Hanson has really gone down hill.
Life is about choices.
Given time, North Korea will have missiles with multiple warheads, and those missile will reach as far as NYC or Miami. What will stop such technological advances? Left to their own devices, North Korea will achieve this.
I say we take out North Korea in whatever way seems best. Certainly we want to minimize damage to South Korea. But we must recognize that there will be damage to South Korea. Lots of damage.
I’ve seen film of how we liberated France from the Nazis. We broke France pretty good. Lots of damage. We didn’t want to break France, but we accepted that as a necessary outcome of the fight against the Nazis. War is hell. We cannot live with a nuclear North Korea, so South Korea will suffer. Not a goal, but an inevitability.
I have an image of him standing at the DMZ, doing a Lloyd Dobler impression. Instead of In Your Eyes, he’s playing With Or Without You.
Micro-drone swarming can blind AND disable enough so other intercept defenses will be mostly adequate. The spectacular good crap the US armed forces has had for some time now makes Hollywood’s best look antiquated. All sides know this and is why the stand-off continues and will continue.
If we are going to fight North Korea, we will be fighting along side South Koreans. They probably won’t be as cavalier about sacrificing their capital as you are. I’m not saying that the military option should be off the table but I don’t think we should approach it as if the death of millions of south Korean civilians is inevitable. If we really wanted to take this shit to the next level, we should relocate all the inhabitants of Seoul farther south, well out of range of the NK artillery and then start playing hard core brinksmanship with Kim. Basically force him to give us an excuse and don’t stop until he does. We should also let him and China know that any missiles observed headed towards the US, Japan, or South Korea will be assumed to be of the nuclear variety and that they can anticipate a massive nuclear retaliation. And of course, we should be increasing our presence and strengthening our alliances in the region prior to show time. We should also put together a nice arms deal for Taiwan while we’re at it. and when it is show time, fuck all of those NK civilians. They can be the ones dying in a sea of fire. Kill ‘em all.