North Korea Not Iran Is The Real Threat

The US government--including whoever takes over the Oval next January--needs to get a firm grip on a testes crushing reality. North Korea.

Some very unpleasant facts about the Hermit Kingdom of the North, need to be acknowledged as a base for policy.

Unpleasant fact number 1: North Korea has at least thirty kilos of Pu239.
UF #2: It has demonstrated mastery of implosion technology
UF #3: The Hermit Kingdom of the North can withstand diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions as it has demonstrated repeatedly.
UF #4: Even while its population faced malnutrition at best and starvation at worst, the North's rulers spent their scarce foreign exchange on weapons, not food. (Roughly sixty-five million dollars over the past five years. That figure should be considered conservative.)
UF#5: While the more-or-less decommissioned and aging Yongbyon is above ground, the Pu239 storage and potential weapons fabrication facilities are deep underground.
UF#6: The super-hardening of the nuclear weapons related sites is in keeping with the more than half century effort in the North to dig deeper and further, to make the country a virtual sea to sea bunker system.
UF#7: The NKPA is technologically unsophisticated by Western standards, but it is large (1.2 million troops) well fed, adequately supplied and as indicated, backed by the most extensive bunkering system in the world. Beyond that North Korea is rugged enough to make Afghanistan look as smooth and easygoing as Iowa. (And as any now-elderly veteran of the Korean War can attest, possessed of the most horrid weather in the known universe.)
UF#8: The North is willing and able to export its knowledge of nuclear weapons technology to any cash customer. It is probably willing and able to export some of its Pu239 for enough money. And, for an additional fee, quite possibly fabricate a nice Nagasaki level implosion device.

There are some other equally unpleasant facts, but these give the flavor adequately.

"Hell, Geek! Just go and nuke the little creeps!"

Ah, bucko, what an emotionally gratifying idea. The Geek will enter only one set of interlocking objections while skipping some technical drivel about the attenuating effects of deep gorges and high mountains on nuclear blasts and the percentage of stored fissionable material which might lend its small increment of energy to the detonation.

Whether conventional explosives or nuclear charges are employed, plutonium--and uranium for that matter--has the annoying habit of obeying the principles of physics.

In short, you blow up a stash of the stuff, it doesn't vaporize into nothingness. It will still be around. Finely distributed. In the atmosphere. Even in the stratosphere.

And, don't forget, the jet stream blows west to east. Remember just what major landmass exists a couple of thousand miles east of North Korea.

Explosive demolition of the North's stockpile is simply not a prudent, effective option.

So, what does that leave us?

Not much, the Geek fears. The Hermit Kingdom of Kim jong il is the toughest of tough targets whether viewed diplomatically, economically or militarily. Making the situation worse is the simple fact that the men who rule in Pyongyang know this.

They know perfectly well that there is bloody little we can do to them even with the agreement and support of Russia, the Peoples Republic of China, Japan and South Korea. Unless both Russia and the PRC are willing to commit ground forces to the effort, war is simply not an option.

Even in the (highly) unlikely event that these two countries are willing to send in their troops, war is not an option from the perspective of South Korea and Japan. Seoul lies within range of the massed artillery and surface-to-surface missile batteries of the NKPA. A goodly chunk of the country's forty-eight million people live literally under the guns of the NKPA. So also does a large portion of the South's economic infrastructure.

This means that win, lose or draw in the war, the South will be devastated.

Japan is apprehensive about the demonstrated North Korean ability to launch medium range ballistic missiles with a nuclear capacity. It is doubtful that even with the US having furnished both a limited ABM capacity and having emplaced an X band radar in country that Tokyo's anxieties would be offset enough to gain cooperation in some sort of preventative war.

The alternative is bribing our way to success. We, along with PRC, Russia, South Korea and Japan are doing that right now. To date the approach has not worked. At all.

"Why?" You ask.

The answer, at least in part, can be seen in the record of the seemingly interminable peace talks which ended the shooting phase of the Korean War fifty-five years ago last summer. In short, no matter what was offered, the North found it to be not quite enough. For every obstacle bridged, another was erected. Negotiating with North Korea is like conversing with a glacier--slow, cold and ultimately futile.

So where does that leave us?

Keep talking and keep upping the ante. Hope we reach their price before the hardliners of the NKPA decide to seek some more cash on the black market.

Will it work?

The Geek has his doubts. Severe doubts. About the only thing he is sure of is that the problem of North Korean nukes is both far greater and far, far more threatening than nukes in the mitts of the Iranian mullahocracy.

The mullahs have something to lose and they know it.

The Northern Hermits don't see that they are at any risk. No matter what they do.