The Corner<\/p>\n
The one and only.<\/p>\n
by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kim Jong-un has accomplished something that neither his grandfather nor father pulled off during the last 70 years: bringing an existential threat to the shores of the United States. North Korea\u2019s handful of missiles that are soon to be pointed our way will be seen as posing a greater existential threat than do the far more numerous nuclear-tipped missiles of Russia and China \u2014 on the premise that by feigning (?) madness Kim is far more likely to use them. How weird that the really dangerous adversaries are seen as posing a far lesser danger than the far weaker one. Iran is looking at all this as a tutorial.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That fact alone has changed completely the strategic calculus of the Korean peninsula. Almost every decision that the U.S. will now make, as opposed to those of the last seven decades, will hinge on the premise that a nuclear nut can now threaten the lives of millions on the U.S. West Coast. Even in the age of North Korean technological incompetence and American high-tech excellence, a sophisticated society assumes it cannot live with the idea that there is a 1-2 percent chance that a lone North Korean nuclear missile \u2014 due to a supposedly insane finger on the button that claims it is indifferent to threats of U.S. massive retaliation \u2014 could at any moment actually get through U.S. defenses to reach Pacific Heights or South Central LA.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The result is that inevitably there will be a growing disconnect between South Korean and American strategic concerns, as our own policy will focus on the ramifications not just in terms of the sanctity of Seoul, but of the U.S. mainland. Such a shift in emphasis will be manipulated not just by North Korea but China as well as they insidiously remind South Korea that the U.S. is predicating its Korean strategy now solely in terms of its own self-interests. We should expect in the future lots of trial-balloon diplomacy from China suggesting U.S. troops vacate South Korea or a demilitarization of the peninsula, all predicated on the idea that Kim\u2019s new gambit can be used to gain lots of concessions in the interest of \u201cpeace.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How we came to this juncture is a tale of 30 years of bipartisan failure, or, to paraphrase Machiavelli, it is easier to cure a disease in its adolescence when its symptoms are harder to detect, but nearly impossible once there is no doubt about it pernicious presence.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Kim Jong-un has accomplished something that neither his grandfather nor father pulled off during the last 70 years: bringing an existential threat to the shores of the United States. North Korea\u2019s handful of missiles that are soon to be pointed our way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[346,846,1,102],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2IB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10870,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/will-nuclear-north-korea-survive-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":10453,"position":0},"title":"Will Nuclear North Korea Survive 2018?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Given several rapidly developing geopolitical factors, North Korea may look much different by the end of the new year. \u00a0 For good or evil, we may see radical changes in North Korea in 2018. \u00a0 The beefed-up United Nations sanctions by midyear could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10383,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/west-can-neither-live-with-nor-take-out-north-korean-nukes\/","url_meta":{"origin":10453,"position":1},"title":"West Can Neither Live with nor Take Out North Korean Nukes","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 It\u2019s time for the U.S. and its allies to prepare for a tough, messy confrontation. \u00a0 North Korea recently test-launched a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska. \u00a0 When North Korea eventually builds a missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, it will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Putin"","block_context":{"text":"Putin","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/putin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4351,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/korea-our-bad-and-worse-choices\/","url_meta":{"origin":10453,"position":2},"title":"Korea: Our Bad and Worse Choices","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson American Enterprise Institute Magazine The North Korean crisis offers only bad and worse choices for the United States. Kim Jong Il cultivates an air of lunacy, and threatens to nuke the Western critics who are more concerned with the plight of his North Korean people than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2005"","block_context":{"text":"June 2005","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2005\/june-2005\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5808,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/irans-north-korean-furture\/","url_meta":{"origin":10453,"position":3},"title":"Iran’s North Korean Furture","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The idea of a nuclear Iran \u2014 and of preventing a nuclear Iran \u2014 terrifies security analysts. Those who argue for a preemptive strike against Iran cannot explain exactly how American planes and missiles would take out all the subterranean nuclear facilities without\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "North Korea"","block_context":{"text":"North Korea","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/north-korea\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11249,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/strategika-issue-51-nuclear-proliferation\/","url_meta":{"origin":10453,"position":4},"title":"Strategika Issue 51: Nuclear Proliferation","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Should More Nations Have Nukes? Please read a new essay by my colleague, Gordon G. Chang in Strategika. There is only one weapon that poses an existential threat to the United States, so why should America want other nations to possess it? The simple answer is that Washington\u2019s nonproliferation policy,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Strategika"","block_context":{"text":"Strategika","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/strategika\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4990,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-funny-morality\/","url_meta":{"origin":10453,"position":5},"title":"A Funny Morality","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 25, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"North Korea as a metaphor of the times by Victor Davis Hanson The Claremont Institute The disclosures of North Korean duplicity in acquiring nuclear weapons were disturbing for a variety of reasons, involving more than our national security. That Pyongyang had been lying and cheating all along since President Clinton's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2002"","block_context":{"text":"October 2002","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2002\/october-2002\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10454,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10453\/revisions\/10454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}