Sander Vesik wrote:
Jordan wrote:

The main problem I see with your proposed strategy, _even if America
KNEW the ICBM's were conventional-armed_, is that, as soon as a North
Korean ICBM hit an American city, there would be immediate popular
support in America for doing whatever amount of damage to North Korea
was required to eliminate the threat. Americans under these
circumstances would get angry at North Korea rather than afraid to
continue the fight, because they would be quite aware that America has
the power to annihilate the entire North Korean population, if
necessary.

You don't understand too things - how deterrents work ...

I understand exactly how deterrents work. Or fail to work.

... and what North Korean leadership is concerned about. ...

_Nobody_ is really sure of what the North Korean "leadership" (by which
one must ultimately mean Kim Jong Il) is concerned about. He's insane.
That's the _problem_.

Deterrents work by the adversary
being able to make a promise of what will almost definitely happen
if the other party does something specific. Like take a sufficently
offensive action. What North Korea as a state is concerned about is
regime survival - it is thus irrelevant whetever anybody now living
in the regime doesn't survive the collapse of it.

We all understand this. That's why North Korea worries us. North
Korea's economy is so fragile that it is driven to demand tribute from
the rest of the world simply to survive. This makes North Korea highly
aggressive, since North Korea might quite plausibly launch a war of
aggression with virtually no chance of victory simply because she was
not paid enough tribute. This cannot be said of most states -- even
most _Terrorist States_ are saner than that.

Consequently it is not relevant what the US response to the use of
the NK deterrent would be as it would be used (like any deterrent)
once a point of no return was reached.

Well, actually it's _highly_ relevant to the way that the situation
would actually develop. Your scenario of a campaign lasting "days,
weeks or months" during which North Korea bombards American cities with
conventional ICBM's and America restricts her actions to intercepting
them with ABM's and launching limited conventional strikes against the
launch sites -- or, conversely, appeases North Korea to avoid such a
campaign -- assumes that the American political dynamic is the same
during peace as during an unprovoked war launched against America in
which American civilians are dying.

American (recent) history instead suggests that the American people
would respond with white-hot rage, and the President's role would be
not so much selling them on a total war as convincing them that it
would be wise to show _some_ restraint. It's true that the initial
rage over 9/11 has faded among many Americans _by now_, but remember
that 9/11 happened almost 5 years ago and was not repeated. Your
scenario is of 9/11 being repeated for "days, weeks, or months," and
under those circumstances you would see public calls for genocide
against North Korea.

Seriously. Remember the phrase about "Japanese only being spoken in
Hell?" That was _not_ a radical fringe belief during World War II,
which was provoked by a far less heinous action.

- Jordan