Trump Considers “Bloody Nose” Strike On North Korea
By Peter Symonds
February 07, 2018 "Information
Clearing House"
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The
Trump administration, or a powerful
military-intelligence faction within it, is
pushing for a pre-emptive military strike on
North Korea, in the wake of, or possibly
even during, the Winter Olympics due to
start in South Korea on Friday.
The “bloody nose” option—a limited attack on
the North Korean nuclear missile arsenal and
infrastructure—is supposed to overawe the
Pyongyang regime and bully it into
surrendering to Washington’s demands to
denuclearise.
Unprovoked US aggression, however, would
almost certainly trigger retaliation, rather
than submission, with incalculable
consequences. Even if nuclear weapons were
not immediately used, the death toll in
South Korea alone is estimated in the tens
of thousands on the first day, in a conflict
that could rapidly draw in nuclear-armed
powers such as China and Russia.
Yet, such an act of recklessness and
savagery is precisely what is being
discussed, debated and prepared in the upper
echelons of the White House and the US
security-intelligence apparatus. Within top
military-foreign policy circles, the
advanced nature of the plans is so well
known that it is generating fears and
opposition.
Last week, the Trump administration abruptly
dumped its appointee for US ambassador to
South Korea, Victor Cha, after he voiced
opposition to a pre-emptive strike on North
Korea. Cha subsequently went public, penning
a comment in the Washington Post in which he
warned that a US attack would put 230,000
Americans in South Korea at risk—equivalent
to a medium-sized city like Pittsburgh or
Cincinnati.
A letter to Trump last Friday signed by 18
Democratic senators, including Martin
Heinrich, who sits on the Senate Armed
Services Committee, expressed concern that
Cha had been passed over. It declared that
to take military action before exhausting
diplomatic options would be not only
“extremely irresponsible” but would lack
“either a Constitutional basis or legal
authority.”
The letter warned that “it is an enormous
gamble to believe that a particular type of
limited, pre-emptive strike will not be met
with an escalatory response from [North
Korean leader] Kim Jong-un.” It pointed out
that each of the expert witnesses to a
January 30 hearing of the Senate Armed
Services Committee “believed that a ‘bloody
nose’ strategy carried extreme risks.”
The Democrats’ letter, far from expressing
genuine opposition to war, is part of the
intense debate raging within the US
political establishment over whether Russia
or China represents the greater immediate
danger. The escalating campaign against
Trump over alleged collusion with Russia
during the 2016 presidential race is aimed
at placing Moscow first in the cross-hairs,
rather than North Korea and China.
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The
bitter political infighting over foreign
policy is compounding the instability of the
Trump administration, which is confronting a
worsening economic crisis, share market
volatility and mounting working class
resistance to deteriorating living
standards. Far from this making war less
likely, Trump could launch a military attack
on North Korea in a desperate attempt to
turn these acute political and social
tensions outward against an external enemy.
Trump has warned repeatedly that time is
running out to resolve the confrontation
with North Korea peacefully. As he met with
North Korean defectors in the White House
last Friday—itself a provocation that
undermines a peaceful resolution—Trump again
blamed previous administrations for failing
to confront North Korea and bluntly
declared: “We have no road left.”
Vice-President Mike Pence is currently
heading to South Korea for the Winter
Olympics, but will use his trip to tour US
anti-ballistic missile bases in Alaska and
hold talks with Japanese and South Korean
leaders. A White House official made clear
that Pence’s brief was to ensure there would
be no easing of the US campaign of “maximum
pressure” on North Korea. “We’ve seen it all
before,” the official said, “charm
offensives by the North that lead to a
period of fruitless talks that bought more
time for the North.”
Following the Olympics, the US and South
Korea will proceed with massive joint war
games known as Foal Eagle and Key Resolve,
which were temporarily delayed. Last year’s
exercises involved more than 300,000 troops,
along with a substantial naval presence and
the most advanced American warplanes, in a
thinly disguised rehearsal for war with
North Korea. The Pentagon also recently
stationed nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2
strategic bombers on Guam within easy
striking distance of the Korean Peninsula.
As Victor Cha hinted in his Washington Post
comment, a “bloody nose” strike is not the
only military option under consideration.
“There is a forceful military option
available that can address the [North
Korean] threat without escalating into a war
that would likely kill tens, if not
hundreds, of thousands of Americans,” he
wrote. The only military alternative to a
limited attack is an all-out assault with
nuclear and/or conventional weapons that
would obliterate North Korea’s capacity to
retaliate.
While couched in defensive terms, the Trump
administration’s Nuclear Posture Review,
released last Friday, foreshadows exactly
such an attack. Any North Korean nuclear
attack on the US or its allies, it states,
“is unacceptable and will result in the end
of that regime. There is no scenario in
which the Kim regime could employ nuclear
weapons and survive.”
The danger that a mistake or miscalculation
could lead to Trump ordering the “total
destruction” of North Korea is underscored
by last month’s false alarm on Hawaii of an
incoming nuclear missile. Moreover, US
imperialism has a long history of concocting
events to justify war—such as the 1964 Gulf
of Tonkin incident that was used as the
pretext for direct American military
intervention in Vietnam.
Any pre-emptive US military strike on North
Korea would send shock waves around the
world and provoke an outpouring of anti-war
sentiment. But opposition to war, which is
already widespread, must be galvanised into
a unified movement of the international
working class on the basis of a socialist
program directed against the root cause of
war—the capitalist system.
This article was originally published by "WSWS" -
© 1998-2018 World Socialist Web Site
- See Also -
North Korea: US planning 'bloody nose' first strike
US threatens N. Korea with sanctions & force, but war could claim 1mn lives
Kissinger Says Chance For ‘Pre-Emptive Attack Is Strong’ On North Korea
Mattis Cites Kissinger to Call for New Nukes
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