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North Korea declares it has nukes!

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Tom Rexton

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Not that I'm surprised--only that they actually announced it in public. Furthermore, North Korea declares that they're not open to negotiations to abandon their nuclear program. Here's the article.

What should be the proper response by the US gov?

Now that North Korea's got it, and the USA and EU are doing nothing to stop Iran's nuclear program, it won't be long before NK and Iran are both armed with nukes. :D

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The question is, can you treat North Korea as a single guilty party or should you rather treat them as a large group of individuals some of whom are guilty and some of whom are innocent?

Check out this lecture by Dr. Leonard Peikoff where he deals explicity with the question of enemy civilian casuallties.

http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=1150

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I can see that we're threatened by this development, and so the use of force is justified; but on the other hand, you wouldn't be justified killing all of your neighbors on the basis that you knew at least one of them was a murderer.

The problem here is that you are mixing two different contexts: Can a nation kill innocent civilians, and can a person kill everyone on his street.

Our government has one and only one duty, and that is to protect its citizens. It has no obligation to act as a policeman for non-citizens; it needs only to leave them alone, unless they pose a threat. When that threat is created, our government is not obligated to sacrifice the safety of its own young men and women in order to treat enemy civilians as individuals, each with civil liberties and each deserving a trial. The responsibility to do this lies with their government, whose aggression made it responsible for any civilian deaths resulting from our war of retaliation.

As for the domestic context, our government must treat its own citizens as individuals because that is its job: to protect its citizens. Therefore killing everyone in a neighborhood to neutralize a murderer would not be justified.

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Not that I'm surprised--only that they actually announced it in public.  ...

North Korea announcing that they have nukes and their actually having nukes are two unrelated propositions. Likewise, any policy that they announce should be treated with equal skepticism.

The only things we can be sure of is: (a) Kim Jong- il wants to have nukes, if only for bergaining leverage, and (B) he will not hesitate to use any weapon at his disposal if he believes it serves his interests, regardless of foreign or domestic casualties

Edited by GreedyCapitalist
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Any sane vaguely reassonable rational intelligent dictator would only develop the nuke and not think of using it because of the retribution. Of course, Kim Jong Il is none of the above other than dictator.

As David points out, saying you have it and proving it are different animals. Good examples of this are India and Pakistan. Everyone was pretty sure but until they saw the geiger counters go off there was still a shred of doubt. The political clout of saying you have nukes and proving it are so vast if Il could prove it I think he would. Even if he did do an undergound test of a low yield bomb that was his only nuke, he could leverage the political stroke he got from that as if he had a whole rack of them.

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I would love it if our military were ordered to knock off North Korea. However, I wonder what it would cost us and South Korea. Could we do it in such a way that South Korea were not harmed? What would be the reaction from China and would we want to risk a conflict with China? Would nuking PyongYang inflict nuclear fallout on the South Koreans and the Chinese? I'm not a fan of China by any means, but I question whether it is in the nation's selfish interest to risk a war with China.

On another note, does anyone know how exactly North Korea acquired nuclear capability? Was it from China or, more likely, from the U.S.?

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Thank you both, Oakes and IDC.  Your comments and that speech by Peikoff have resolved the conflict I was having, I think.

So even if a dozen John Galts were within the borders of a country that was a serious threat to our lives, we would be justified in nuking the hell out of the threat (so long as we could live without the John Galts who were at risk).  We have no duty to protect their lives in any fashion, only a moral obligation (to ourselves) to remove any threats to our lives, liberties, and happiness.

(added later)

Oh, I forgot to add, but it probably would be a good idea to try to smuggle them out of the country first (so long as that did not significantly increase the risk to our lives), because their continued existance would undoubtedly make our's all that much more enjoyable (in more ways than one).

Yes, exactly. Also the moral responsibility for the innocents deaths would not be ours, we are just defending ourselves. The moral responsbility lies with their own government who made themselves a threat to free countries. Logically, we should not feel guilty (even though the whole thing would still be a giant shame).

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North Korea announcing that they have nukes and their actually having nukes are two unrelated propositions.  Likewise, any policy that they announce should be treated with equal skepticism.

That's a good point. We must keep in mind that we don't actually know.

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I would love it if our military were ordered to knock off North Korea.  However, I wonder what it would cost us and South Korea.  Could we do it in such a way that South Korea were not harmed?  What would be the reaction from China and would we want to risk a conflict with China?  Would nuking PyongYang inflict nuclear fallout on the South Koreans and the Chinese?  I'm not a fan of China by any means, but I question whether it is in the nation's selfish interest to risk a war with China.

On another note, does anyone know how exactly North Korea acquired nuclear capability?  Was it from China or, more likely, from the U.S.?

I imagine that even if North Korea never used they and we did, the EMP would play havoc on all the electronics in the South. It's especilly ugly when you think about they are the components makers for so much as well as the assemblers. That a wide swath of the technology food chain that would get rendered worthless.

The fallout could be handled well in the South if everyone was smart, stated inside, did all the right things to do in such a case. I think the clean up wouldn't be much worse that a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake. Now to the North, how do you qualify damage to a stone age cutlure? You measure the dirt holes people are living in and see if the holes are wider?

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I live with a (Chinese) couple from Dalien near the border with North Korea and they report that in the years Wen Jiabao has become premier the Chinese have gone from basic border patrols to wholes divisions of their army stationed along the length of the border. With its internal collapse and starvation North Korea are expecting Chinese help and the new Premier is not as forthcoming as the last.

We've long suspected, perhaps even known, the North has Nukes - that they now openly declare it is probably an attempt to extort food aid/financial helps over the table in talks with China/USA. If the US places sanctions on North Korea, it may well force its collapse - which either means Jung Il being overthrown, or uses his power in a final bid.

I think the most important thing in this situation is close cooperation with the Chinese - should action need to be taken it should be done in such away to avoid conflict/end relations with China if possible. Nobody wants a nuclear war with China.

Edited by Charles
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I think the most important thing in this situation is close cooperation with the Chinese - should action need to be taken it should be done in such away to avoid conflict/end relations with China if possible. Nobody wants a nuclear war with China.

There won't be a war with China. They are biding their time and building up their strength in preparation for a conflict over Taiwan in 20 years time. They will do anything to avoid a war until then.

The best approach (IMHO) is to keep playing down the DPRKs bluster until Iraq is stable and the missile defense system is more advanced. At that point we can more safely do something.

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