Elif Okan
USA and North Korea: Having MAD?
In class we talked about and questioned if Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) actually works and what the benefits to it can be. When looking into Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) a little more I found an article about North Korea and the United States. The article was written 3 weeks ago and it talked about how North Korea actually told the U.S. government that they want to establish a mutual assured destruction relationship with Washington after the two countries held informal talks shortly in January 2016 shortly after Pyongyang’s nuclear test. The article also talked about how the United States turned down North Korea's offer and said they cannot accept a deal like that. North Korea wanted the weapons pointed at both captails, Pyongyang and Washington, so they could avoid a nuclear war by having nuclear weapons with a capablility of retaliatory attacks. Also the United States' participants said that this "MAD strategy would not work like the relations between the United States and former Soviet Union during the Cold War, citing a gap in nuclear forces between the United States and North Korea." Reading this reminded me of the lecture we had in class about Mutually Assured Destruction and how it is best to have second strike capability and have the bombs pointed at cities instead of nuclear facilities so if you were attracked you would not lose your second strike capability and can fight back.
While Mutually Assured Destruction is a good stategy for countries with high levels of powers to have I agree with the article that it would not work between the United States and North Korea. Like it said, even though North Korea does have nuclear weapons, the amount they have is no where close to how much America has so Mutually Assured Destruction would not work between the United Staes and North Korea. North Korea also has their nuclear weapons illegally since the only countries allowed to have it legally is the United States, Russia, Canada, Britain, and France. There also is pretty much no other country that has the same amount of nuclear weapons as the United States but North Korea still has a lot less than the United States that would have a big effect if these two countries went to war. There is also the fact that North Korea hates the United States so North Korea cannot be trusted as well since you never know when they will turn or change their mind and break the deal. The United States also wants North Korea to be denuclearize so argeeing to Mutually Assured Destruction with North Korea would be like giving them permission to keep their nuclear weapons and saying it is okay for them to have it. Mutually Assured Destruction worked between the Soviet Union and the United States because in part they had a similar amount of weapons and because they both had too much to lose if they fired nuclear weapons at each other. While overall Mutually Assured Destruction works between most countries, I find it hard to see how it would work between the United States and North Korea.
Link for article:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/09/25/asia-pacific/politics-diplomacy-asia-pacific/north-korea-sought-mutual-assured-destruction-relationship-with-u-s-in-2016-u-s-official/#.WeZxFhiZPVp
While I understand the point Elif is making here about MAD not working between North Korea and the United States due to the different goals being desired from each side, I disagree that the capacity of nuclear weapons each country has will play a role in this. Although, I think it is important to note that North Korea has created and possess these weapons illegally as it puts the situation into a grander scheme. Sure the United States may have more nuclear weapons than North Korea (or at least this is what we think/know) but simply detonating one of these would result in disastrous consequences. Thus, I don't think this is a valid reason to say MAD wouldn't work.
ReplyDeleteI can see why you think that since it makes sense. If one nuclear weapon did go off it would make a big impact and that wouldn’t affected by how many neclear weapon other countries have and I guess would only really matter if the two countries went to war with each other and set off more than one.
Delete