It’s shocking how cavalier Edward Luttwak’s case for a “limited air attack” on North Korea is — and, given the twitchy short finger on the trigger, how downright dangerous his arguments are. He suggests “the most commonly cited” reasons not to bomb North Korea “are far weaker than generally acknowledged,” but his own case spells out the very reasons why so many are terrified at the prospect of a military escalation on the Korean peninsula spiraling out of control. Let’s look at what Luttwak says would need to happen in order to carry out a mission like “what Israel did to Iraq in 1981, and to Syria in 2007.”

1. Avoiding mass civilian casualties from a retaliatory rocket attack is easy: tell the 20 million South Koreans who live within range to move. “This should involve clearing out and hardening with jacks, props, and steel beams the basements of buildings of all sizes; promptly stocking necessities in the 3,257 official shelters and sign-posting them more visibly; and, of course, evacuating as many as possible beforehand (most of the 20 million or so at risk would be quite safe even just 20 miles further to the south).” Oh, and if a massive metropolitan area  isn’t depopulated and/or hardened in time, it’s a “self-inflicted” tragedy because Luttwak advised the South Koreans to have move government and industry away from Seoul 50 years ago.
2. Instead of letting the U.S. Air Force worry about taking out North Korean air defense systems, just don’t. “The Air Force’s requirements are nothing but an excuse for inaction.”
3. And to get around Chinese objections to a military strike, why not let them run the entire Korean peninsula after the attack? (Somehow, Luttwak’s limited air strikes turned into a total war.) “In theory, a post-attack North Korea in chaos could be rescued by the political unification of the peninsula, with the United States assuaging Chinese concerns by promptly moving its troops further south, instead of moving them north.”

So the case for taking out “less than fewer [sic] dozen installations, most of them quite small” comes down to accepting: relocating and/or mass casualties of millions of South Koreans, overturning American military doctrine, and handing over a democracy of 50 million people to an authoritarian state. How simple!