Is North Korea's Nuclear Capability a Global Threat?

[Wishmaster]

I fear Iran a little more than North Korea.

 

[BobG]

What could they possible want with nukes besides to have people fear them and to use them to threatin to help them become a superpower? There is none. Now i think if they had tried getting them years ago it wouldn't be such a big deal with some of the other countrys who got them. The countrys that had nukes back then actually had reasons for them, self defense and counter-attacks. Just imagin if every country had nukes, espically a lot of these middle east ones who are constantly having civil wars, with some of the crazy leadership over there what's stoping them from shooting a missile that will demolish there enemy?

Saddam Hussein was convinced that it was Iraq's chemical weapons and threat of missiles landing in Tehran that convinced Iran not to invade Iraq at the end of the Iraq-Iran war. In fact, he was convinced it was the threat of chemical weapons that kept the US from invading Iraq at the end of the first gulf war.

Which is what helped to create the mess we're currently in. Hussein couldn't get caught with evidence of chemical weapons since he hoped to have the sanctions from the first war stopped. Then again, he couldn't let the world know for sure that he'd disposed of his weapons. Considering Iraq's position, would he really want to be banking on the UN or the US to come to his aid if Iran decided a militarily weakened Iraq with no chemical weapons made a tempting target? All things considered, we would have had to step in, but I'm not sure how confident Hussein would have been about that.

Of course, Hussein might have thought having chemical weapons would prevent the world from reacting to his invasion of Kuwait. The idea of countries making miscalculations is what really worries the world about the spread of weapons of mass destruction - especially if the world has little faith in a country's decision makers.

 

[pcorbett]

I am wondering if North Korea is able to continue their nuclear weapons program, then is another country going to then wind up being nuked?

Well, it depends. If North Korea has a nuclear device, let's say it's only deliverable by horse-drawn carriage...would you consider that a threat?