Quote:Again you incorrectly conflate nuclear weapons with "WMD" in general.WMD is an acronym for weapons of mass destruction and includes nuclear weapons.
Quote:Biological weapon production can happen in a very limited space with little more industrial support than a refrigeratorAnd if constrained to be so nuclear weapons can be developed and constructed in facilities that can not be identified as such from the air. They will just rebuild their facilities in a less detectable fashion.
Quote:And since both you and I agree that WMD weren't the driving force for the Iraq war in the first place, it's irrelevant anyway.No, you are dodging the issue. If strikes could stop Iraq’s nuke program then how did it come to pass that an invasion based on removing this threat was publicly justified without anyone pointing out that the we could remove the Iraq threat with "strikes".
And if you want to keep insisting that nukes did not factor at all in the case that Iraq was a threat to the US, then please explain why nonnuclear WMDs in the hands of Saddam were so much of a threat that regime change was absolutely necessary to deal with it, while nonnuclear WMDs in the hands of Kim is not. You can’t possibly believe Kim is somehow “better” than Saddam so that we do not wish regime change in NK.
Quote:The strike would limit North Korea's nuclear capability to a small number of weapons with no replacements.And leaves his existing stock pile intact and in the hands of a power with which we would be at war that we started.
Quote:The prevents their ever acquiring counterforce capabilities, and leaves them with very limited deterrent capabilities against large nuclear powers like the US.No it only delays it.
And you ignore the consequences of a strike that leaves the bulk of NKs military capability intact. You will have started a war by a sneak attack like Japan did in 1941 and put the US in the position as the revisionist belligerent power (the role played by Germany and Japan last 4T).
Unlike Kinser I do not believe NK would prevail over the South in a bilateral war that was begun by NK. If NK started the war China and Russia would almost certainly refrain from helping out the North Koreans. On the other hand, since US troops would be in theatre, they would acknowledge that the US has a right to defend its own people. NK knows there is only one outcome that could come from such a war they started, they would be defeated and destroyed.
It is not so clear that China and Russia would not intervene in a war that the US started. I asked you about this before and you haven't addressed it.