Interesting viewpoint

[Perinquus]

But one thing changes the situation, and it's a factor you seem to be overlooking. In the modern, post nuclear age, a country simply need no longer be a world superpower to be capable of inflicting catastrophic damage. North Korea is as economically poor and wretched a country as there is today. The common people of that country exist at subsistence level. the country cannot even meet its own needs agriculturally or in terms of electrical power. It has to buy or borrow these things from China. Yet the country powerful militarily out of all proprtion to its size or economy, at least for the short term (it's economic situation is such that it coudn't sustain a protracted conflict). And if it completes its nuclear program, it will become one of the most dangerous countries on earth - prohibitively expensive even for a superpower like the U.S. to attack. This level of power was not possible for a poor country to attain in the pre-nuclear age. It is possible now. And this is the reason people today regard nations like Saddam's Iraq as a terrible threat.

Nukes do make a nation capable of inflicting massive damage, and N Korea's millitary may be somewhat difficult to get at, but for all that even N Korea cannot defeat the US or even S Korea, so while they are a problem they are not in any way a threat to civillisation.

Again, you are ignoring a crucial difference. No, they cannot defeat the U.S. (though they may not realize this, Japan couldn't defeat the U.S. and Germany couldn't dfeat the U.S.S.R. - aggressors are not always the most rational thinkers). But they don't have to. Terrorists can't defeat the U.S. either. They don't care. For them, it is enough to inflict enormous damage and create mass casualty incidents. Terrorist supporting nations can't defeat a superpower militarily. They can, however, inflict massive damage on one - the kind of damage that would have been utterly impossible for a small, poor nation to inflict before nuclear weapons. It would have been inconceivable that a nation like Iraq or North Korea could be capable of killing tens of thousands of Americans half a century ago. Today, they could easily do it if they could obtain a nuclear device and smuggle it into the United States. I would say such nations certainly are a high level threat.

[Stuart Mackey]

But one thing changes the situation, and it's a factor you seem to be overlooking. In the modern, post nuclear age, a country simply need no longer be a world superpower to be capable of inflicting catastrophic damage. North Korea is as economically poor and wretched a country as there is today. The common people of that country exist at subsistence level. the country cannot even meet its own needs agriculturally or in terms of electrical power. It has to buy or borrow these things from China. Yet the country powerful militarily out of all proprtion to its size or economy, at least for the short term (it's economic situation is such that it coudn't sustain a protracted conflict). And if it completes its nuclear program, it will become one of the most dangerous countries on earth - prohibitively expensive even for a superpower like the U.S. to attack. This level of power was not possible for a poor country to attain in the pre-nuclear age. It is possible now. And this is the reason people today regard nations like Saddam's Iraq as a terrible threat.

Nukes do make a nation capable of inflicting massive damage, and N Korea's millitary may be somewhat difficult to get at, but for all that even N Korea cannot defeat the US or even S Korea, so while they are a problem they are not in any way a threat to civillisation.

Again, you are ignoring a crucial difference. No, they cannot defeat the U.S. (though they may not realize this, Japan couldn't defeat the U.S. and Germany couldn't dfeat the U.S.S.R. - aggressors are not always the most rational thinkers). But they don't have to. Terrorists can't defeat the U.S. either. They don't care. For them, it is enough to inflict enormous damage and create mass casualty incidents. Terrorist supporting nations can't defeat a superpower militarily. They can, however, inflict massive damage on one - the kind of damage that would have been utterly impossible for a small, poor nation to inflict before nuclear weapons. It would have been inconceivable that a nation like Iraq or North Korea could be capable of killing tens of thousands of Americans half a century ago. Today, they could easily do it if they could obtain a nuclear device and smuggle it into the United States. I would say such nations certainly are a high level threat.

Thats nice..but it does not make them the next Hitler or Joe Stalin. Saddam was made oput to be the next greatest threat to the world and he was not. NK may gain a small nuclear ability, but I would suggest that the enevitable retaliation for their use would be known to NK as well. Are such nations a threat? yes, but they are not even remotly in the same league as the Nazi's or the Soviets ever were.