It seems like only yesterday that I lived through the first Missile Crisis - that being the Cuban Missile Crisis throughout October 1961. It was then that cagey Russian Premier Khrushchev challenged what he thought to be a weak newly elected President by the name of John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy, to Khrushchev dismay, turned out to be anything but 'weak'.
There are parallels between the Cuban Crisis and with today's Crisis with North Korea.
But there are some significant differences. Let's deal with the major similarities first:
- Like today, citizens of the world feared that they may well be on the brink of Nuclear War...though we have not yet descended to having school drills where students in 1961 were told to hide under their desks to escape the pending cataclysm... but who knows that may yet come. What I am hearing though is talk about building underground bunkers that were so popular some 50+ years ago.
- And like today, both Presidents were surrounded with an array of Military Advisors who by definition are there to fight and win wars. (Don't forget, President Dwight Eisenhower, a General himself warned on leaving office that one of his greatest concerns for America was in regard to its dependence on the Military-Industrial Complex).
- It was generally accepted that both Russia and the United States had a sufficient number of nuclear missiles to annihilate one another.
The differences between then and now are even more dramatic:
- First, Russia, the aggressor, was led by a reasonably sane individual who feared destruction of his country to a similar extent as did President Kennedy. Today, the aggressor, to say the least, is a madman whom I suspect would have no difficulty whatsoever in seeing his country reduced to ashes if he thought he personally would not survive a military confrontation with the States.
- Second, although both Trump and Kennedy were surrounded by Military Advisors, Kennedy had an innate distrust of the Generals which I suspect Donald Trump does not share. In fact, Kennedy's distrust of the military saved the day in 1961 since the Military wanted to go into Cuba with all guns blasting thinking that the Russian Commanders on the ground would be hesitant to launch their nuclear missiles. Post Crisis, the West learned that orders had already gone out from Russia that missiles be fired off at the first sign of an attack.
- The other major difference is that in 1961 the major battleground for the United States would have been on its own soil, today, that field is South Korea and the conventional thinking is that even without a nuclear attack on the part of the North, their Conventional Weaponry would be sufficient to flatten the entire City of Seoul Korea, population 10 Million.
I could go on but I think the above is sufficient to illustrate why the likelihood of a nuclear attack is much greater today, in 2017 than it was in 1961.
So where does that leave the United States, the Champion of the World's Democracies?
Simply stated, Kim Young-un (aka Mad Kim) cannot be allowed to continue to have nuclear arms.
Here is what I would suggest to Donald Trump as a plan of action:
- Tell China either it takes out Mad Kim, or the US will. If China does it, they can put in their surrogate as long as the nuclear weapons go. And by take out I mean assassinate.
- I am not sure if it is possible but you certainly see a-lot written about the advancements in cyber warfare so why can't America block North Korea's signals to prevent missile launch?
- I would have South Korea evacuate Seoul Korea until the Crisis is truly and finally resolved.
- I would focus America's military might on the North's massive Artillery Positions in the hills north of Soul.
- And finally, I would begin the nuclear arming of South Korea and Japan primarily as as warning to China that it is in their best interests to get rid of the Young-un and take out his Nuclear Weapons.
As I see it...
'K.D. Galagher'
