US Joint Chiefs Chairman: Attacking North Korea Is Not ‘Unimaginable’

Gen. Joe Dunford, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, complained over the weekend that a lot of people are rejecting the idea of the US attacking North Korea, saying the possibility shouldn’t be taken off the table, and that attacking them is “not unimaginable.”

While Dunford conceded that a US attack on North Korea would lead to a “horrific” war, with a death toll unlike anything seen since World War 2, he insisted that the US had to develop a “military option” for the war because otherwise North Korea might nuke Denver, Colorado.

The choice of Denver, Colorado in the comments is a strange one, but likely reflects Dunford’s comments being made in Aspen, Colorado. At the same time, virtually everyone agrees North Korea lacks the capability to hit the US mainland, let alone do so with a nuclear weapon.

The myth of such North Korea capabilities continues to fuel heavy US military spending on the possibility of attacking North Korea, and even more worryingly, appears to also be encouraging US political and military leaders to view such a war with a sense of inevitability, with a worst in a generation war something officials seem comfortable blundering into.