One-Third of U.S. Supports Nuclear War on North Korea, Knowing It Would Kill One Million, Report Shows

Vladimir Tikhonov
orStepdsonh83uu22ff76ifc877hf0g885g22uhl14700u6ftta29t7gim9f ·



Racism kills. I see it as a consequence of long-term war-mongering and threat-mongering, but also as a final product of long-present, structural racism - this idea that "Asian" life is somewhat cheaper and that obliterating an "Asian" country "preventively" is a tolerable modus operandi.



Tae Yang Kwak
orStepdsonh83u9J2ff76ifc 2 nfeg885g22uhl14500u6ftta29t0gimu1 ·

#ThisIsAmerica #America: Can Americans be trusted with nuclear weapons?
#OrientalLives: "One-third of the United States population would support a preemptive attack on North Korea, even in a nuclear scenario, knowing it would kill one million innocent people, according to a recent survey.
"The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in collaboration with U.K.-based research firm YouGov, published a new study Monday detailing U.S. public opinion on military conflict with North Korea at a time when the pace of a historic peace process between the longtime rivals appeared to slow. Among the most 'disturbing' results discovered was that 'a large hawkish minority lurks within the U.S. public; over a third of respondents approve of a US preventive strike across the scenarios and appear insensitive to informational cues that most security experts would expect to reduce such levels of support.'"

One-Third of U.S. Supports Nuclear War on North Korea, Knowing It Would Kill One Million, Report Shows



One-Third of U.S. Supports Nuclear War on North Korea, Knowing It Would Kill One Million, Report Shows
Published Jun 24, 2019 at 2:18 PM EDT


By Tom O'Connor
Senior Writer, Foreign Policy & Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy
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One-third of the United States population would support a preemptive attack on North Korea, even in a nuclear scenario, knowing it would kill one million innocent people, according to a recent survey.


The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in collaboration with U.K.-based research firm YouGov, published a new study Monday detailing U.S. public opinion on military conflict with North Korea at a time when the pace of a historic peace process between the longtime rivals appeared to slow. Among the most "disturbing" results discovered was that "a large hawkish minority lurks within the U.S. public; over a third of respondents approve of a US preventive strike across the scenarios and appear insensitive to informational cues that most security experts would expect to reduce such levels of support."

Little changed when the U.S. first-strike was switched from conventional to nuclear as "33 percent preferred." In fact, "there is no significant change in the percentage who would prefer or approve of a U.S. nuclear strike when the number of estimated North Korean fatalities increases from 15,000 to 1.1 million, including 1 million civilians."

The researchers said these results actually demonstrated a previously-established pattern among the U.S. public, which "exhibits only limited aversion to nuclear weapons use and a shocking willingness to support the killing of enemy civilians."

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The U.S. remains the only country in the world to have used nuclear weapons in combat with the August 1945 atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 250,000 people. In the decades since, nuclear weapons have only grown exponentially in might and North Korea—created alongside South Korea when World War II allies the Soviet Union and the U.S. split the once-Japanese-occupied peninsula shortly after the bombings—has managed to develop a nuclear arsenal of its own in spite of strict international sanctions.

Shuttering North Korea's nuclear program has been the goal of several successive U.S. administrations, but President Donald Trump hoped to break new ground by becoming the first in his position to meet a North Korean ruler with his debut summit alongside supreme leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last year. The two agreed to move forward with a denuclearization-for-peace process, but even follow-up talks in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi in February failed to produce any deal.

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Despite blaming one another's countries for apparent stalls in nuclear negotiations, Trump and Kim have managed to maintain an amicable relationship, demonstrated by their affinity for writing letters to another. Their occasional expressions of admiration for one another were a far cry from their initial impressions upon Trump's entrance to office in 2017, a year that saw the two exchange threats of nuclear destruction.

The pair may have considerably changed their tone, but many others remain skeptical as Washington has insisted on its unconditional "complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization" approach. Should Trump and Kim's relationship suffer a falling out, even more participants in Monday's study indicated they would back the president in taking action.


"Across all conditions, approval for the US strike is notably (although not always significantly, in a statistical sense) higher than preference, meaning a number of respondents discount their personal preferences in favor of the president's," the report found. "For example, while 'only' 33 percent of the US public prefer a US preventive nuclear strike that would kill 15,000 North Koreans, 50 percent approve."
President Donald Trump and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un smile during a meeting at the second U.S.-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi, February 28. Despite blaming one another's... More SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Answers were also influenced by political beliefs. While most respondents overall opposed military action against North Korea, the "majority of Trump supporters prefer the US strike in every scenario, except when confidence in the effectiveness of the US conventional strike is 50 percent"—and even then it remained at 44 percent as opposed to a mere 8 percent for non-supporters. Separately, those who backed the death penalty were actually more eager to inflict a higher death toll among North Korean civilians.

"When the number of expected North Korean fatalities increased from 15,000 to 1.1 million, preference for using nuclear weapons among respondents who favor the death penalty increased from 38 percent to 49 percent (although this is not a statistically significant change)," the report found. "One respondent who supported the death penalty and the US nuclear strike in this scenario explained, "It's our best chance of eliminating the North Koreans.' Another simply stated, 'to end North Korea.' By contrast, preference for the nuclear strike among those who oppose the death penalty fell from 26 percent to 7 percent across the same two scenarios."


The survey also exposed "how deeply misinformed Americans are about US offensive and defensive military capabilities," partially blaming misleading claims made by Trump. More than a third of respondents felt that the U.S. could take out North Korea's nuclear weapons in a single round of strikes and up to 74 percent thought the U.S. would be able to intercept a trio of incoming North Korea nuclear-tipped missiles—two assertions deeply disputed by experts.

The study concluded with a call "for a renewed effort at mass public nuclear education" and so scientists and social scientists "can communicate the facts and, therefore, influence the calculations of an informed public."
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About the writerTom O'Connor

North Korean weapons are killing Ukrainians. The implications are far bigger

North Korean weapons are killing Ukrainians. The implications are far bigger



North Korean weapons are killing Ukrainians. The implications are far bigger
1 day ago
By Jean Mackenzie,Seoul correspondent
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Conflict Armament ResearchAn unusual-looking wreckage that holds many clues

On 2 January, a young Ukrainian weapons inspector, Khrystyna Kimachuk, got word that an unusual-looking missile had crashed into a building in the city of Kharkiv. She began calling her contacts in the Ukrainian military, desperate to get her hands on it. Within a week, she had the mangled debris splayed out in front of her at a secure location in the capital Kyiv.

She began taking it apart and photographing every piece, including the screws and computer chips smaller than her fingernails. She could tell almost immediately this was not a Russian missile, but her challenge was to prove it.

Buried amidst the mess of metal and spouting wires, Ms Kimachuk spotted a tiny character from the Korean alphabet. Then she came across a more telling detail. The number 112 had been stamped onto parts of the shell. This corresponds to the year 2023 in the North Korean calendar. She realised she was looking at the first piece of hard evidence that North Korean weapons were being used to attack her country.

"We'd heard they had delivered some weapons to Russia, but I could see it, touch it, investigate it, in a way no-one had been able to do before. This was very exciting", she told me over the phone from Kyiv.

Since then, the Ukrainian military says dozens of North Korean missiles have been fired by Russia into its territory. They have killed at least 24 people and injured more than 70.


For all the recent talk of Kim Jong Un preparing to start a nuclear war, the more immediate threat is now North Korea's ability to fuel existing wars and feed global instability.

Ms Kimachuk works for Conflict Armament Research (CAR), an organisation that retrieves weapons used in war, to work out how they were made. But it wasn't until after she had finished photographing the wreckage of the missile and her team analysed its hundreds of components, that the most jaw-dropping revelation came.

It was bursting with the latest foreign technology. Most of the electronic parts had been manufactured in the US and Europe over the past few years. There was even a US computer chip made as recently as March 2023. This meant that North Korea had illicitly procured vital weapons components, snuck them into the country, assembled the missile, and shipped it to Russia in secret, where it had then been transported to the frontline and fired - all in a matter of months.

"This was the biggest surprise, that despite being under severe sanctions for almost two decades, North Korea is still managing to get its hands on all it needs to make its weapons, and with extraordinary speed," said Damien Spleeters, the deputy director at CAR.



Over in London, Joseph Byrne, a North Korea expert at the defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), was equally stunned.

"I never thought I would see North Korean ballistic missiles being used to kill people on European soil," he said. He and his team at RUSI have been tracking the shipment of North Korean weapons to Russia ever since Mr Kim met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Russia in September of last year to strike a suspected arms deal.

Using satellite imagery, they have been able to observe four Russian cargo ships shuttling back and forth between North Korea and a Russian military port, loaded with hundreds of containers at a time.

In total RUSI estimates 7,000 containers have been sent, filled with more than a million ammunition shells and grad rockets - the sort that can be fired out of trucks in large volleys. Their assessments are backed up by intelligence from the US, UK and South Korea, though Russia and North Korea have denied the trade.



"These shells and rockets are some of the most sought-after things in the world today and are allowing Russia to keep pounding Ukrainian cities at a time when the US and Europe have been faltering over what weapons to contribute," Mr Byrne said.
Buying and firing

But it is the arrival of ballistic missiles on the battlefield that has concerned Mr Byrne and his colleagues the most, because of what they reveal about North Korea's weapons programme.

Since the 1980s North Korea has sold its weapons abroad, largely to countries in the North Africa and the Middle East, including Libya, Syria and Iran. They have tended to be old, Soviet-style missiles with a poor reputation. There is evidence that Hamas fighters likely used some of Pyongyang's old rocket-propelled grenades in their attack last 7 October.Putin and Kim: Friends in need (of ammunition)
What weapons are being supplied to Ukraine?
What missiles has North Korea been testing?

But the missile fired on 2 January, that Ms Kimachuk took apart, was seemingly Pyongyang's most sophisticated short-range missile - the Hwasong 11 - capable of travelling up to 700km (435 miles).



Although the Ukrainians have downplayed their accuracy, Dr Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in North Korean weapons and non-proliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, says they appear to be not much worse than the Russian missiles.

The advantage of these missiles is that they are extremely cheap, explained Dr Lewis. This means you can buy more and fire more, in the hope of overwhelming air defences, which is exactly what the Russians appear to be doing.


This then raises the question of how many of these missiles the North Koreans can produce. The South Korean government recently observed North Korea has sent 6,700 containers of munitions to Russia, it says that Pyongyang's weapons factories were operating at full-tilt, and Dr Lewis, who has been studying these factories through satellites, reckons they can churn out a few hundred a year.

Still reeling from their discovery, Mr Spleeters and his team are now trying to work out how this is possible, given that companies are banned from selling parts to North Korea.


Many of the computer chips that are integral to modern weapons, that guide them through the air to their intended targets, are the same chips that are used to power our phones, washing machines and cars, Mr Spleeters explained.

These are being sold all over the world in staggering numbers. Manufacturers sell to distributors in their billions, who sell them on in their millions, meaning they often have no idea where their products end up.

Even so, Mr Byrne was frustrated to learn how many components in the missile had come from the West. It proved that North Korea's procurement networks were more robust and effective than even he, who investigates these networks, had realised.

From his experience, North Koreans based overseas set up fake companies in Hong Kong or other central Asian countries to buy the items using predominantly stolen cash. They then send the products onto North Korea, usually over its border with China. If a fake company is discovered and sanctioned, another will quickly pop up in its place.

Sanctions have long been considered an imperfect tool to combat these networks, but to have any hope of working they need to be regularly updated and enforced. Both Russia and China have refused to impose new sanctions on North Korea since 2017.



By buying Pyongyang's weapons, Moscow is now violating the very sanctions it once voted for as a member of the UN Security Council. Then earlier this year it effectively disbanded a UN panel that monitored sanctions breaches, likely to avoid scrutiny.

"We are witnessing the real-time crumbling of UN sanctions against North Korea, which buys Pyongyang a lot of breathing space", Mr Byrne said.

All this has implications that reach far beyond the war in Ukraine.

"The real winners here are the North Koreans", said Mr Byrne. "They have helped the Russians in a significant way, and this has bought them a tonne of leverage".

In March, RUSI documented large amounts of oil being shipped from Russia to North Korea, while railcars filled with what are thought to be rice and flour have been spotted crossing the countries' land border. This deal, thought to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, will boost not only Pyongyang's economy, but its military.



Russia could also supply the North with the raw materials to continue making its missiles, or even military equipment such a fighter jets, and - at the most extreme end - the technical assistance to improve its nuclear weapons.

Additionally, the North is getting the chance to test its latest missiles in a real-war scenario for the first time. With this valuable data, it will be able to make them better.
Pyongyang: A major missile supplier?

More troubling still is that the war is providing North Korea with a shop window to the rest of the world.

Now that Pyongyang is mass producing these weapons, it will want to sell them to more countries, and if the missiles are good enough for Russia, they will be good enough for others, said Dr Lewis - especially as the Russians are setting the example that it is okay to violate sanctions.


He predicts going forward that North Korea will become a big supplier of missiles to countries in the China-Russia-Iran bloc. In the wake of Iran's assault on Israel this month, the US said it was "incredibly concerned" that North Korea could be working with Iran on its nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes.

"I see a lot of gloomy faces when we talk about this problem," said Mr Spleeters. "But the good news is that now we know how reliant they are on foreign technology, we can do something about it".

Mr Spleeters is optimistic that by working with manufacturers they can cut off North Korea's supply chains. His team has already succeeded in identifying and shutting down an illicit network before it was able to complete a critical sale.

But Dr Lewis is not convinced.

"We can make it harder, more inconvenient, maybe raise the cost, but none of this is going to prevent North Korea from making these weapons," he said, adding that the West had ultimately failed in its attempt to contain the rogue state.


Now not only are its missiles a source of prestige and political power, but they are also generating it vast amounts of money, Dr Lewis explained. So why would Kim Jong Un ever give them up now?

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Russia said to be using N Korean missiles in Ukraine

What missiles has North Korea been testing?

Kim and Putin go public – but is it all a show?

Putin and Kim: Friends in need (of ammunition)

The hidden village just metres from North Korea

North Korea says it's got eyes on the White House - so what?
War in Ukraine
Asia
North Korea