Pre-emptive talk on pre-emptive North Korea strikes

Any discussion of a potential US pre-emptive strike should also include long-term implications

Articles discussing pre-emptive strikes on North Korea are now everywhere. Based on a small number of in-depth analytical studies, they detail military challenges, human costs and likely outcomes. While those articles prepare us for the short term, they ignore the potential long-term strategic change that would result from a conflict on the Korean peninsula.

We’ve seen this before in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Articles discussed the military challenges, human costs and likely outcomes. But the conflict ultimately upset the delicate regional balance of power and led to an outbreak of suppressed identity conflicts, dispersion of military know-how, and an uncontrolled spread in disruptive ideologies. Those effects weren’t unforeseen, but rather ignored in the rush to war.

Before anything happens in Korea, we should be aware of the speculative long-term strategic implications of a pre-emptive strike.

First, conflict on the Korean peninsula could result in a momentous change…