The rhetoric from the White House on North Korea is becoming more alarming and does more harm than good.The leader of North Korea is probably paranoid; all dictators are because they fear they will be ousted. But he’s not as crazy as some have suggested. Without nuclear weapons he is the leader of a small impoverished state, but with nuclear weapons the world has to listen to him.
Threatening him will increase his paranoia and makes him more reckless, and recklessness leads to war. History tells us that nations often stumble into wars that are not foreseen. What happens if one of our ships wanders into North Korea waters and is captured and the sailors are put on trial? Or if a U.S. plane crashes in North Korean territory and the pilot is killed.We would hope the cooler heads would prevail, but that is not likely to happen.
We hear it said that the U.S. has no good options. Yes it does. It can let the recent United Nations’ sanctions play out and see if there will be change. This will depend on China enforcing the oil embargo to North Korea which it probably will not do. They know to do so might destabilize the North Korea regime and cause millions of North Korean to steam in to China.
This means that North Korea will end up with nuclear weapons. Several countries already or will have such weapons and two of them, Iran and Russia are hostile to the United States. The reality of nuclear weapons is that mutual destruction is actually a deterrent to their use.
If North Korea end up with bomb will they attack the U.S.? Not likely because they would be destroyed in the process. I said their leader was paranoid, but not crazy. North Korea will probably end up a nuclear state and the world will have to live with it.
Michael Crehan
Everett
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