North East Asian proliferation is the only way to resolve North Korea and Iran –

preemptive strikes, Chinese pressure, and any other solution will fail – wont trigger
regional conflict – HL down
Kausikan 17 (Bilahari Kausikan was formerly permanent secretary of Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “To deter
North Korea, Japan and South Korea should go nuclear”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2017/10/10/to-deter-north-korea-japan-and-south-korea-should-
go-nuclear/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8dd2b1fc517e) SLAIR

SINGAPORE — Northeast Asia is on the cusp of a major strategic shift . Sanctions have not prevented North
Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is already a de facto nuclear state . Sooner or later, Pyongyang will acquire
nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles that can directly threaten the continental United States. The time for preemptive
kinetic action has passed. Since North Korea already has nuclear devices, if not yet fully operational
nuclear weapons, all it has to do is detonate those devices close to its South Korean or Chinese borders
to raise the stakes of preemptive action to unacceptable levels. The regime of North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un is ruthless enough to do so. Pyongyang has thousands of conventional artillery and missiles trained on Seoul, which is only
about 35 miles from the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries. The U.S. does not have the capability to locate
and simultaneously neutralize all of these missiles and thus cannot prevent a devastating attack , which
would cause hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in South Korea and perhaps Japan too. China
cannot stop North Korea. To do so, it must change the regime. But even if it has the ability to do so, the
Chinese Communist Party is not willing to effect regime change in a fellow Leninist state . The preservation of
its own rule is the most vital of all the CCP’s interests. Intervening to change the regime in Pyongyang could give Chinese citizens inconvenient
thoughts about their own system. No matter how angry the CCP is with North Korea, that is too great a risk . Beijing
has taken symbolic actions against Pyongyang but tolerating a nuclear North Korea is the least bad option. Pyongyang, therefore, will
have to be dealt with by deterrence . And it can be deterred: the regime is bad but not mad. It is coldly
rational, calculating exactly how far it can go in any set of circumstances. For example, Pyongyang didn’t pay
any significant cost after blowing up a South Korean passenger aircraft in 1987 or sinking a South Korean
navy ship in 2010, killing 46 sailors . Once Pyongyang has the capability it believes it needs to ensure the
survival of its regime, it has no reason to risk annihilation. The Obama administration’s approach of so-called “strategic
patience” was a failure. But the Trump administration is doing the right thing. Trump’s statements are extreme but they are
in accordance with the essential logic of deterrence. Once North Korea can directly threaten the
continental U.S., the question is bound to be asked: Will the U.S. sacrifice San Francisco in order to
save Tokyo? Of course not. Still, North Korea is a catalyst, not a cause; Pyongyang’s quest for a nuclear capability may cause this
awkward question to be asked sooner, but it will eventually be asked anyway. China is modernizing its own nuclear forces and
will eventually acquire a more credible second strike capability vis-à-vis the U.S. One way or another,
American extended deterrence in Northeast Asia will be eroded , as it was decades ago in Europe. Northeast Asia
will respond as France and the U.K. did in the 1950s and 1960s respectively. Japan has the ability to
quickly develop an independent nuclear deterrent . It is now only a matter of when, not if, Japan does so.
Tokyo has been preparing for this eventuality — with American acquiescence and perhaps assistance —
for decades. Where Japan goes, South Korea must follow. I don’t think Japan and South Korea are
eager to become nuclear-armed states, nor is Washington eager for that to happen. But for all three,
this is also the least bad option. Japan and South Korea will remain within the U.S.-led Northeast Asian alliance, just as France and
the U.K. remained within NATO. But a six-way balance of mutually assured destruction — among the U.S., China,
Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea — will eventually be established in Northeast Asia. Getting to
this new situation will be fraught with serious tension. China will pull out all stops short of war to prevent Japan going
nuclear, raising the shibboleth of Japan’s remilitarization to try and rally Americans, Japanese, Koreans and others in East Asia against Tokyo.
But it will fail. And the U.S.-Japan alliance will deter China from preemptive military action against Japan.
War with the U.S. cannot end well for China; it would jeopardize the CCP’s rule . The decision to go nuclear will be
extremely difficult for any Japanese government, far worse than the backlash against the U.S.-Japan security treaty in the 1960s and early
1970s. But when America’s extended deterrence is eroded, a Japan without an independent nuclear deterrent would be
subordinate to China. This is an existential issue for Japan . Ever since Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea in the 16th
century in explicit defiance of the Chinese world order of the time, refusal to accept subordination to China has been an
integral part of the Japanese sense of identity. To accept subordination would require a wrenchingly
painful redefinition of what it means to be Japanese, which I do not think the Japanese will accept.
However difficult the process of getting to a six-way balance of mutually assured destruction may be, once established, it
will be stabilizing. All six countries are rational and are functioning polities. The North Korean regime is
brutal, but it works. Despite numerous predictions of its imminent demise, it is still here after more than
70 years. North Korea is certainly more coherent than Pakistan, which is also a nuclear-armed state but constantly teetering on the brink of
failure. A Northeast Asian balance of mutually assured destruction will freeze the status quo. It will be an
absolute obstacle to the revanchist ambitions that are embedded in the narrative of the “great
rejuvenation” of China by which the CCP now legitimates itself and which are manifest in the East China
Sea and the South China Sea. China’s reclamation activities in the South China Sea cannot be reversed,
nor will China give up its claims. But forcing China to at least suspend its ambitions at their current level
will make for more stable Sino-American and Sino-Japanese relations and a more stable East Asia.
Freezing the status quo will put an end to the chimera of Korean reunification and make for healthier
relations between the North and the South. Reunification is an aspiration that neither has really been in a hurry to achieve. For
the North, unless entirely on its own terms, reunification means the end of the regime. For the South, the incorporation of 25 million North
Koreans who have no experience of a modern market economy into a population of 51 million will irrevocably change South Korea and not for
the better. Better to end all pretense.