Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n
T<\/span>here have been wild reports that the United States is considering a \u201cbloody nose\u201d preemptive attack of some sort on North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal. Such rumors are unlikely to prove true. Preemptive attacks usually are based on the idea that things will so worsen that hitting first is the only chance to decapitate a regime before it can do greater damage.<\/p>\n But in the struggle between Pyongyang and Washington, who really has gotten the upper hand?<\/p>\n With its false happy face in the current Winter Olympics, North Korea thinks it is winning the war of nerves. Yet its new nuclear-missile strategy is pretty transparent. It wants to separate South Korea\u2019s strategic interests from those of the United States, with boasts \u2014 backed by occasional nuclear-missile tests \u2014 that it can take out West Coast cities.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pyongyang could then warn its new frenemy, Seoul, that the United States would never risk its own homeland to keep protecting South Korea. So it would supposedly be wiser for Koreans themselves, in the spirit of Olympic brotherhood, to settle their own differences. A failed but nuclear North Korea ultimately would dictate the terms of the relationship to a successful but non-nuclear South Korea.<\/p>\n North Korea might even insincerely offer to dismantle some of its nuclear assets, if the United States would just pull out its forces from the demilitarized zone at the 38th parallel. This strategy would also send the message to the United States that it should have little interest in risking a nuclear exchange over a distant and largely internal Korean matter.<\/p>\n The playbook is that of the old Soviet Union during the Cold War, when it habitually tried to separate Europe from the United States. Moscow warned neighboring Europeans that America would never risk its cities to keep the Red Army out of Germany. At the same time, it advised the United States simply to let Europe go and not risk its homeland for such ankle-biting ingrates.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, North Korea\u2019s patron, China, also thinks time is on the Communist side. Beijing still believes that if Pyongyang can tone down the rhetoric a bit and cut back on the missile testing, things can return to the nuclear status quo of the last decade, which serves China\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n North Korea can continue to be a passive-aggressive Chinese pit bull that diverts American time, attention, and military assets. China can still offer plausible deniability that it has any control over the rogue North Korean government.<\/p>\n Time, however, may actually be on the American side. The situation in 2018 will certainly be better than it was in 2016. Under the prior policy of \u201cstrategic patience,\u201d Washington apparently accepted having North Korean missiles pointed at the West Coast. But things are changing in several ways.<\/p>\n First, Japan, South Korea, and the United States are rushing to expand several missile-defense systems that may soon not just end North Korea\u2019s first-strike capability, but China\u2019s as well.<\/p>\n Second, there is serious talk in Japan about developing nuclear weapons. Obviously, Japanese missiles would be pointed at North Korea and China, not the United States. The world has assumed over the last 20 years that unstable regimes such as North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan would go nuclear and threaten Western democracies. The next round of proliferation is more likely to be among Western democracies themselves. A nuclear Japan (or South Korea or Taiwan) would not be in China\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n Third, there is evidence that tough new sanctions are eroding an already anemic North Korea. The U.S. economy is booming; North Korea\u2019s is collapsing. China already is preparing for a flood of refugees across the Chinese\u2013North Korean border.<\/p>\n Fourth, the United States has an array of ways to ratchet up pressure on China to force North Korea to denuclearize \u2014 ranging from tougher trade sanctions to denying visas to thousands of Chinese students and property holders.<\/p>\n Fifth, Donald Trump\u2019s approval ratings are up somewhat. And with an improving economy, the Trump administration is gaining clout at home and abroad. On foreign matters, Trump is letting subordinates such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, and CIA director Mike Pompeo do the talking. And they are lining up the world against North Korea.<\/p>\n It would be a mistake at this time to stage a preemptive attack on North Korea. Bombing the North Koreans would trigger a wider war and disrupt the world economy. But most significantly, it would be an act of desperation, not an act of confidence.<\/p>\n In the current nuclear standoff, the United States is insidiously gaining the upper hand while North Korea becomes even poorer and more isolated. The world may not recognize it, but the U.S. is slowly winning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review There have been wild reports that the United States is considering a \u201cbloody nose\u201d preemptive attack of some sort on North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal. Such rumors are unlikely to prove true. Preemptive attacks usually are based on the idea that things will so worsen that hitting first is the […]<\/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":[1163,1161,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2R3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10538,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/calculating-the-risk-of-preventive-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":10977,"position":0},"title":"Calculating The Risk Of Preventive War","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 31, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Max Boot Strategika The issue of \u201cpreemptive\u201d war is more in the news now than at any time since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The impetus, of course, is the rapid development of North Korea\u2019s nuclear and missile programs, which will soon give Pyongyang the capability to hit\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/warsavings.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10690,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/north-korea-knowns-and-unknowns\/","url_meta":{"origin":10977,"position":1},"title":"North Korea Knowns and Unknowns","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 We are in the middle, not at the end, of a long North Korean crisis. \u00a0 No one really knows all that much about North Korea\u2019s nuclear or conventional military capability or its strategic agenda. 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Imagine if there were a South Korean dictatorship that had been in power, as a client of the United States since 1953.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "China"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/china\/"},"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":10977,"position":3},"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":10716,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/who-gets-to-have-nuclear-weapons-and-why\/","url_meta":{"origin":10977,"position":4},"title":"Who Gets to Have Nuclear Weapons \u2014 and Why?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 The rules used to be controlled by two big powers, but not anymore. \u00a0 Given North Korea\u2019s nuclear lunacy, what exactly are the rules, formal or implicit, about which nations may have nuclear weapons and which may not? \u00a0 It is complicated. \u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "China"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/china\/"},"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":10977,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10977"}],"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=10977"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10992,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10977\/revisions\/10992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}