Krauthammer on Nuclear Detterence

Charles Krauthammer has a pretty good article in the Washington Post.  I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he has to say:

Everyone has tried to figure out how to disarm North Korea. It will not happen. Kim Jong Il is not going to give up his nukes. The only way to disarm the regime is to destroy it. China could do that with sanctions but will not. The United States could do that with a second Korean War but will not either.

So we are back to deterrence. Hence the familiar echoes of the Cuban missile crisis with North Korea’s rude entry into the nuclear club this week. The United States had to immediately put down markers for deterrence. President Bush put down two.

Detterence as Krauthammer notes President Bush is already put in place by reaffirming the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea and Japan.  So what does Krauthammer reccomend to deter North Korean proliferation to terrorist groups?:

A good first draft, but it could use some Kennedyesque clarity. The phrase “fully accountable” does not exactly instill fear, as it has been used promiscuously by several administrations in warnings to both terrorists and rogue states — after which we did absolutely nothing. A better formulation would be the following:

Given the fact that there is no other nuclear power so recklessly in violation of its nuclear obligations, it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any detonation of a nuclear explosive on the United States or its allies as an attack by North Korea on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon North Korea.

This is how you keep Kim Jong Il from proliferating. Make him understand that his survival would be hostage to the actions of whatever terrorist group he sold his weapons to. Any terrorist detonation would be assumed to have his address on it. The United States would then return postage. Automaticity of this kind concentrates the mind.

However, Krauthammer notes one problem with this policy:

This policy has a hitch, however. It works only in a world where there is but a single rogue nuclear state. Once that club expands to two, the policy evaporates, because a nuclear terror attack would no longer have a single automatic return address.

Which is another reason why keeping Iran from going nuclear is so important. With North Korea there is no going back. But Iran is not there yet. One rogue country is tolerable because it can be held accountable. Two rogue countries guarantees undeterrable and therefore inevitable nuclear terrorism.

I disagree with this part of Krauthammer’s article because I think even if Iran does go nuclear you can still hold both countries accountable by making it very clear that any nuclear attack by terrorists on US soil will mean both Iran and North Korea will instantly be turned into glowing parking lots regardless of which country is responsible for it.   This policy of dual deterence may actually have the effect of Iran making sure themselves that no terrorist groups are trying to purchase nuclear material from North Korea in order to not be attacked themselves by the United States.

If a nuclear terrorist attack occurs in the United States with hundreds of thousands of casualties, no matter what the UN, France, China, Russia, Amnesty International, or anyone else says there is going to be massive nuclear retaliation from the US because much like after 9-11, no one in the US besides a peacenik like Dennis Kucinich, would try and stop the massive retaliation from taking place against these rogue regimes.

I have to give big props to Krauthammer though for writing a good article that does not descend into the recent Washington blame game cycle of the blame Bush/blame Clinton garbage because none of it is helpful and doesn’t do anything to solve the North Korean issue.  Krauthammer also provides solid policy advice instead of falling back on the well used cliches of “we need to work with allies in the region^TM” garbage that many pundits and politicians keep repeating as if that isn’t already going on.  You have to look really long and hard in the media today to find solid journalism anymore and Krauthammer is one of the few.