The immediate problem with North Korea

The Risk of Nuclear War with North Korea

newyorker.com

During the Korean War, the US killed 20% of North Korea's population and then DIDN'T DEFEAT NORTH KOREA. So when Trump threatens the North Koreans with annihilation, they think, yeah, well, we've been annihilated before.

My innocent assessment:

The US has demonstrated repeatedly since George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech that it will NOT attack an antagonist country if that country has a credible nuclear capability. So there is NO imaginable scenario in which North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons. No threat from Trump will bring this about.

Could NK actually hit the US with a nuclear weapon? I think it's very likely it has missiles that can fly that far carrying a warhead. Could such a missile actually hit what it was aimed at? I don't know, but I'm skeptical.

But that isn't the immediate problem. The immediate problem -- the very first thing NK would do if push came to shove -- is to hit Seoul with...something. Seoul is 35 miles from the NK border and defenseless against a missile strike. Almost 10 million people live there.

Would NK actually nuke Seoul? Given that any nuclear scenario is a doomsday scenario for NK, and they know it, I can't find a good reason to rule it out.

If this completely unnecessary cataclysm actually came about, it would be by far the greatest diplomatic failure in US history. (Actually, given the likelihood of a nuclear exchange, the greatest diplomatic failure in anybody's history.) And it would be 100% Donald Trump's failure.