North Korea is very dangerous, unfinished business.

 I see North Korea as being very dangerous, unfinished business, because of our decision to accept a draw in the Korean War, back in 1953.  The current government in Pyong Yang is a direct successor to the government that controlled that state more than half a century ago and it is a staunch enemy of everything that this country stands for.  I do not here intend to try to refight the Korean War, but I regard our decision to accept a truce as being very unfortunate, even though it probably saved my life.  Today, Pyongyang is cooperating with Moscow in fighting the war in Ukraine, and, as a reward, is receiving assistance in developing its nuclear capability.  A capability that is aimed at this country.

North Korean troops in Ukraine are a serious escalation of that ridiculous conflict, but the most dangerous part of it, in my mind, is the payback that Pyongyang is receiving from Russia because it threatens the American heartland.  The Kim family is dedicated to redressing the division of Korea into two nation states and it is willing to go to war to achieve reunification of the Korean peninsula under Pyongyang’s control.  Americans alive today do not remember how bad the Korean War was, but over two million people died in it and nearly half a million Chinese were among the dead and wounded.  Beijing is very definitely part of the Korean enigma and the problem is metastasizing as Teheran joins the anti-American axis that is emerging.  Here, in this country, the Biden/Harris Administration basically ignores the issue, while Trump seeks to address it by restoring the American military’s waning capability to defend against it.

Given the Hobson choice between Trump and Harris, I obviously choose Trump, but I also believe that this country has to move well beyond the shortsighted Trump doctrine of America First.  I accept that we must maintain a military capability that is superior to any other on earth, but I do not believe that a strong military is, by itself, adequate to defend ourselves from some idiot, like one of the Kim family, deciding to use nuclear weapons.  Mutual deterrence is all fine and good as long as the various potential contenders are rational.  I suggest that there are far too many flash points around the globe that involve unstable leaders with their fingers on buttons that lead directly to nuclear war.  Some of them are even apocalyptic in their thinking and might well see nuclear war as being necessary to cleanse the earth.  Were I in a position to influence policy, I would reestablish military dominance and simultaneously initiate economic policies that expressed more real concern for the standard of living of all humans.

I am jaundiced enough to believe that you and I are too shortsighted to do the necessary, and I see that as being stupid.  My fellow American's refuse to accept that we are stupid, so we will eventually slide into another conflict and this time it might very well involve a nuclear exchange that changes the world under our feet and the air that we breath.  At that point in time, the sign on the bathroom door probably won't seem as important as it does now.