November 29, 2017

WASHINGTON — When Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declared on Tuesday that North Korea now had the missile capability to “threaten everywhere in the world, basically,” he hinted at a long-running debate inside the United States government: Can the same strategy that worked against the Soviet Union — mutually assured destruction — also work against a far smaller adversary?

The answer is yes, of course it can, if the problem is defined as keeping Pyongyang from unleashing a surprise attack on the continental United States. Or no, it probably can’t, if the problem of containing North Korea is more complex than simply protecting Los Angeles and Washington.

And with North Korea, as the past 70 years of bitter experience have repeatedly shown, almost everything is more complex.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-strategy-deterence.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront