It’s 72 years since the first and last atomic bombs were used against an enemy. The weapons are now more powerful, in many more hands, and we are much more aware of how deadly they are than was appreciated in 1945.
They have the power not just to assure mutual destruction of antagonists who use them, but to poison the atmosphere and water, cause cancers and genetic damage and alter the climate. A major exchange risks imperiling life on this planet, certainly mammalian life and the crops that support it.
For fear of such consequences, rational actors East and West, despite their ideologies, have therefore eschewed the use os such weapons. That has left us to worry about irrational actors such as theocratic ayatollahs in Iran who have promised to wipe Israel off the map, Islamic terrorists who have sought but have not yet obtained the technology, and Kim Jong-Un, possibly armed with as many as 100 nukes.
He has lately promised to unleash his nuclear arms on our West Coast, or possibly the symbolically resonant target of Pearl Harbor. He has been shown applauding a propaganda film, accompanied by martial music, that depicts such weapons obliterating American cities. This is creepy, but I am old enough to remember similar entertainment during the Cold War
There has also been some loose talk from our side about shooting first and negotiating later. Bad plan. The lunatic logic of nuclear tit-for-tat heads directly to the land of “Dr. Strangelove” in which General Buck Turgidson promises victory if the President will only give his the green light. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I’d say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Depending on the breaks.”
Even if a preemptive strike could eliminate all threat of a Korean bomb, and intelligence is very dubious about the chances, the loss of life would be huge in both North and South Korea. And the use of such a weapon could serve to normalize the resort to thermonuclear weapons, giving permission to the next aggrieved or unstable leader of India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, China, or Russia to pull the trigger.
It might also cause other states to conclude they need to get nukes if people are going to start using them promiscuously. Furthermore, those involuntarily disarmed are likely to nurse a grudge and resolve to get payback, no matter how long it takes or how much it costs. Living under the threat of holocaust forever is not much of a legacy.
Henry II, vexed by an uncooperative Thomas Becket, supposedly said, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” So, his knights saddled up and killed the Archbishop of Canterbury. Heads of state have traditionally been reluctant to go around assassinating fellow heads of state. If the intended victim escapes death, he is likely to take the attempt amiss. If it succeeds it creates a bad precedent that might paint a target on the perpetrator. And either way, it makes a dandy casus belli for the targeted country.
That said, eliminating one loony boy king in Korea is surely preferable to an exchange of nuclear weapons with all the literal and figurative fallout that entails. And its also preferable to provoking a non-nuclear attack by the North on Seoul which has a population of 10 million, or the introduction of United States ground forces on the Korean peninsula, or the risk of the crisis spreading to China, Japan, and Russia. Which argues for proceeding by stealth. This is, after all, the guy who has assassinated his own uncle and poisoned his brother.
Getting an American hit team to rid us of a turbulent Kim is a non-starter in such a closed country, and even if feasible would leave fingerprints leading back to us. Ditto a drone strike. But regimes change, dynasty’s fall, coups happen. That’s called history. Our allies, Kim’s neighbors, not to mention his own population of 25 million, all have an interest in a less volatile, more amenable leader. One can only hope diplomats and spooks in Washington, Langley, Ft. Meade, Seoul and Beijing are hatching plans to excise this particular malignant growth without resorting to radiation treatment.