If Somebody Nuked North Korea Into a Smoking Ruin, Would the World Care?

[Eddie]

China and Russia both have admonished Kim Jong-un to turn down his nuclear saber-rattling rhetoric.  Obviously, China would be upset if a President Trump or Clinton decided to make a first strike...but would they really do anything?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/08/russia-warns-north-korea-nuclear-strike

I do worry about North Korea. In addition to their minimal nuke capabilities (think EMP attack) they also almost certainly have stockpiles of biological weapons (smallpox and others) and missiles that can deliver them thousands of mile away. Smallpox is the most contagious, vicious biological one could imagine. The potential for a world-wide pandemic is very real. The shot you got in 1965 is not going to save you against weapons-grade smallpox.

What really saves North Korea is they they have nothing to loot. The rhetoric seems to be mostly about keeping their own near-starving masses in line, as much as anything else. Nobody on the outside wants anything they have.

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