Douglas Murray
programme. In particular they have been test-firing rockets that would count as what are called ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). This matters to the USA because if North Korea develops this technology, then they could soon be able to threaten the western seaboard of the USA. Down the line they could even threaten Britain.
To slow down North Korea’s weapons race the US government recently successfully lobbied China – perhaps the only country with any leverage over the isolated state of North Korea.
As a result further sanctions were imposed by the UN on the already sanctions-ridden North Koreans. This is what has led to this extraordinary escalation.
First the North Koreans announced that they would revenge themselves “a thousand fold” for the new UN sanctions.
In response, instead of a pro forma “We have grave concerns etc etc” the US President on Wednesday pledged “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if North Korea continues to threaten his country.
Immediately the North Koreans let it be known that they are considering carrying out missile strikes against US military facilities on the Pacific territory of Guam. This has escalated very fast.
In reality the North Koreans have been at this pitch of threat and rhetoric for 64 years now. What is different is the rhetoric coming out of Washington.
To be fair President Trump is right to make some stand against Pyongyang. It is inconceivable that an American president could allow a rogue regime to weaponise ICBMs in a way that allowed it to threaten major cities such as Los Angeles with nuclear annihilation. But the options once the words run out are hideous.
Sanctions upon sanctions, going back decades, have not prevented North Korea from getting as close as they already have to nuclear technology. And there is a diminishing amount of hope that sanctions alone will prevent Pyongyang from one day achieving the relevant technology to go further. And all the military options are appalling.
America could at some stage aim to bomb major military targets in North Korea but it is inevitable that if they did so Pyongyang would retaliate.
THE most likely place for them to aim their own firepower would be Seoul – the capital of South Korea which Pyongyang sees as a proxy for America. But if Pyongyang attacked Seoul then Pyongyang would be flattened even more thoroughly than it was in the early 1950s. And then the world would have a problem on its hands that would make the Middle East look straightforward.
Twenty-five million brainwashed North Koreans would not necessarily view America or the South as friends, let alone liberators.
This is why President Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson among others is calling for calm and stressing that there is no “imminent threat”.
Perhaps he can play good cop-bad cop with his boss towards the rogue regime. In the meantime the world must hope that this war of words does not move to the next, terrifying, stage.
If it does, then there is no way that Britain – or any other country in the world – would be able to avoid the fallout.
‘All the military options are appalling’