Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
North Korea will continue its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and the U.S. cannot count on China to apply sufficient pressure to deter the growing threat, experts told a Senate panel Tuesday.
Also, a U.S. military strike on Pyongyang would pose huge risks for the U.S., South Korea and other allies in the region, and the outlook for regime change is grim even if economic incentives were offered.
"The challenges emanating from North Korea are obviously real, dangerous and in the near term," Ashley Tellis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace testified to at full Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about policy and strategy in the Asia-Pacific region.
Tellis added, "The challenges emanating from China are long term, enduring and aimed fundamentally at decoupling the United States from its Asian partners."
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/25/ex-pe...-unlikely.html
So my question would be what if they do develop an nuclear ICBM? What actually changes? It wouldn't be the first nation to do so. Would it really be so destabilizing that it must be avoided even a the risk of thousands or millions of lives?
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I certainly don't have anything close to a definitive answer, but I think the biggest destabilizing element is that it creates a situation where the US and its Pacific allies are going to need to aggressively pursue anti-ICBM system deployment... both boost and ascent-phase missile defense in the west pacific, and midcourse defense in Alaska. This could make China feel that their own nuclear missile system is no longer acceptable as a deterrent against US nuclear strikes (combined with the US also exploring tactical nukes), and that could spark a new nuclear arms and missile defense race between the US and China.