The solution to eliminating whatever threat our leaders believe that North Korea poses to our precious bodily fluids is also the simplest: remove all trade restrictions, tear down the Berlin Wall-style barrier between North and South, and allow them to talk. It removes the risk of a devastating war in which millions of innocents were perish over the course of several years, it would save North Korea from starvation, and it would slowly allow unfiltered news from the outside world to seep into that Hermit Kingdom. Trade would transform the country for better, in a way that no other option could. And it wouldn’t cost a thing. BUT. But.
Washington D.C. is shopping for a war. War means justifying future $700 billion “defense” budgets that are divvied up among an entire industry that is devoted to waging war. That industry is what we call the military-industrial complex. That industry needs enemies, needs constant wars around the globe. Conflict is good for business. And peace is bad, not only for business, but also power.
Peace is simple, and inexpensive relative to the human and economic costs of war. But war props up power, not only within our borders, but also in the country being targeted. North Korea builds its dictatorship upon the very real threat of invasion and attack.
