ON MONDAY, the United States confirmed that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea detonated a nuclear device in last week's underground test. While almost certainly not a complete success, North Korea's near completion of this part of a nuclear weapons program, combined with the summer's (failed) test of a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead makes the international community nervous, and justifiably so. North Korea's neighbors, the Republic of Korea and Japan, have taken a hard line against North Korea, a stance understandable given its proclivity for launching missiles over and near Japan and its past tensions with South Korea. After the test, President Bush "reaffirmed to our allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan, that the United States will meet the full range of our deterrent and security commitments." The full range of our deterrent capabilities necessarily includes nuclear weapons, a singularly distasteful but effective option. Should North Korea flex its nuclear muscles and launch a nuclear attack on America or its allies, the United States must at least strongly consider firing back in kind, otherwise our own deterrent becomes useless.
Let us theoretically say that North Korea launches a missile at San Francisco, Seoul or Tokyo. The knee-jerk reaction is to fire a flurry of nuclear missiles right back with all the moral fervor America can muster. And in doing so it would by justified. However, sticky ethical questions arise over whether the United States can fire missiles at a people suppressed by a dictator. North Korea is a dictatorship and has been so for many years. It has an extremely poor economy and has had 11 straight years of food shortages. Its people suffer from malnutrition and it depends on grain shipments from other countries to feed itself (over 350,000 tons per year). One finds it difficult to imagine that the people of a country in such dire straits over such a vital substance can genuinely support their leadership. So, can the United States use a nuclear weapon on North Korea and kill thousands of people who are barely hanging on?
Although unpleasant, in reality the United States can and must do so. Clearly we cannot strike first with nuclear weapons, especially as long as those possessed by North Korea malfunction regularly.To do so would provoke an international outcry that would far exceed that which followed the invasion of Iraq. To fail in reacting to a nuclear attack in kind, however, would send a clear message to the renegade regimes of the world that they can continue to hide amongst innocents and expect the United States to cushion its return blow out of consideration for the very citizens they treat so poorly.
Certainly the United States holds itself to a higher standard, avoiding civilian casualties and stigmatizing those who inflict them. But at the nuclear level, the whole world must play by the same rules.A unrestrained attack on our people or our allies must be met with the full power of our arsenal or else it becomes worthless.
Despite the moral stigma surrounding the use of nuclear weapons, they have been an ace in the United States' hand for the last 50 years and are not one that should be tossed away lightly. Again, assuming theoretically that North Korea chose to use a nuclear weapon, if the United States failed to use one in response it would completely undermine the deterrence factor of its nuclear stockpile. That would mean telling dictators that have a permanent get-out-of-jail free card in their people. If America failed to use nuclear weapons on one dictatorial regime, who's to say it will use it on another? That would mean that nuclear weapons are only legitimately used against democracy. And when is the United States ever going to fight a legitimate democracy? Probably never. Thus, a failure to use nuclear weapons when attacked by them would mean telling the world that a renegade country that chooses to use nuclear weapons will only be prosecuted via a conventional war, which is always a crapshoot, especially in invading (witness, Iraq). Therefore, no matter how unseemly it is, America needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons, should the North Korea situation escalate into a shooting war or risk losing the most powerful deterrent force we possess and exposing ourselves to future threats.
Robby Colby's column usually appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at rcolby@cavalierdaily.com.
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