A 'preventive' war with North Korea would be total hell. Here's why

The alternative? Annihilation!

Stalin was just utterly ruthless, not a total nut job!

I've made similar observations about the articles circulating on the subject. One comes away with the impression that the authors are against any war that might entail loss of life beyond the relatively sanitary (by historic standards) Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As in no war is worth fighting unless we can guarantee a total slaughter of the enemy at a comparatively low cost to ourselves. It seems the public has become accustomed to low intensity conflict and expects this is how all war should be or we should never do it.

Secondly, I question the presumption that the *only* outcome of a conflict with North Korea is millions of allied causalities even in victory. If articles in the news are to be believed, it seems that most of the conventional Army barely has enough rations to regularly feed its own soldiers, training standards are dubious at best, and the equipment itself is horribly out of date. Should the U.S. enjoy some element of surprise and saturate the DMZ with an overwhelming bombardment, maybe 90% of the North Korean Army simply gives up or is unable to function without communications from their commanders. I just don't think we can argue with such certainty that it is a guarantee millions will die. The truth is we don't really know how the North Korean Army will actually function in a war-time situation when the chips are down, the bombs are falling, and the regime faces serious challenges to its command and control.