 Welcome to a discussion of radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, laissez-faire capitalism, and individual rights. The Euron Brooks show starts now. Happy Labor Day weekend everybody. I hope you're having a great weekend and I've got some exciting plans for the weekend. Me, I'm off to Europe tomorrow. I'm off for a speaking tour of Europe. Gonna be in a bunch of different countries, some you might have not even heard of. It should be interesting. And I'll actually be doing some of the shows from Europe. So, you know, you'll hear on some of my experiences traveling over there. I'm hoping if the Internet guards are with us, then we should have a show from Baku Azabajan, which should be really interesting. My first time ever there in Baku. And the following week, hopefully, will be from Geneva, Switzerland. So, a little bit more, I guess, civilized. I don't know if it's politically correct to say that, but yeah, I think legitimately we can say that. Alright, so I'm off on an airplane starting day. Actually, after the show, I'm packing up, finishing up all my packing and off I go, I'll be in Europe three weeks and in New York for one week. And I'll be giving talks and doing events in all those places. Just in case we have some European listeners, if you're in London or Tbilisi or Baku, Paris, Geneva, Copenhagen or Kiev, I'll be giving events in all of those places. Not Germany this time, so any one of those places. Hopefully, you know, you can easily find information about the different talks. It's on my Facebook page. Just go to facebook.com at Why Brook. I'll also be posting stuff on Twitter. That's your Ron Brook, Y-A-O-O-N Brook on Twitter. And so, Why Brook, Y-B-O-O-K on Facebook and you should be able to access all the events there. You can also get it at EinRand.org slash event. So EinRand.org slash events, there'll be a listing of all the events I'll be doing from my first event in London to I think four events in Tbilisi all the way to the last event in Kiev. And then in New York I will be doing a debate at Yale, which I think is going to be livestreamed. So hopefully, you'll be able to catch that. I'll post on Facebook and Twitter information about the live debate at Yale. That'll be at the end of September, towards the end of September, I think the 27th of September. And then the EinRand Institute hosts an Atlas Shrugged celebration dinner every year. This year it's on the 28th of September at the Atlas Hotel in New York City. You're all invited. It costs, it's a charity fundraiser, so it costs some money but you can find that by going again to the EinRand Institute website and looking at the events or by searching Atlas Shrugged Revolution dinner on Google and you will find the registration and everything else. So a lot going on. In the next four weeks I'm busy as hell and all over the place, all over the world. But I'll be broadcasting from there. So broadcasting from, as I said, Baku, Geneva, and one from New York. So I guess let's get on with show. We'll see kind of what topics come up while I'm traveling. And I'll give you some of my experiences from being on the road and some of the things going on in these distant countries, distant places that, you know, some of them Baku I've never been to, Azerbaijan I've never been to, Tbilisi I've been to before, but I've only been once. It should be interesting. Geneva is not a place I've spent a lot of time with. So it should be interesting. And I've never really, I've given one talk in Paris, but I've never really done any kind of major events in Paris. So Paris should be interesting just in terms of that. And then we've got a major free speech event in Copenhagen with Fleming Rose that I'm doing. Fleming Rose is the guy who published the Danish cartoons in 2005, sparked all those riots all over the world. And we're going to be talking about free speech and how to live, how we structure societies in a world where people get offended by much of what's being said. And, you know, what's the right approach in a multicultural world? What are the principles by which we can survive and thrive? What are the principles by which we can live, survive and thrive? So that should be fascinating that's in Copenhagen at the parliament. And then I'll be in Kiev doing a couple of things as I said, one of which is a talk for students and the other is I'm teaching a class, a three hour class in the executive MBA program at the Kiev Business School, three hours of almost like a radio show, but teaching these relatively senior executives, Ukrainian executives in business in Ukraine, that should be a lot of fun. So, you know, I'm looking forward to a great trip and hopefully I'll fill you in as the trip goes along. And all right. All right, let's start today with a discussion about what's going on in North Korea. Obviously that's in the news, that's in the headlines. We've got a lot going on in terms of you know, they detonated a nuclear bomb. They claim it's a hydrogen bomb. I've read some analysis from experts that suggest no. It's only an atomic bomb. It is a powerful atomic bomb. It's more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and are probably 10 times more powerful than the bombs that they tried before. So it's a very substantial increase over previously that we can measure because we can measure the seismic reactions of the test. So we know they actually did explode an atomic bomb that actually happened. And you know, the other claims that the experts are making, again, how to verify, how to tell if they know what they're talking about, is that they do have the technology now to put a bomb on a tip of an ICBM of a missile and launch such a missile. If not hit California, certainly hit Alaska, Tokyo, and certainly hit South Korea. So allies, countries that we have defense agreements with under threat of nuclear attack from North Korea. And so is the United States. I mean we think the California is out of range, but who knows. Who knows what they actually have. Now I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute because I'm always suspicious about claims of technology from these authoritarian regimes. My experience, my experience with weapons from the old Soviet Union was that they were pathetic. That they were always hyped as being cutting edge, best of best in the world, very, very dangerous, better than what the West has. And they always turned out to be pathetic. And I suspect that the weapons that North Korea has are pretty pathetic. I suspect that the missile technology is far more primitive than what they claim or what even the experts claim. Experts always overestimate the power of our enemies. But I want to do, I want to talk, we're going to take a break in a little bit. But after the break what I want to do is I want to talk you through what I think you know you're getting, we're getting very little information about what other military options that the United States actually has in North Korea. And it's really fascinating to me because in the era of sound by television, in the era of Fox and CNN and quick and three minute interviews and stuff, you can't really get into what a military campaign in North Korea would look like, what are the risks, what can be achieved, what are the dangers, which is unfortunate because I think most Americans experienced with war recently is Iraq or the Gulf War, the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War, Afghanistan which are very, very different types of wars and what you would have to engage in in North Korea and the risks and the threats are very different and yet Americans don't know it and if they continue to be surveyed should we go to war with North Korea but they have no clue, they're ignorant. And I suspect without knowing all of you that most of you are ignorant about the situation in North Korea unless you've read some in-depth articles unless you've invested some time in actually examining and evaluating what's going on, it's very hard to tell what's going on in North Korea. So what I want to do, we're going to take a quick break right now, what I want to do when we get back to the break is break it down for you a little bit, right? I'm not going to go into a million details and I'm not an expert on this. I've read my fair share of in-depth articles, I know a little bit about military operations but I certainly am no expert on North Korea and don't have any specialized intelligence information about North Korea but there's some obvious things that are not being mentioned that I'm not seeing that need to be addressed, that need to be talked about and we will do that after this break. You're listening the Iran Book Show on the Blaze Radio Network and we'll be back soon. Alright so we're talking about North Korea and we're talking about you know they just they just did this another test of their nuclear capabilities, they blew up a weapon and it was powerful, more powerful than the previous ones they've done so they clearly have the capacity to blow up a nuclear device. Still a question about whether they can put it onto a missile but they certainly have the missiles, they flew a missile last week within Japanese airspace over Japan and they certainly have the capacity so we don't know if they have the capacity to put it on a missile they have missile capacity, they have nuclear bombs, can they merge them but that's just a matter of time if they don't have it yet they will have it and the real question is still what if anything should the United States do and let's set up, let's set this up first in terms of the challenges that we face then I want to talk about how we got into this situation because it's pathetic the way of facing this situation and then what actually can be done so let's start by the fact that South Korea which is part of what I would consider the western world a rich, relatively free country and that is an ally of the United States, we actually have troops in South Korea and you could argue whether that's justifiable or not we have troops there, we have a defense alliance with them but South Korea is the largest city in Seoul South Korea I was actually there this last spring in June Seoul South Korea is a massive city of millions and millions of people and Seoul South Korea is obviously the largest city in South Korea it is full of skyscrapers and condo buildings and houses and homes and just millions and millions of people live there, Seoul is 25 miles from the border basically 25 miles from North Korean artillery in addition to that North Korea's artillery is then 25 is set up depth wise 25 miles deep into North Korean territory so there is some artillery right there on the border, some artillery a few miles back all the way back to 25 miles and they have thousands of pieces of artillery all facing Seoul all that can reach Seoul so let's say we decided to take out the nuclear capabilities of the North Koreans and let's say we could take out which is a question I have no idea if we can or cannot my assumption is you could certainly with a nuke but maybe with Bunker Buster bombs you could get most of their nukes and you could destroy them but let's say you could do that, you could take the estimate is they have 30 bombs let's say you could take all 30 bombs out then you've got to deal with artillery because artillery immediately is turned on and it would flatten Seoul you would have hundreds of thousands of casualties hundreds of thousands of casualties now I'm making some assumptions here one assumption is that artillery works and I'll get to that but assuming that artillery works and you have to make that assumption at least initially hundreds of thousands of casualties on the ground in Seoul maybe into the millions given the firepower that North Korea has even without its nuclear weapons all targeted at this major city a city that does not have expansive bomb shelters that does not have the capability to shield millions of people and you're not a city you're not going to evacuate in advance of a US strike there's no clear path given that so you've got this now some would say well why doesn't the US take out the artillery well one because there's so much of it there's just such a huge quantity of that artillery second is that all over North Korea but particularly along the border the North Koreans have what is called a ground to AMSL protection something like the Russian equivalent of what's called the S-300 or what in the US version is called the Patriot system these are very sophisticated systems that are supposed to knock airplanes out of the sky that make it extraordinarily difficult to fly missions and to take out the actual artillery that is pointed at Seoul South Korea so you've got a real problem here they've already got a bomb they've got thousands of artillery pieces pointing at your major city I don't know that we know where all the bombs are they also have air defense system that is based on you know Soviet technology world class or top of the line and it's difficult to neutralize all of that all at once so any attack by the US on North Korea is going to have to assume massive tens if not hundreds of thousands of casualties on the South Korean side and the question of course is what is South Korea's view of this I mean we would be they are an ally we would supposedly be coordinating all of this with the South Koreans they are the most likely people to feel the brunt of this so in a situation where it really is disastrous now you could imagine you could come up with military scenarios that could deal with this at least to some extent hugely risky and I still think the South Koreans would have to sign off on it but you would have to take into account that they would have to assess whether the risks associated with these scenarios justify the benefits of these scenarios justify the risk and of course you are always the other risk because China gets involved but let's assume China doesn't really want to get involved and doesn't want this what do you do so when I get back I want to talk about a little bit about some scenarios that might be possible to execute on but would be extraordinary difficult what some alternatives in terms of what one would do are and then finally I want to talk about how we got into this mess what we can learn from it and how do we prevent getting into a mess like this in the future now I'm pretty convinced that we have learned nothing from it I'm pretty convinced that we will do nothing about what is happening or that we do the wrong things but that's where we are so we certainly need to think about this as it applies to Iran we certainly need to think about this as it applies to other countries that might at some point develop these kind of capabilities and pose this kind of risk all right when we come back we will talk about this you can call in 888-900-3393 if you have an opinion about North Korea you are listening to the Iran brook show on the blaze radio network and you can hear us here live every Sunday the Iran brook show all right so we are talking about North Korea and we are talking about their nuclear capabilities we are talking about what they could do to South Korea whether they can hit the United States or not I think at this point is mostly speculation they could probably hit Japan although how accurate they missiles are and the actual ability to hit Japan is again questionable what they certainly can do is devastate South Korea and look I mean my temptation is always to say if there is a war in some God forsaken place across on the other side of the globe is let it happen it's not a risk to the United States if they want to fight it out let them fight it out I believe that the United States military should only be used only be used when the US is threatened when the lives and property of Americans are threatened I don't believe in going out and building democracies I don't believe in going out and defending democracies I don't think we should be a NATO I don't think we should be defending eastern Europe right now or western Europe and I ultimately do not think we should be in South Korea or Japan I think those countries are rich enough to be able to afford their own militaries this is the one thing Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that I actually agreed with they're rich enough to defend themselves they're rich enough to build themselves navies and armies and capabilities to defend themselves Americans shouldn't die so that Japan can stay free sorry but we have defense we have defense agreements we have committed certain things whether I agree with them or not they are in existence today we cannot ignore the fact that we have a defense agreement with Japan and South Korea we cannot just launch into a into a war with North Korea or not launch into a war with North Korea we can't make these decisions unilaterally at this point because we have agreements now we could withdraw from those agreements and I think we should I don't think we should do it right now because if we do right now that would be perceived strongly as a sign of weakness by the North Koreans and weakness is always leads to aggression so if they actually thought we were weak they would come after us and I don't want us to be and be perceived as weak so I think we need to resolve in one way the North Korean situation and then tell the South Koreans and the Japanese that they over the next let's say 5 years 10 years we undo the treaty and that they have to build up their own militaries to defend themselves again rich countries they have enough population you know if you compare South Korea to North Korea South Korea is a much larger population and much much much richer much richer do you know just as an aside that at the end of the Korean War South Korea was poorer than North Korea South Korea was poorer than North Korea as an African country is today and today they are you know a million times thousands of times richer than the North Koreans it really is unbelievable the difference and if you want an illustration of the differences between capitalism even tried on a minute scale like it was in South Korea and communism then you've got to write the inner peninsula it's truly unbelievable anybody not everybody sees it and sees how obvious it is alright so let's dream up some scenarios for an actual military action just for fun so remember you know my primary concern is that the defense is what I see as the main role of the United States which is to protect the individual rights of Americans now because we have these defense treaties you have to protect South Koreans as well that's in the treaty so as long as we have it we have to do it so how would you avoid massive civilian casualties in South Korea so I would do it this way and again I'm not proposing this because I think at the end of the day it's too soon for military action given where we are today I would do this you would have to have a very sophisticated joint attack and you would have to do this stealthily which is hard you would have to build up the forces over time which is hard because the North Koreans monitor everything we do but you would have to engage in a massive first strike that was so devastating that the North Koreans couldn't respond and then you would rely on the fact that North Koreans' weapons and technology and infrastructure probably would collapse it probably would not be able to sustain the kind of damage that everybody predicts because it's just built in North Korea or in Russia or whatever it's just not very good so you would have to launch I think a three-prong attack one you would have to take out the North Korean leadership all of them starting from the top down now notice that America does not do that anymore there's actually I think a bill that was passed in the 70s that prohibits the United States from targeting from targeting the leaders of other countries so I don't know if that's even legal maybe we would have to change the law but target the entire leadership structure from the dictator on down to the generals to his cousins and nephews and uncles and their families you'd have to wipe them out you'd have to do it in such a way that you know the entire leadership structure was as much of it was wiped out now some would survive and because they probably spread out in the policy you'd have to have great intelligence and where they are where they live and you would have to do it now I would probably you would probably have to put some special forces on the ground to achieve some of this you would have to probably work with special forces from South Korea to do this who know the language and who can blend into the population there it would not be easy but it is doable special forces and and an airstrike combined to basically just crush the entire leadership at the same time you would have to launch a devastating attack on whatever nuclear facilities you thought that these people had but it would have to be timed perfectly so that you killed the leadership just a little before you launched this attack so they could not order a counter strike and at the same time now luckily these are different types of bombers these are different type of planes that would engage you would have to launch a massive massive attack on the artillery along the South Korean border and this would have to be mainly from the air but also you would have to then invade with ground troops and I assume that the primary ground troops would have to be South Korea there's some American troops there but just not enough now all of this would have to be negotiated in my view in advance or somehow you would have to kind of deal with the Chinese not to intervene now the way to kind of deal with the Chinese not to intervene this is how I would do it I would guarantee to them that when it is over right when it is over the United States will rescind the defense treaty with South Korea and will draw all troops and American weapons from the South from the Korean Peninsula so you want the reunification the unification of Korea but you don't want it to be perceived by the Chinese as a threat and therefore the United States need to be out of there and that would move us towards a world which I think is better where the United States is not guaranteeing the security of these countries at the same time you tell the Chinese you'll do the same thing with Japan that will I think if they believed us I think that would guarantee that the Chinese not intervene so that would be my war scenario right as a former first-chargent in Israeli military intelligence for whatever that's worth and someone a student of history and a student of war that would be how I would do it I still think you would have to take significant casualties of civilians I'm not talking about military casualties I think I also think you could wipe out the North Korean military very quickly I think those weapons are old I don't think they're functional I think the soldiers are unmotivated what exactly are they dying for I think most of them would run most of them would surrender I think it could be quick I think it could be devastating and I think you would win right I think you would win I would not ask anybody's permission I would not take this to the United Nations the only country I would have any discussions with is China and probably only after I started bombing and only to guarantee to them that I would leave that I would not the treaties would be gone and the career would be on its own after this threat was taken care of that would be my military strategy I'm sure they're going to be military strategist out there who critiqued and of course you can critiqued if you disagree with me 888-900-3393 now when I come back I want to talk about why I don't think that's what we should do even though it's doable I also want to talk about how we got into this situation not a lot of time to cover all that but we are going to try you're listening to your own book show on the blaze radio network and we'll be back after this break you're on you're listening to your own book show the only place we actually get facts and analysis and not just superficial quick sound bitey political commentary I'm not talking about appeasing the Chinese let them know that they shouldn't intervene you don't want to get into a nuclear standoff with the Chinese that they shouldn't intervene and that you are doing these things in American self-interest you're going to crush the North Koreans and then you're going to leave and leave it to the South Koreans and to Japan to defend itself that is where I want to be anyway so it's not a matter of appeasement it's a matter of moving in the most rational way to where we should be anyway now I don't think that's going to happen I don't think any of this is going to happen because I don't think I don't think our commanders I don't think our military and I don't think any of the people involved today in decision making in the United States and the president down have the courage to actually do this or have the brains of the knowledge of the know-how to do it because you know the so afraid of civilian casualties and the afraid of not upsetting anybody and the so afraid of the consequences they're not willing to actually do anything and the fact is it's a very risky scenario so here's an alternative I still don't think they'll do the alternative but here's my alternative to this my alternative would be to prepare for such an attack put the aircraft carriers in place to put the bombers in place to put everything you need in place and then every time the North Koreans launch anything you knock it down so we should build up our air defense systems we should build up our anti missile systems and we should knock down everything that they put up and knock it down faster than anybody else could and let the North Koreans know that you now have the capacity to destroy them let the North Koreans know that the first target is the leadership and that if they actually start a shelling South Korea start anything like that start a war that they will be devastated instantaneously quickly effectively if you do that if you put all the resources and start knocking down their missiles maybe you have a chance now in addition you've got to cut them off completely I don't see why we don't have a naval blockade of North Korea why we don't we start searching ships before they get there one of the reasons to do that is the danger of them exporting their nuclear missiles and nuclear technology we know they worked with Syrians to try to develop a nuclear bomb that's what these really took out a few years ago was the plant that the North Koreans and Syrians were building together but part of that is shipping materials out we got to stop that you've got to starve them so I would try anything short of war because I think war in this case is so so so risky and the fact is you know I don't think that the South Koreans are going to launch a nuclear attack on the United States but a crazy man in a position where he has the capability of blackmailing us which is what I think he would do and most presidents of the United States would fold under such blackmail so I don't trust the political leaders let me just say quickly how we got here we really got here by because of the mistakes made during the Korean War the biggest mistake during the Korean War was intervening in it what did the United States have to go to Korea for this was a United Nations war we should never get involved in the United Nations war we should have troops affiliated with the United Nations we should never ever have gone and then we wouldn't have troops there and then South Korea unfortunately would probably be captured by the communists it would be one big communist country and it would probably be safer for us to actually defend ourselves against a threat coming from them rather than have now it's sad for South Koreans but that's not our job our job is not to defend South Koreans our job is not to enhance South Korea now once we went into the Korean War the job of the military was to win it and of course their Truman was the coward Truman refused to listen to General McArthur on how to win that war that war was winnable it might have required use of nuclear weapons but it was winnable and then you would have had an entire Korean peninsula that was free so either of those two scenarios were better than what we got right from an American perspective not from a Korean perspective Korean perspective certainly the second scenario is much better but we should have never been in that war any more than we should have been in the Vietnam War you know it's sad if communism would have taken over all Korea but we would have survived just like America survived the fact that at the end of the day all of Vietnam was taken over by communists you know not pleasant not nice but survivable and then of course we've appeased the North Koreans over and over and over again before they had nukes and allowed them to develop them and that is the great tragedy from Clinton to Obama they failed alright you're listening to Iran after this alright so we're talking about we've been talking about North Korea I want to spend maybe a few minutes here just wrapping up some things on North Korea and then after the next break we're going to switch topics and talk about another set of authoritarians but this one domestic called antifa so let's let's just wrap up a few clean up a few things about North Korea let's be clear my view is that the only wall of the American military is to protect America expect the lives and property of Americans I don't believe engaging in wars overseas in order to stop the spread of communism in order to stop the spread of fill in the blank if somebody's a threat to the United States a real threat then crush them destroy them don't fight proxy wars I so I'm against the one Korea should have never happened that peninsula unfortunately would have become all communist but Soviets Vietnam is that way today and Vietnam is not a threat to the United States so who knows what would have happened who knows you probably wouldn't have had this particular family ruling over the entire Korea they would have been it's a bigger more more complicated story if that would have happened if you go to war win it right so if you go to war in North Korea which we did in the in the late 40s early 50s win it whatever it takes win it that would have created a peninsula that was all free that wouldn't have been a problem so all these problems are problems of history of not winning wars and I would argue that today the threat that Iran poses to the United States and if it ever develops nuclear weapons and then uses them to blackmail the United States then we will go back and say that it was the lack that the fact that the United States did not respond to the taking of its embassy in 1979 it was the fact that the United States let the Iranian off the hook post 9 11 it's the fact that the United States has not dealt with Iran over and over and over again when it needed to deal with that will lead to the negative outcome maybe decades from now who knows hopefully not hopefully there'll be an internal revolution in Iran and everything will be settled but there is a certain likelihood that that doesn't happen that really really bad stuff comes out of Iran because of our weakness because of our weakness over all these decades of not dealing with a real viable threat and our weakness when we engage with them we've been a war with Iran since 1979 the taking of our embassy is a war alright in North Korea somebody asked would you do how would you do with the Russians I don't deal with the Russians the Russians not going to intervene Russia is too weak people think of Russia as strong Russia is weak and poor Russia does not have the military capability to intervene and it's busy in Ukraine it has an Islamist threat Russia has its hands full I mean Putin plays a I wouldn't want to play poker with the guy because he over he has a very weak hand and yet everybody in the world is terrified of him in spite of his very weak hand so I'm not worried about I'm much more worried about China but again I wouldn't appease China I would just notify them that this is what's going to happen in terms of trade I would blockade I would do everything any company that trades with them I would do no business with that would hurt the Chinese but I would not stop all trade with China because of what's going on in North Korea I would target it to specific organizations specific entities and I'm going to have to do a show about trade with China and how to deal with trade with China because there's a lot of issues with trade with China on the one hand it is a great win-win on the other hand there are things that you have to address when you're dealing with the Chinese and the number one is North Korea and second is the infringement of property rights of intellectual property rights so you have to have a policy you have to have a strategy of dealing with the Chinese with regard to property rights intellectual property rights and with regard to North Korea which would limit how much trade you did with them all right that's all I really want to talk about North Korea at the end of the day I you know this is going to be on the headlines a lot but the discussion mostly is going to be pretty superficial and stupid so I wanted to give you a little bit of background hopefully you are better educated so you can now better assess what is going on with regard to South Korea and North Korea and what are America's true interests remember that the weapons of bad guys are almost always less efficient and less effective than what is believed maybe with the exception of the Nazis during World War II and even there they ultimately failed so I'm not overly worried about North Korea even though I live in Southern California which is supposed to be the target of their nuclear bomb and by the way nuclear war is always is a disaster so to the extent millions and millions of people would die on outside if you got into a real exchange that's why you have to in whatever war you engage in destroy nuclear capabilities first that has to be the primary priority all right we're going to take a quick break here when we come back we're going to talk about the threat from within Antifa you're listening to your Ron Brooks show on the blaze radio network we'll be right back