North Korea as a Nuclear Power

North Korea, a country ruled by a dictator who makes the Iranian mullahs look reasonable & responsible, successfully carried out a nuclear weapons test. President Obama called it "a legal violation that warranted action by the international community." I'm laughing at that, so you can imagine what the North Koreans think. Wouldn't it be nice if North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons shocked our naive, appeasement-oriented foreign policy establishment into reality? Maybe they might realize that simply holding talks with hostile dictators, offering them concessions, imposing some minor sanctions, and blathering about international law just aren't effective measures. Maybe they might wake up and understand that countries working on nuclear weapons are going to use negotiations to delay any interference with their program until it's too late to stop it. Maybe they might even realize that offering any concessions, or types of aid to such countries is completely insane. But no, that won't happen.

The same clowns who support such measures will just conclude that we need to talk more, make more concessions, and give more aid. They will learn absolutely nothing.

So what now? Well, for one thing, be glad if you don't live in South Korea or anywhere else within easy reach of North Korea. The U.S. has very few options. We aren't going to launch a preemptive strike against a nuclear power, even if we were prepared to -- which is unlikely. After pretending that we could somehow talk North Korea out of obtaining nuclear weapons, let's not start pretending that we can talk them into giving up the weapons they are now building. It isn't going to happen. The only negotiations the U.S. should conduct with North Korea should be in the form of clear, unmistakable threats. One thing communist dictators do understand is the threat of overwhelming force against which they have no defense. Something like this:

Congratulations on becoming a nuclear power. You succeeded despite our best diplomatic efforts to persuade you otherwise. Take a look at this map. As you can see it's a map of your country. What do all those circles and x's mean you ask? Well, that's what I'm here to talk to you about. The president recently authorized the retargeting of a number of our nuclear deterrence assets. That map shows one possible strike pattern. As you can see we've allotted enough warheads to pretty much kill every man woman and child in North Korea. Actually, we have some extra ones targeted on you also just in case. I'm not here to negotiate, but to give you fair warning that if any North Korean nuclear weapons are used against the U.S., either by North Korea or through a third party, we will respond with massive retaliation. We also reserve the right to respond on behalf of U.S. allies. Have a nice day.