Who are those that are far more of a threat that own nuclear weapons?
Russia and China? Both are capable of giving the US military an actual run for their money, as opposed to North Korea who are mostly stuck with tech from the 80s or earlier.
North Korea doesn't really threaten the US. At most, they'd get a missile or two through. Russia and China could potentially do far more damage if they so chose, and neither of them are exactly allies with the US. They will cooperate when it's in their interests only.
We and the world at large don't agree with them illegally having WMD.
Nobody agrees with anybody having WMD, except we've sort of ended up at this place where it's deemed OK for those that already have them to keep them (US, Russia, Britain), and if someone develops them it's OK if they're a large enough threat that actually doing anything about it would be tough (France, India, China, Pakistan, Israel).
Also, there's not really any such thing as illegal on the international level. "Illegal" is determined by the victors. There are various conventions on how war and weapons should be treated, but these are really no more than gentleman's agreements to limit the use of certain tactics or weapons.
And their openness to use them, they've agreed to international talks, agreements and the gauntlet and time and time again have broken them all, in a quest for nuclear weapons.
Yes, and the stories of those talks are rather more complicated than "North Korea keeps violating our earnestly offered olive branches".
MAD theory as I said last time has essentially made China and Russia and the U.S. think multiple times before pointing nuclear weapons at each other.
Yes, and why does MAD work? Because all parties present a
credible threat. MAD doesn't work if you believe that the other party won't actually use their weapons.
Russia and the U.S. also have an proliferation agreement to decrease weapons as well as the NTI reporting that nuclear weapon amount had decreased between the known nuclear nations.
And Mr. Trump has espoused the opinion that he'd like to increase the US nuclear arsenal. I wonder how that will go down with the other nuclear powers?
Once again there is a deeper argument to be had on the ownership of such armament, and the reason they (N.Korea) are in this situation, is because it is internationally agreed, that outside of those who have them no other nations should. And for good reason, as I said before.
Why should those who have them be allowed to keep them? The arguments I've heard amount to either "just cause" or "it would be to difficult to enforce removal". Which are both fair points, but hardly good reasons. I mean, there was nowhere near this much fuss over Israel becoming a nuclear power, and they're actually in a shooting war with another state.
I often get the impression that the rules that are applied to NK are not the same rules that apply to other states. Probably simply because they're the "bad guy", which means that they happened to be on the wrong side of a geographical line back when the powers that be divided Korea in half.
I honestly don't see anything worse about NK having defensive nukes than anyone else. I don't like it, but I don't like anyone having nukes. I figure if America and Russia and China are allowed nukes, so is anyone else. To try and claim otherwise is just the big kids trying desperately to maintain their military stranglehold on the world, because a nuke is only really useful if your enemy doesn't have one to fire back.
Fair play to them for trying, but I'm a little more equal minded than that. I don't think little countries should be forced to kowtow to bigger ones simply because they didn't exist at the start of the nuclear game. If NK and Iran and whoever else want into the nuclear power club I say the more the merrier. And maybe everyone will realise that actually
no one should have these things before we all destroy ourselves.
So I'm troubled when you make a parallel yet again that this is akin to Nazi Germany invading Poland. As an American and someone critical of my gov't foreign policy since JFK and further, when others suggest that said gov't is looking to start WW3 it's a concerning quip that is either hyper critical of a situation or ignorant. And I know you're not ignorant on the topic.
No, I'm not. And I'm well aware that NK could be the spot that the US and either China or Russia or both use to start a proxy war that could very easily become a real war. A real war that because of various treaties and alliances could very quickly involve a significant portion of the world's militaries.
Let's be honest, North Korea in and of itself isn't scary or a significant threat. It's a tiny country with outdated hardware that could draw blood but would be crushed very quickly were it to come to open warfare. NK is only a threat because nobody really knows to what extent NK could also include the militaries of Russia or China, which
are a (potential) threat. And if Russia or China go to war with the US, that's potentially a really big deal.
I'm not trying to compare America to Nazi Germany. I'm simply pointing out that the wrong small military action can turn into a world war. NK could be that military action for the US, the one where Russia and China say "the US is striking this country right on our borders, this is unacceptable".
However I do think that the US military is very large and a significant portion of the US economy. If it shrinks, that has problematic effects for America. I do think that the government is aware of this, and I do think that they take it into account when determining when and where they should enter into conflicts. It's very hard to maintain a large military if it's never used, quite apart from the fact that green soldiers and officers are a lot less useful than ones with some experience.
