Read some Schelling.
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Norks' New Strategy?
- Thread starter taxi1
- Start date
Thinking we are going to preemptively attack NK now that they have nukes is even sillier than the idea they are going to preemptively nuke our allies.
Is that what this “Shelling” is arguing? I’m unfamiliar with the work that Brett mentioned. Maybe it’s worth exploring the trip wires for a preemptive strike.
Agree with your point though- and NK having nukes is nothing new. Thanks, Jimmy Carter. Set the conditions that armed an enemy nation, got a Nobel Peace prize. How ironic.
Schelling argued a great many things regarding game theory and other topics, and if any of them relate to Brett's comment that NK is ripe for a "US/Allied first strike", you'd have to ask him. There was the idea through much of the cold war and beyond that a first strike on a nuclear power isn't stupid so long as you can destroy all their capability in that strike, and I imagine that's what Brett is referring to. The problem with the idea is that you basically cannot possibly ever be certain you know where all their nukes are and that you will succeed in destroying them all in your first attempt, and if you're wrong, the consequences are horrendous.
Yep, basically the same logic as the old MAD deterrence. Nukes become more of a "take me seriously" play than something that is actually likely to get used... at least in the near term. Long-term, it's hard to know who will come into power, or how long it'll be before someone loses control of a nuke to a 3rd party that has no qualms in using it.
This is a really good book. Weak on the love poems, thick with rationality. Written for non-academics too.
GroundPounder
Well-Known Member
The audio book is better, Apu needed a job after losing the Simpson's gig.
Thank you, Come again.
Doing the Chutney Slurpy has multiple meanings.
That's why there's such a thing as probability and risk management. If the probability is higher that they will use the nukes first than the probability that we will be unsuccessful in eliminating all of their nukes in a preemptive strike, it might make sense to do so.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes....
Clearly there is a difference being a nuclear armed country and being a nuclear power. North Korea simply doesn’t have a technical capacity to threaten anyone beyond Japan (still a terrible thought) but we are acting as if the allies in the region can then only sit back and watch that ICBM pass through the sky. There are robust defenses and an American response (even a conventional one) will make a second try far more difficult. If North Korea’s “new” strategy is to stop being North Korea, this is the way to do it.
Do they really have any paranoia of the West? I really wonder if it's all just an act and they take pride in scaring the beejeezus out of the Big Powerful United States. The thing is, that family has managed to hold power there for decades, so far through three people. You don't hold power like that by being irrational.
Everything the Norks do is irrational.
I don't recall making that recommendation. I'll amend my previous post though as follows:
Read some Schelling in a form that doesn't come from Wikipedia. This is a serious recommendation. Everyone with a military or IR nexus should be familiar with this material.
Or carefully calculated to appear as such.