Rice tells Americans: Live with nuclear North Korea

Echoing Barack Obama‘s foreign policy on North Korea, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice told President Donald Trump to “tolerate” a nuclear North Korea.

“History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea — the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the Cold War,” she wrote in a New York Times op-ed.

“We can never legitimize North Korea as a nuclear power,” Rice said. “It will require being pragmatic.”

Pragmatic: adj – dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations. _[1]

When facing an enemy, practicality is a factor – not a core tenet. Theorizing is required. War gaming, brain storming, outside-the-box thinking – call it what you will. To win a war, you have to contemplate the uncontemplatable and game out a strategy for it. Simply playing-it-safe and doing what has already been done gets people killed while failing to realize objectives. See: Obama’s war on terror.

Presidential administrations have exercised “strategic patience” for almost 30 years hoping to keep the communist regime from becoming a global nuclear power and in yet another instance, hope failed.

Obama’s administration tolerated the atrocities of Castro, Assad, Kim Jong-il and more. Beyond toleration, the former president awarded it, allowing it to thrive. Perhaps now some harsher rhetoric is needed to bring the hermit kingdom of North Korea to the table.

Theoretically, the American and Japanese anti-missile defense systems will keep Guam safe from Kim Jong-un’s threat to envelope the tiny island territory with fire. But, what about next time? What if North Korea sends 4 ICBM’s at Hawaii, Japan, San Francisco and Portland while just one nuclear-tipped rocket at Guam? Pragmatism says he would never do that – war gaming requires that we suppose he will. If we suppose he might, then pushing him off balance is required. The only way to do that is to do things he doesn’t expect while never letting him know what to expect.

Rice is drowning in the liberal ideology of tolerance. Similar to Neville’s “Plan for Peace” in WWII and  Denmark’s ‘Hug a Terrorist’ solution to jihadi violence in their country, she believes that if we discuss things enough, peace will magically appear. History has proven that this is not so.

Harsh rhetoric is not only necessary but overdue. Full military preparation is prudent and to use Rice’s own words – pragmatic. Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum: To prevent war, we must prepare for it.

Sources:
[1] “Pragmatic” Def.1. Merriam-WebsterDictionary.com. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Aug 2017. Web.