The Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, aka North Korea, aka DPRK (for short). This blog is intended to help those who don’t understand what’s happening in DPRK stop worrying. It may not make you love the bomb (I hope not), but panic is certainly not called for in this situation.

The short version: unless someone messes up big-time, the sabers will rattle, chests will puff, big guns will be flourished, and then we’ll all get reasonable, and back down to the stalemate that’s been in place since the end of the Korean War in the 1953.

This situation is super-scary for a few reasons:
1. Most Americans know very little about it
2. The news realizes that the situation is incredibly complex and can’t be explained in a CNN-minute, and is thus only giving us superficial crap for the most part (PBS and BBC not withstanding)
3. The politicians have a vested interest in keeping us scared from one side or another, in particular:
a. Trump wants us scared so we ignore everything else and rally round the flag
b. the GOP wants us scared so we don’t pay attention to the lack of anything getting done while they control government
c. the Dems wants us scared of Trump and what he might do

So what’s the reality? There’s a stalemate on DPRK that has been in place for over 60 years, and DPRK getting nukes in 2006 only cemented the stalemate in place. The demilitarized zone (DMZ) that has been in place since the end of the Korean War is one of the most heavily fortified places on the planet. The North has 10s of thousands of artillery pieces on one side, and the south is well fortified, with almost 30k US troops backing them up. No one is going anyplace without an all-out, incredibly destructive conflict.

And this part is important: by “incredibly destructive,” I mean that if DPRK launches an artillery assault (NOT nuclear), Seoul, South Korea will cease to exist as a functioning city. It will be destroyed. along with a whole lot of those US troops defending the South. US counter-battery strikes would likely take out the artillery shortly after the destruction, so the dead can count on being avenged. On the other side, a US conventional response to any DPRK action would also destroy Pyongyang and pretty much every military target in the country within hours, with total destruction if we continued within days. And that’s WITHOUT using nukes.

If DPRK chooses to use nuclear weapons, which they would arguably only do as a last resort in the face of a US assault, then in addition to Seoul we would also have to worry about Tokyo and other Japanese cities, possibly Guam and Hawaii, and probably the US 7th Fleet (based out of Japan). All of these could be targets. The good news here: the DPRK missiles are still probably too short range to reach the US West coast, and certainly are too short to reach it with a nuclear payload. In addition, they are VERY inaccurate, and will be lucky to strike within 10 miles of their targets. Of course, Japan has a LOT of territory and people within 10 miles of Tokyo… By the way: if DPRK does this, you can expect the country to glow in the dark for hundreds of years after the US response. Probably with a lot of fallout over other countries. The world would likely go quickly to hell after this. The good news: it really does seem that Kim and the DPRK leadership do NOT have a death wish. They want to have totalitarian rule, which is the opposite of death. And they know what will happen if they ever use their nukes, so they are very likely to only use them as a last resort. DPRK nukes are DEFENSIVE weapons, intended to stop a US invasion or attack. They have no rational offensive purpose.

So the goal should not be to get rid of DPRK’s nuclear weapons. That’s simply not going to happen. We let the genie out of the bottle, they can deter us now, and there is no reasonable way to get it back in. The goal NEEDS to be to get DPRK to remain peaceful and within its borders. Given that, we don’t care if they have nukes. The Soviets had a lot more, and were much bigger/stronger enemies, and we lived with them.

On the question of rationality: many people claim that Kim is irrational, because frankly we know very little about him. I’d suggest that we need to ere on the side of rationality for a few reasons: first, he’s the leader of a totalitarian dictatorship, and he has cemented his leadership since taking office. That takes rationality. Second, from his perspective so far all of his actions appear to be rational – you can’t base his rationality on our perception of what is “right” or “correct” behavior, you have to look at it from his side. And third — if you want to say he’s irrational, you’re going to need to prove that he’s acting outside of his best interests based on the information that he has. And we simply don’t have any proof that I’ve seen. Finally, even if he is irrational, given the situation does that REALLY change the options we have? The last is a minor question since I’m pretty sure he is rational, but if the answer is “no, it doesn’t,” then we really don’t need to talk about it. Bottom line: “I don’t understand you” is absolutely NOT the same as “you are irrational,” but we tend to mix those things up.

What’s really happening here? Kim and Trump are rattling sabers. This has happened many times in the past, usually when the DPRK is starving and needs something. The real difference this time is that the US President is Donald Trump. And from all indications, he is MUCH less predictable, and arguably more irrational, than any DPRK leader.

Personally, until presented with other evidence (and I’m prepared to believe it may be nasty, deadly evidence), I’m going to believe, hope and advocate for the generals in Trump’s inner circle to be in control here. They are smart, experienced people who know what is going on. They understand the consequences of a US attack, or of pumping the rhetoric and actions up to the point that Kim feels backed into a corner. And they better be talking to Trump about this, forcefully and often. Or possibly just manipulating him behind the scenes in the right directions.

I also think there is reason to believe (and at least hope) that some combo of Generals Kelly, Mattis and McMasters have already informally informed the military brass that they should NOT, under any circumstances, accept an order to launch nukes from President Trump without a confirmation from the appropriate cabinet member (probably Mattis). This would be the prudent thing to do given the public mindset of our current President, and it has history from the Nixon administration. Is it technically illegal? Of course it is. I can deal with that, and I hope they can too.

Finally, I’ll end on a bright note. It appears that the Trumpster, in his completely transactional mind, has now already moved on to invading Venezuela. Which is a LOT better than attacking DPRK, so we have that going for us.