Nuke North Korea Scenario

John Hawkins over at Right Wing News analyzes the quite real possibility that the North Korean belligerence may produce results that they will find unwanted.

-- Here's an interesting theoretical question that we may have to actually consider in the next few months. Let's say that for whatever reason, we believe there's a better than high probability that North Korea is on the verge of launching a nuclear strike and starting up another Korean war. The North Koreans are certainly capable of blowing Seoul to pieces with all the artillery they already have in place and although we're not sure of exactly what their nuclear capabilities are, it's possible that they may be capable of launching a nuke that can hit Japan or POSSIBLY even the Western United States. If we believed that there was a high chance of war and we believed the only way to keep them from destroying Seoul & launching nukes would be to preemptively nuke them first, would you support it or would you risk the consequences of not acting? That may sound like a fantastic scenario, but it's not as farfetched as you think. Personally, if I thought there war was likely and I thought nuking them first would make it highly unlikely that they would be unable to respond with nukes, I wouldn't hesitate to hit 'em and I guarantee you that there are more than a few people in the Bush administration who think the same way. It's the old, "Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6" philosophy taken to a national level. So when the North Koreans go shooting off at the mouth about their nuclear capacity & making threats, they should understand how fatal it could be if the Bush administration starts to take them seriously.

Based upon recent history and current events, it's not clear that the North Korean strategic thinkers have considered this scenario. Hopefully, they'll wise up, but it's probably not likely.