A must-read from Charles Krauthammer: “Across 25 years and five administrations, we have kicked the North Korean can down the road. We are now out of road.”
War is almost unthinkable, given the proximity of the Demilitarized Zone to the 10 million people of Seoul. A mere conventional war would be devastating. And could rapidly go nuclear.
Acquiescence is not unthinkable. After all, we did it when China went nuclear under Mao Zedong, whose regime promptly went insane under the Cultural Revolution.
The hope for a third alternative, getting China to do the dirty work, is mostly wishful thinking. There’s talk of imposing sanctions on other Chinese banks. Will that really change China’s strategic thinking? Bourgeois democracies believe that economics supersedes geostrategy. Maybe for us. But for dictatorships? Rarely.
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