A North Korea nuke is a dangerous assumption

April 7, 2026

Connie Peck describes Annie Jacobsen's book about nuclear war as convincing. But in my view it begins with a dangerous assumption – that North Korea starts the war by sending an ICBM against Washington. This is as presumptuous as suggesting that once Iran gets the bomb, it will immediately drop one on Tel Aviv. Like all countries with nuclear weapons, Pyongyang has them for deterrence. This motive derives most strongly from the way Curtis LeMay bombed the country flat in 1951-53 in vengeance for the Chinese defeating US forces at the end of 1950 when McArthur so unwisely sent them north to the Yalu River. There is already enough western propaganda demonising Kim Jong-un (particularly in the Murdoch press) without pointing a finger at North Korea as the most likely country to start a nuclear war. For my money, Israel is by far the most likely country to do so against Iran.