be
enough. Otherwise Trump will work to have the missiles and nukes destroyed, to
have Kim removed from office, say, moved out of the country and/or killed, and
to have the NK military equipment, e.g., rockets, artillery, guns, trucks,
submarines, other ships, etc. destroyed.

The US Navy Seals have been training with some SK soldiers on how to take out
someone, likely Kim, like the Seals took out UBL. Broadly it begins to look
like the US and SK have decided that SK will do most of the fighting.

So, maybe a fight would go: (A) The Seal trained SK soldiers cross into NK and
kill and/or capture Kim. (B) Enough of the NK leadership and military command
and control will be captured or destroyed to stop NK from shooting missiles,
artillery. (C) SK will launch some hyper accurate missiles at the NK missiles
ready to be launched. (D) The SK army, backed from the air by the USAF and
Navy, will invade NK, take over the government and missile and nuke
infrastructure and destroy that infrastructure. (E) China has troops on the NK
border to keep NK civilians from entering China. Russia may do something
similar. (F) The SK army will destroy essentially all the NK military
equipment, e.g., artillery. (G) SK will turn NK over to the UN and leave.

All the important steps will be over in just a few minutes or hours. Step (G)
will take no more than some weeks.

Then Kim and his military, missiles, and nukes will be gone. The NK leadership
in missiles and nukes will be gone. The US will never set foot in NK. There
will be very few civilian deaths. Little or no radiation will be released.

All that is just a guess.

