Should A Preemptive Military Strike Against North Korea’s Nuclear Program Be Considered?

That is what Mr. Richard Haas from the Council on Foreign Relations believes should be considered:

The U.S. should try to dispel China’s concern about potential negative effects on its national interests in the event of North Korea’s collapse in order to win Beijing’s help in pressuring Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs, a U.S. expert said.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, also said in an article that should such persuasive efforts toward China fail, the U.S. would have to either live with a North Korea capable of striking the U.S. with nuclear missiles or launch military action to take out the North’s nuclear and missile facilities.  (…….)

“One would be to live with a North Korea in possession of missiles that could bring nuclear bombs to U.S. soil,” he said. “The policy would become one of defense (deploying additional anti-missile systems) and deterrence, with North Korea understanding that any use or spread of nuclear weapons would lead to the end of the regime and possibly nuclear retaliation.”

The second option would be a military attack on the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities, he said.

“The danger is that such a strike might not achieve all of its objectives and trigger either a conventional military attack on South Korea (where nearly 30,000 US troops are based) or even a nuclear attack from the North,” he said.

The third option would be to launch such a conventional military attack only if intelligence showed North Korea was putting its missiles on alert and readying them for imminent use, but the danger in that option is the intelligence might not be sufficiently clear or come early enough, he said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I don’t believe we are at that point yet considering that other options such as aggressively sanctioning Chinese banks and businesses have not be used yet.  Allowing South Korea to develop their own nuclear deterrent would be preferable to a preemptive military strike that could ignite a second Korean War.

Further Reading:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2016/09/nearly-60-of-south-koreans-want-country-to-develop-nuclear-weapons/