The US has no half-way plans, "no bloody nose strategy." It is all-out or nothing. From the US Naval Institute NEWS: A so-called “bloody nose strategy” calls for a limited strike against a North Korean target as a military demonstration to cow leaders in Pyongyang after a nuclear or missile test. “We have no bloody nose strategy. I don’t know what that is,” Adm. Harry Harris told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday in response to a question from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
“I am charged by the national command authority of developing a range of options through the spectrum of violence, and I’m ready to execute whatever the president and the national command authority directs me to do, but a bloody nose strategy is not being contemplated.” https://news.usni.org/2018/03/15/pacom-harris-north-korea-no-bloody-nose-strategy
That article has supporting links to eariler news stories from CNN and WSJ. We are all fully cognizant of the historical precedent that appeasing Hitler did not prevent World War II; and it would have been easiest of all to stop Germany when they moved into the Rheinland, if not at Munich over the Sudentenland in Czechoslovakia, or the Anschluss of Austria. It only got more costly, ultimately destroying the continent. Or... alternately, should the UK and France not declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland? And what of the American response? Was it necessary to go to war in Europe and the Pacific? Where were the interests of the United States? Japan did not unilaterally attack the United States. It is also famous that Gen. Billy Mitchell said during the 1922 Naval Summit that war between the US and Japan in the Pacific was inevitable. Note, also, that Henry Luce and others supported China in East Asia, thus pitting the US against Japan in that theater. But China was hardly a democracy. Chiang Kai-shek attempted liaisons with Hitler and in fact hired Italian aviators to train his air force. That disaster led Mme Chiang to come to America to hire the group that came to be The Flying Tigers. Note, also, that unlike the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the Flying Tigers had the support of the presidential administration. My point above is that those historical precedents may or may not inform a policy toward North Korea. I believe that horrific as North Korea is for the people living there, that government's pursuit of nuclear weapons is a defensive strategy, not an offensive plan. I believe that trade and commerce go a long way toward establishing national security. I grant that the "problem of the mad man" (Hitler) warns that being nice does not always work. Yet, American culture dominates the world, not by force of arms, but by offering value for value. "Farm Aid Concerts" may not do anything to prevent or solve problems like Northern Ireland and Palestine. On the other hand, Bruce Springsteen's concert in East Berlin (see here and find others) was a harbinger of the triumph of freedom where force of arms had only created a stalemate. (Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 3/16, 5:03am)
| 
