trevster2k said:
Why isn't the US invading North Korea since they are an obviously greater threat to the so-called national security of the United States than Iraq was?
North Korea is a very different situation from Saddam's Iraq and a far less threatening one for many reasons.
1. US policy against Saddam's Iraq, from the 1991 Ceacefire agreement to UN Security Council Resolutions, the embargo, sanctions, no fly zones, and the general criteria for further military action are heavily based on Saddam's prior actions which stand in stark contrast to North Korea's.
From 1980 through March 1991, Saddam launched four different unprovoked invasions and attacks on other countries in the region. Saddam's actions in 1990 threatened the majority of the planets energy supply with siezure or sabotage which, if it had been don, could have potentially thrown the planet into the worst economic depression in its history with unpredictable consequences. In addition, Saddam had used WMD more times than any leader in history on the battlefield. This behavior combined with his failure to verifiably disarm of all WMD as well as the crumbling of the containment regime, made regime change a necessity.
In contrast North Korea has not invaded or attacked another country in over half a century! They have no record of major use of WMD on the battlefield or against other countries. On an international level, North Korea has been as cooperative as any other country in the nuclear club with regard to unprovoked invasions of other countries for the past half century. North Korea is also not in close proximity to a majority of the planets energy supply and has no ability to really influence the energy market, at least no in the disasterous way Saddam could have.
North Korea does have Nuclear Weapons and missiles to deliver them, as well as other WMD capabilities, but what makes this issue so much less threatening is their behavior in contrast to Saddams. While not a perfect comparison, remember that no one loses sleep over the fact that the French Nuclear Submarine force could wipe out North America in about 30 minutes. Indeed a very threatening capability, but the behavior of the France is not threatening which is why this is not an issue. Its not enough to have the capability, ones actions and behavior are the key issue in regards to the level of threat and the need to take action.
This is definitely not to say that North Korea should be looked at the same way a country like France is, but simply to emphasize the major differences in the threat level and the potential need for military action.
So, the threat posed by North Korea does not come close to justifying a military response like the threat that the Saddam posed. Plus, any military response to North Korea would have to contend with issues not found anywhere else in the world.
For the past 5 decades, North Korea has built the large collection of conventional artillery into the mountains above Seoul South Korea. In the event of any sort of military action, the North Koreans have the capability to shell Seoul South Korea with thousands of artillery pieces since Seoul South Korea is close enough to the border to be in range of this artillery. Over a period of several hours, North Korea could hit Seoul with hundreds of thousands of conventional artillery shells killing tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Seoul South Korea which is densly populated with over 10 million people in the metropolitan area.
This situation has existed for several decades now and was the chief reason the Clinton administration would not really consider military action in 1994 when North Korea got its first nuclear weapons. Imagine the above senerio with the Artillery if the shells were filled with sarin gas. Plus, now that North Korea has several Nuclear weapons with ballistic missiles that can hit places hundreds or thousands of miles away, the North Koreans now have the ability to inflict mass casualties on cities further south than Seoul, plus any of the cities in Japan. Imagine the detination of a nuclear weapon over Tokyo with its population of 30 million people.
North Korea does have powerful and unique capabilities to inflict damage in the event of any military conflict. Attempting to strike or either invade the country could result in the immediate use of such capabilities that would cause massive loss of life, hundreds of thousands if not millions with in the first week of war. But they have never used any WMD before and have not invaded another country since 1950. Because of their past behavior, they were a far less threatening problem than Saddam despite their capabilities. In raw terms, as France and the United Kingdom demonstrate, capabilities are far from being enough to consider a country a hostile threat. Most significant is the behavior of the country, and North Korea's behavior since 1953 when compared to Saddam's behavior is like comparing a mouse to a lion, especially in terms of invading and attacking other countries and the use of WMD against other countries.