タグ: Cruise missile attack

                             by David Parmer / Tokyo

The media is full of reports that the US is seriously considering a limited attack on North Korea known as a “bloody nose” strike.

The thinking is that the US would attack the DPRK, a sovereign country with which it is not at war, and that this attack would somehow make Kim Jong-un come to his senses, abandon his nuclear ambitions and head to the negotiating table pronto.

Factored in to the thinking is apparently the assumption that Kim and his regime want most of all to survive and continue in power, and for this reason they would not launch a massive nuclear, biological, cyber or conventional attack against the US and its South Korean and Japanese friends.

Clearly, Kim would have to make some kind of military response to save face. He could very easily attack US forces in South Korea paricularly Camp Humphreys a base 60 miles from Seoul that has about 28,000 US military personnell. Such an attack would cause massive Americian casualties. This would certainly be seen as a 9/11 moment, and give the Trump administration carte blanche to pursue a wider war.

A US strike would propably be a cruise missle strike on Kim’s rocket testing and launch facilities in an effort to set back the clock on his nuclear program. Would this work? Probably not. Putting aside Korean pride for a moment, there is still the concept of juche, or self-relaiance, a revolutionary ideal put forward by DPRK founder, Kim Il-sung. This ideal of standing alone in the face of adversity no matter how grave should give an excellent indicator of the stubborn and uncompromising response from the Kim regime. There would be no heading to the negotiating table.

Will this “bloody nose” work as a threat or as an actual military operation? What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

Photo: John Pavelka via flickr