North Korea has apparently successfully tested a nuclear device.
Many things will be said about this event, but I would like to stress one of the most important lessons here – we caused this problem.
For 50 years, we have had at least 30,000 American troops stationed a few miles from North Korea. This constant antagonism caused North Korea to constantly think about war. Despite fighting to a stalemate in the 1950’s, they realized that another conventional war with the US would be very costly.
The only way to deter an American attack was to develop a nuclear weapon. This is the exact same strategy that the US used to deter a Soviet attack in the cold war. The North Koreans didn’t invent some brilliant new strategy, they just copied ours.
When we invaded Iraq, we sent a clear message to North Korea. Even though we have refrained from attacking you for 50 years, we might snap at any time – watch out, Axis of Evil, here we come. Our warmongering validated North Korea’s plan to develop nuclear weapons because their only defense is the threat that they will blow up Seoul or Tokyo.
Violence begets violence.
Like North Korea, other states will acquire nuclear weapons, if they think they need them to deter invaders. Switzerland, for example, is not spending money on nuclear weapons right now because their money is better spent on other programs. The best thing we can do to slow down nuclear proliferation is to make countries feel secure. Strategically, Iran needs a nuclear weapon to deter a war with the US and Israel. Strategically, we should be less willing to use violence to achieve our foreign policy goals.
