核战朝鲜之团结一心 | 纽约客
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核战朝鲜之团结一心
核战朝鲜之玉石俱焚
III. “Single-Hearted Unity”
After a couple of days in Pyongyang, I was eager to get some glimpses of life beyond the capital. My minders agreed to an outing. Up before dawn, we climbed into the Toyota and headed toward the demilitarized zone, which marks the border with South Korea. Leaving Pyongyang, we passed through a checkpoint, and smooth asphalt eventually gave way to potholes brimming with rainwater. The nation’s wealth and modernity, such as it is, is largely limited to the capital. The road emptied first of cars, then of bicycles, until we passed only clusters of farmers. A woman balancing a load on her head walked along railroad tracks to a point unseen. Without the industrial haze that hovers over much of East Asia, the North Korean landscape is an incandescent green. Eighty per cent of the country is mountainous. (American military planners liken the terrain to Afghanistan’s.)
在平壤待了数日，我渴望看看平壤以外的人民生活。我的看护们同意让我出去一趟。早上摸着黑，我们上了一辆丰田车，前往与韩国边界的非军事区。离开平壤，通过一个检查点后，平整的沥青马路终于变成了坑坑洼洼的土路。国家的财富和现代性主要限于首都。首先路上没了汽车，然后连自行车也看不到了，最后只有大群的农民。一个女人头上顶着重物沿铁轨走远了。这里没有笼罩在东亚大多数地区的灰霾，朝鲜的风景湛绿清亮。这个国家百分之八十都是山，美国军事规划者将这里的地形比作阿富汗。
We stopped to stretch our legs beside a closed restaurant and spotted two busloads of foreign tourists. On September 1st, American tourists would be banned from visiting North Korea, under a State Department order prompted by the death of Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who had been convicted of “a hostile act against the state,” for trying to remove a propaganda poster from the wall of a hotel in Pyongyang. In June, American officials, having discovered that Warmbier had been in a coma for more than a year, secured his release. He died six days after returning home.
我们停下来在一家打烊的餐馆旁活动了一下，发现两大巴的外国游客。美国国务院令，9月1日，美国游客将禁止参观朝鲜，原因是弗吉尼亚大学学生奥托瓦姆比尔试图摘走平壤一家酒店的宣传海报而被控“敌视国家”。6月，美国官员发现瓦姆比尔昏迷了一年多，这才要求将他释放。回家六天后，瓦姆比尔死亡。
I mentioned the upcoming ban, and Pak said that it was a pity, because, after years of internal deliberations, North Korea had been preparing to accept more foreign visitors. “The military used to be very unhappy about tourists coming here, because they might see the secrets of what we’re doing,” he said. “But now we have gained strength.”
我提到即将施行的禁令，Pak表示那让人惋惜，经过多年的内部考虑，朝鲜已准备接纳更多的外国游客。“过去军方对有游客来到这里感到很不高兴，因为他们会看到我们在做的秘密之事，”他说。“可现在我们腰杆硬了。”
In recent months, I’d spoken to American negotiators involved in Warmbier’s case, and they questioned why it had ended tragically. (In the past two decades, at least sixteen Americans have been detained while visiting North Korea, but no others have suffered as much harm.) Warmbier was arrested in January, 2016. After a show trial, he was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor.
近几个月来，我采访了瓦姆比尔案的美国斡旋者，他们质疑此事为何以悲剧收场。（过去二十年中，至少十六名美国人在朝鲜观光时被拘禁，但没有人受到那种伤害。）2016年1月，瓦姆比尔被捕，经过一次装腔作势的审判，他被判处十五年劳改。
Pyongyang reported that Warmbier contracted botulism, was given a sedative, and entered a coma. But doctors in Cincinnati who treated him after his release found no traces of botulism. Many North Korea specialists wondered if he fell ill and was given a catastrophic overdose of medication. Others suspected that he was beaten or interrogated to the point of collapse, but that would be out of the ordinary; most American detainees in North Korea are not beaten, because they are considered bargaining chips.
平壤称瓦姆比尔肉毒杆菌中毒，使用镇定剂后昏迷不醒。但他被释放后，在辛辛那提对他进行治疗的医生没有发现肉毒杆菌的痕迹。许多朝鲜专家怀疑他是否生了病，因用药过度而造成致命伤害。也有人怀疑他被殴打或审讯以至崩溃，但那并不常见：大多数被拘禁在朝鲜的美国人并未遭到殴打，因为他们被当做谈判的筹码。
Negotiators for the Warmbier family, such as Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, had been frustrated in their efforts, and I asked Pak why the government had stonewalled them. Pak blamed an Obama Administration decision, in July, 2016, to impose personal sanctions on Kim Jong Un and other top officials. “Obama blacklisted our leaders, and smeared them by name,” Pak said. “At that point, we could not accept it. We cut off the New York channel and we adopted wartime measures. From then on, we said, the situation will stay as is.”
前墨西哥州长比尔·理查森等为瓦姆比尔家斡旋的人进展不顺，我问Pak问什么政府横加阻挠。Pak指责奥巴马政府在2015年7月作出的决定，对金正恩和其他高官个人发起制裁。“奥巴马把我们的领导人列入黑名单，抹黑他们，”Pak说。“当时我们接受不了。我们切断了纽约渠道，采用战时措施。我们说，自从那以后，形势一直如此。”
I told him that Warmbier’s death had done more damage to North Korea’s reputation in the U.S. than he probably realized. Pak was unmoved. “He broke our rules, and we take that very seriously,” he said.
我告诉他，在美国，瓦姆比尔的死对朝鲜声誉造成的伤害可能比他认为得要大的多。Pak不为所动。“他犯了我们的法条，我们就要严肃处理。”
That morning, the news from America was about the racist demonstrations in Charlottesville, and Pak explained, “In the D.P.R.K., the military thinks Americans come here and try to do whatever they want, like white supremacists are doing in the United States.” (Three Americans are still detained in North Korea: Kim Dong-chul was convicted of spying and is serving a ten-year sentence; Kim Hak-song and Tony Kim are being held on unspecified charges.)
当天早上，美国的新闻是夏洛茨维尔的种族主义示威，Pak解释说，“在朝鲜，军方认为美国人来到这里为所欲为，就像美国的白人至上者一样。”（仍有三个美国人被拘禁在朝鲜：金东哲被控从事间谍活动，入狱十年；金学松和金相德没有罪由就被拘禁起来。）
By midmorning, we had reached the D.M.Z., an open gash across the Peninsula, a remnant of the Korean War. For most Americans, the war is overshadowed by other dramas of the twentieth century, but it’s impossible to understand North Korea’s hostility toward the U.S. today without looking at the history.
上午十点左右，我们抵达非军事区，这是横跨半岛的一条开放地带，是朝鲜战争的残留。对大多数美国人而言，这场战争相比二十世纪的其他波折并不显得突出，可不观察这段历史就不能理解朝鲜为何如此敌视美国。
In June, 1950, North Korea, seeking to unify the Peninsula under Communism, invaded the South. The United States and China entered the war on opposing sides, and by 1953 President Eisenhower had concluded that the conflict had reached a stalemate. That July, after more than four million people had been killed, the sides signed a ceasefire, but not a peace treaty.
1950年6月，试图以共产主义统一半岛的朝鲜入侵韩国。美国和中国分别代表南北参展。1953年，艾森豪威尔总统认为冲突陷入僵局。当年七月，双方签署停火协议，但并未签署和平条约，战争共导致超过四百万人死亡。
The regime’s efforts to cultivate paranoia and contempt for America are rooted in the scale and the devastation of the bombing during the war. Dean Rusk, who later became Secretary of State, recalled, in an oral history in 1985, that the United States bombed “every brick that was standing on top of another, everything that moved.” General Curtis LeMay, the head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984, “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off—what—twenty per cent of the population.”
朝鲜政权努力培育人们对美国的妄想和憎恨，那植根于战争中大规模轰炸造成的毁灭性伤害。后来担任过国务卿的迪恩·鲁斯科在1985年的口述史中回忆说，美国炸平了“地面上的每一块砖头和所有能动的东西”。朝鲜战争时的战略空中指挥部司令柯蒂斯·勒梅将军1984年对空军历史办公室说，“三年多时间里，我们杀掉了百分之二十的人口。”
After the ceasefire, each side walked back two thousand metres, creating the D.M.Z., a buffer zone two and a half miles wide. Large numbers of troops are stationed on both sides, and outbreaks of violence have killed several hundred soldiers over the years. In the most recent incident, in August, 2015, two South Korean soldiers were wounded by land mines.
停火后，双方后撤2000米，形成了非军事区，那是两英里半宽的缓冲区，大批军人驻扎在两侧，多年来双方间暴力行为的导致数百名士兵死亡。最近一场事故发生在2015年8月，2名韩国士兵被地雷炸伤。
The Korean People’s Army assigned Lieutenant Colonel Pang Myong Jin to show me around. Pang is in his late thirties, with prominent cheekbones and a sharp chin. He wore a green uniform and an officer’s cap as broad as a dinner plate. We drove down a narrow road, through a gap in the tank traps and the barbed wire, to a clearing in the forest, which the North Koreans have turned into a shrine, called the North Korea Peace Museum.
朝鲜人民军指定Pang Myong Jin中校带我转了转。Pang快四十岁了，颧骨很高，下巴很尖。他身着绿军装，大檐帽有餐盘那么宽大。我们开车沿着一条窄路，穿过一个坦克陷阱豁口和带刺的铁丝网，来到一片森林中的空旷地带，朝鲜人把这里建成一个纪念坛，叫做朝鲜和平博物馆。
In their version of the conflict, the United States started the Korean War; the singular leadership of Kim Il Sung led to a humiliating defeat of the Americans, who have tried, ever since, to provoke another war. “This was the first time that the U.S. was defeated by the Korean people,” Pang told me.
在他们对战争的描述中，美国挑起了朝鲜战争，金日成的英明领导让美国人屈辱战败，自此以后，美国一直想再度挑起战争。“这是美国人第一次被朝鲜人民打败，”Pang告诉我。
He led me to a tall stone tablet with a Korean inscription: The great leader, Comrade Kim Jong Il, visited this spot four times, including on July 19, 1972. The esteemed high commander, Comrade Kim Jong Un, visited on March 3, 2012. They taught us the valuable lesson of preserving and passing on this historic site—where invading Americans knelt before the people in surrender—to the next generation, in a reunified homeland.
他带我来到一座高石碑前，上面用朝鲜文刻着：伟大领袖金正日同志四次到访此地，包括1972年7月19日。敬爱的最高统帅金正恩同志2012年3月3日访问此地。他们给了我们有益教导，要将历史遗迹保存并传承给下一代人，祖国再度统一时，回顾美国入侵者如何跪在人民面前投降。
Every country valorizes its war record, but North Korea’s mythology—the improbable victory, the divine wisdom of the Kim family, and America’s enduring weakness and hostility—has shaped its conception of the present to a degree that is hard for the rest of the world to understand. In something close to a state religion, North Korea tells its people that their nation may be small, but its unique “single-hearted unity” would crush a beleaguered American military.
每个国家都美化战争史，但朝鲜的神话——难以置信的胜利、金家的非凡智慧和美国人一以贯之的虚弱和敌对——对当下人民认知构成的影响让世界其他地区的人难以理解。这近乎是一种国家宗教，朝鲜政府告诉人民，他们的国家可能很小，但其独一无二的“团结一心”可以击垮陷入人民汪洋大海之中的美国军队。
That’s a volatile notion. Robert Jervis, a Columbia University political scientist, who studies the origins of war, once observed, “War is most likely if you overestimate others’ hostility but underestimate their capabilities.” It can be hard to know where North Korea’s reverie ends and realism resumes.
那是危险的概念。研究战争起源的哥伦比亚大学政治科学家罗伯特·杰维斯曾观察到，“过分估计了对方的敌意，却低估了对方的实力，这时战争最有可能爆发。”很难知道朝鲜走到哪里才能不再妄想，面对现实。
At our last stop, we drove through a grove of ginkgo trees, and arrived at a blue-painted hut that straddles the border with South Korea. North Korean guards in helmets watched us approach. When the two sides hold negotiations, they meet at a heavy wooden table that sits in both countries. I took a seat. “The microphones are the dividing line,” Pang said.
最后一站，我们穿过银杏林，来到跨越与韩国交界的蓝色营地。戴着钢盔的朝鲜卫兵看着我们走来。举行谈判时，双方分别坐在一张大木桌的两侧。我找了个座位坐下来。“麦克风就是分界线，”Pang说。
I walked across the hut to stand, for a moment, in South Korea. When we stepped back outside, Pang said, “This is a very dangerous place, but the respected leader came here during the military exercises, at the highest level of tension. Do you think Trump would dare to come here?”
我穿过营房，在韩国站了片刻。出来后，Pang说，“这是非常危险的地方，但受人爱戴的领袖在军演时来到这里，当时战争一触即发。你想想看，特朗普敢到这种地方来吗？”
Yes, I said. He looked disappointed.
敢，我说。他看起来很失望。
I asked Pang if he thinks the U.S. and North Korea will find themselves at war again. He reminded me that Kim had threatened to fire missiles into the Pacific Ocean. “We will fire a warning shot at Guam, and if that doesn’t work then we will fire a warning shot at the mainland United States. We want to achieve world peace, but if this isn’t possible then we are prepared for war.”
我问Pang，他是否认为美国和韩国将再次交战。他提醒我说，金正恩威胁要向太平洋发射导弹。“我们向关岛射弹，发出警告，如果这还不奏效，我们就向美国本土射弹。我们希望世界和平，但如果不可能实现和平，我们就准备战争。”
If you fire at Guam, I asked, how do you expect the U.S. to respond? He thought for a moment. It was quiet, except for the drone of cicadas. Then Pang cited a comment by Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, in a recent appearance on the “Today” show, which had filtered through translations and reached Pang more or less intact. Graham recounted his conversations with Trump, in which the President said he was prepared to strike Korea because the casualties will be “over there.”
我问，如果你们打了关岛，你认为美国会如何回应呢？他想了一会儿。气氛很安静，只有嘒嘒蝉鸣。然后Pang引用了南卡罗莱纳州参议员林赛·格雷厄姆近来在《今日秀》上亮相时说的话，通过翻译，这些话几乎原封不动地传到Pang的耳中。格雷厄姆复述了他与特朗普的对话，当时总统说他准备打击朝鲜，因为伤亡将“发生在那里”。
“Trump said if there is war, then it will happen in the D.P.R.K., not in the U.S.,” Pang said. “So clearly he is preparing for war. He understands what he’s saying.”
What, exactly, are America’s options with North Korea? Many Korea specialists in Washington favor a major increase in pressure tactics, known as “strategic strangulation.” The U.S. would expand the use of cyber hacking and other covert methods to disrupt missile development and unnerve the government; it would flood the North with smuggled flash drives loaded with uncensored entertainment and information. It would also attempt to close off North Korea’s illicit trade networks, by interdicting ships, expanding sanctions against Chinese companies, and freezing the assets of individual leaders.
“特朗普说如果开战，就要在朝鲜打，而非在美国，”Pang说。“很显然，他在备战。他明白自己说了什么。”可美国人对朝鲜的策略到底是什么呢？华盛顿的朝鲜专家倾向于加强施压，即所谓“战略性绞杀”。美国会加强使用网络黑客和其他秘密方法破坏导弹开发计划，让朝鲜政府焦头烂额。美国会用装满未经审查的娱乐产品和信息的走私闪存淹没朝鲜。美国还试图通过封锁船只、加大对中国公司制裁和冻结领导人个人财产的方式掐断朝鲜的非法贸易网。
“Make hundreds of millions of dollars of North Korean deposits in a Swiss bank disappear,” Evans Revere said. “The goal of this is not to cause the collapse of the regime. The goal of this is to convince the North Koreans that collapse is just over the horizon, and, if Kim Jong Un is a rational actor, then he will understand that.” Critics of the plan say that North Korea has perfected its ability to absorb pain, and that the plan is not fundamentally different from what previous Administrations have attempted.
“让朝鲜存在瑞士银行的数亿美元消失，”伊文思·利威尔说。“目的并非促使政权崩溃。目的是让朝鲜人相信，崩溃可能会发生，如果金正恩是个有理性的玩家，他就会明白这一点。”对这一计划的批评者表示，朝鲜化解伤害的能力炉火纯青，这些伤害与此前美国政府做的本质上没什么不同。
There is also scattered support for a less confrontational option, a short-term deal known as a “freeze for freeze.” North Korea would stop weapons development in exchange for a halt or a reduction in U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Proponents say that a freeze, which could be revoked if either side cheats, is hardly perfect, but the alternatives are worse. Critics say that versions of it have been tried, without success, and that it will damage America’s alliance with the South.
也有少数人支持对抗性较低的选项，达成短期协议，即“冻结换冻结”。朝鲜停止武器开发，换取美韩军演的密度降低。支持者说，冻结绝非完美，一旦一方使诈，协议就瓦解了，可相比而言，其他选项更为糟糕。批评者称，这种方式已经试过了，没有成功，反倒伤害了美国和韩国的盟友关系。
Thus far the Trump Administration has no interest. “The idea that some have suggested, of a so-called ‘freeze for freeze,’ is insulting,” Nikki Haley, the U.N. Ambassador, said before the Security Council on September 4th. “When a rogue regime has a nuclear weapon and an ICBM pointed at you, you do not take steps to lower your guard.”
迄今为止，特朗普对此没有兴趣。“有人提议搞什么‘冻结换冻结’，这种想法简直是侮辱人，”美国驻联合国大使尼基·哈雷在9月4日安理会前说。“流氓政权拥有了核武器，用洲际弹道导弹指着你，你绝不会采取措施放松防卫的。”
Outside the Administration, the more people I talked to, the more I heard a strong case for some level of diplomatic contact. When Obama dispatched James Clapper to Pyongyang, in 2014, to negotiate the release of two prisoners, Clapper discovered that North Korea had misread the purpose of the trip. The government had presumed that he was coming in part to open a new phase in the relationship. “They were bitterly disappointed,” he said. Clapper’s visit convinced him that the absence of diplomatic contact is creating a dangerous gulf of misperception.
政府以外，我采访的人越多，就听到越多要求进行某种程度的外交接触。2014年奥巴马派遣詹姆斯·克拉帕前往平壤斡旋释放两名囚犯时，克拉帕发现朝鲜误读了此行的目的。朝鲜政府认为他的部分目的是开启双方关系的新阶段。“他们非常失望，”他说。克拉帕的访问让他相信，缺少外交接触导致了相互误解的危险鸿沟。
“I was blown away by the siege mentality—the paranoia—that prevails among the leadership of North Korea. When we sabre-rattle, when we fly B-1s accompanied by jet escorts from the Republic of Korea and Japan, it makes us feel good, it reassures the allies, but what we don’t factor in is the impact on the North Koreans.”
“朝鲜领导层妄想自己被围攻的普遍心理让我吃惊。当我们厉兵秣马，战斗机护送着B-1S轰炸机盘旋在韩国和日本上空，我们感觉挺好，盟友也放心了，可单单没有考虑到对朝鲜人造成的影响。”
Clapper went on, “I think that what we should do is consider seriously, in consultation with South Korea, establishing an interest section in Pyongyang much like we had in Havana for decades, to deal with a government that we didn’t recognize. If we had a permanent presence in Pyongyang, I wonder whether the outcome of the tragedy of Otto Warmbier might have been avoided. Secondly, it would provide on-scene insight into what is actually going on in North Korea—intelligence.”
克拉珀继续说，“我认为我们该严肃地考虑，同韩国商量后，在平壤建个利益代表处，正如几十年前在哈瓦那那样，同我们不承认的政府打交道。如果我们在平壤驻扎下来，我想奥托·瓦姆比尔的悲剧或许可以避免。此外还能洞悉朝鲜正在发生什么，获得情报。”
It is a measure of how impoverished America’s contact with North Korea has become that one of the best-known conduits is Dennis Rodman, a.k.a. the Worm, the bad boy of the nineties-era Chicago Bulls. Rodman’s agent, Chris Volo, a hulking former mixed-martial-arts fighter, told me recently, “I’ve been there four times in four years. I’m in the Korean Sea, and I’m saying to myself, ‘No one would believe that I’m alone right now, riding Sea-Doos with Kim Jong Un.’ ”
最著名的管道竟然是九十年代芝加哥的不良少年“大虫”罗德曼，这反映了美国与朝鲜的接触有多么贫乏。罗德曼的经纪人、大块头的前综合格斗士克里斯·沃洛最近对我说，“我四年内去了那里四次。我在韩国海时，对我自己说，‘没人会相信我独自一个人，和金正恩骑摩托艇。’”
Rodman’s strange bond with Kim began in 2013, when Vice Media, aware of Kim’s love of the Bulls, offered to fly American basketball players to North Korea. Vice tried to contact Michael Jordan but got nowhere. Rodman, who was working the night-club autograph circuit, was happy to go. He joined three members of the Harlem Globetrotters for a game in Pyongyang. Kim made a surprise appearance, invited Rodman to dinner, and asked him to return to North Korea for a week at his private beach resort in Wonsan, which Rodman later described as “Hawaii or Ibiza, but he’s the only one that lives there.” On his most recent trip, in June, Rodman gave Kim English and Korean editions of Trump’s 1987 best-seller, “The Art of the Deal.”
罗德曼2013年同金正恩建立了奇怪的联系，当时Vice传媒知道金正恩酷爱公牛队，提出让美国篮球队员飞赴朝鲜。Vice试图联系迈克尔·乔丹，但能成行。在夜总会巡回签售的罗德曼表示愿意去。他和其他三名哈林花式篮球队成员一道赴平壤比赛。金正恩出人意料地露了面，还邀请罗德安用餐，要求他再次回访朝鲜一周，就住在他在元山的私人海滩庄园，后来罗德曼形容那里是“夏威夷或伊比沙，但他是唯一住在那里的人”。今年6月他又去了朝鲜，罗德曼把特朗普1987年的畅销书《交易的艺术》的英朝双语版送给金正恩。
Ultimately, the Trump Administration must decide if it can live with North Korea as a nuclear state. During the Cold War, the United States used deterrence, arms control, and diplomacy to coexist with a hostile, untrustworthy adversary. At its height, the Soviet Union had fifty-five thousand nuclear weapons. According to the RAND Corporation, the North Koreans are on track to have between fifty and a hundred by 2020; that would be less than half the size of Great Britain’s arsenal.
归根到底，特朗普政府必须做出决定，能否与作为核武国家的朝鲜共存。在冷战期间，美国运用威慑、军控和外交等方式与一个敌对的、不值得信任的敌手共存。在冷战最高潮时，苏联拥有5.5万枚核导弹。据兰德公司调研，到2020年为止，朝鲜将拥有50到100枚，规模还不及英国核弹库的一半。
Susan Rice, who served as Obama’s national-security adviser, argued, in a Times Op-Ed last month, that the U.S. can “rely on traditional deterrence” to blunt North Korea’s threat. But McMaster is skeptical that the Soviet model can be applied to Pyongyang. He told me, “There are reasons why this situation is different from the one we were in with the Soviets. The North Koreans have shown, through their words and actions, their intention to blackmail the United States into abandoning our South Korean ally, potentially clearing the path for a second Korean War.”
曾任奥巴马国家安全顾问的苏珊·赖斯上月在《纽约时报》评论版发表文章认为，美国可以“依赖传统威慑手段”化解朝鲜威胁。但麦克马斯特对把苏联模式用于平壤表示怀疑。他对我说，“有多个理由说明目前的形势和当时应对苏联人有所不同。朝鲜人言行中已经表达了他们讹诈美国的意愿，以迫使我们放弃盟友韩国，这可能为挑起第二次朝鲜战争扫清道路。”
If the Administration were to choose a preventive war, one option is “decapitation,” an effort to kill senior leaders with a conventional or even a nuclear attack, though most analysts consider the risks unacceptable. Such a strike could rally the population around the regime and cause a surviving commander to respond with a nuclear weapon.
如果政府选择预防性战争，一种选择是“斩首”，使用传统甚至核打击方式杀死高级领导人，尽管大多数分析人士认为其造成的危险难以令人接受。这种打击会让朝鲜人民紧密团结在政权周围，某个活下来的指挥官会使用核武器回应。
Another option is akin to Israel’s 1981 stealth attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor, the linchpin of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear-weapons development, which set back Iraq’s pursuit of nuclear weapons by at least a decade. “That’s a textbook case of a preventive war,” the senior Administration official told me.
另外一种选项类似于以色列1981年对奥希拉克核反应堆进行偷袭，那是萨达姆·侯赛因核武开发计划的中枢，该行动将伊拉克核武计划推迟了至少十年。“那是预防性战争的教科书，”一位高级政府官员对我说。
But the comparison between Osirak and North Korea is limited. In 1981, Iraq had yet to make a bomb, and it had just one major nuclear target, which was isolated in the desert and relatively easy to eliminate. North Korea already has dozens of usable nuclear warheads, distributed across an unknown number of facilities, many of them hidden underground. Even destroying their missiles on the launch pad has become much harder, because the North has developed mobile launchers and solid-fuel missiles, which can be rolled out and fired with far less advance notice than older liquid-fuel missiles.
但奥希拉克与朝鲜的可比性有限。1981年的伊拉克还未造出核弹，且只有一个重要核目标，在沙漠中孑然独立，很容易清除。现在朝鲜已经拥有数十枚可用核弹头，分布在未知的各军事设施中，许多还藏在地下。即便是摧毁发射架上的导弹也日益困难，因为朝鲜开发出可移动发射器和固体燃料导弹，相比液体燃料导弹，固体燃料导弹拉出来就可以发射，很难提前觉察。
The Obama Administration studied the potential costs and benefits of a preventive war intended to destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Its conclusion, according to Rice, in the Times, was that it would be “lunacy,” resulting in “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualties.” North Korea likely would retaliate with an attack on Seoul. The North has positioned thousands of artillery cannons and rocket launchers in range of the South Korean capital, which has a population of ten million, and other densely populated areas. (Despite domestic pressure to avoid confrontation, South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, has accepted the installation of an American missile-defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.)
奥巴马政府研究了旨在摧毁朝鲜核武器的预防性战争的代价和好处。根据赖斯在《纽约时报》上的文章，得出结论这是“愚蠢的行为”，会导致“数十万人伤亡，就算达不到数百万”。朝鲜可能报复韩国，朝鲜部署了数千名火炮和火箭发射器，韩国首都和其他人口密集地区在射程内，而首尔有1000万人口。（韩国总统文在寅接受了美国导弹防御系统萨德，尽管为了避免冲突，韩国国内人民施压反对。）
Some two hundred thousand Americans live in South Korea. (Forty thousand U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan, which would also be vulnerable.) A 2012 study of the risks of a North Korean attack on Seoul, by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, estimates that sixty-five thousand civilians would die on the first day, and tens of thousands more in the days that followed. If Kim used his stockpiles of sarin gas and biological weapons, the toll would reach the millions. U.S. and South Korean forces could eventually overwhelm the North Korean military, but, by any measure, the conflict would yield one of the worst mass killings in the modern age.
约二十万美国人住在韩国。（四万美国军事人员驻扎在日本，也容易受到攻击。）安全及可持续性鹦鹉螺研究所2012年对朝鲜打击首尔的一份报告预计，开战第一天就会有六万五千名平民死亡，接下来几天还将有数万名死亡。如果金正恩使用大量储存的沙林毒气和生物武器，死亡人数将达到数百万。美国和韩国军队最终会压倒朝鲜军队，但不管怎么算，冲突都会导致现代历史上最大规模的屠杀之一。
In dozens of conversations this summer, in the United States and Asia, experts from across the political spectrum predicted that, despite the threats from Trump and McMaster, the U.S. most likely will accept the reality of North Korea as a nuclear state, and then try to convince Kim Jong Un that using—or selling—those weapons would bring about its annihilation. John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University, in Seoul, said, “If, one day, an American President comes along—maybe Trump—who understands the problem is the hostile relationship, and takes steps to improve it, then the slow train to denuclearization could leave the station.”
今年夏天，各政治派别的美国和亚洲专家展开数十次对话，他们预计，尽管特朗普和麦克马斯特嘴上威胁要打仗，美国更有可能接受朝鲜作为核国家的现实，并试图让金正恩相信，使用或出售这些武器将招致彻底灭亡。首尔延世大学教授约翰·德鲁里说，“有一天，某位美国总统，可能这人就是特朗普，能够明白问题就出在两国的敌对关系上并加以改善，去核化的列车才算徐徐出站。”
Managing a nuclear North Korea will not be cheap. It will require stronger missile defenses in South Korea, Japan, Alaska, and Hawaii, and more investment in intelligence to track the locations of North Korea’s weapons, to insure that we pose a credible threat of destroying them.
管理核武国朝鲜的代价不菲。那需要在韩国、日本、阿拉斯加和夏威夷部署更强大的导弹防御系统，对情报工作加大投资，追踪朝鲜核武器的存放地点，确保我们有的放矢。
Scott Snyder, of the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “I think we’re going to end up in a situation where we live with a nuclear-capable North Korea, but it will be a situation that is incredibly dangerous. Because, at that point, any unexplained move that looks like it could involve preparations for a nuclear strike could precipitate an American preëmptive response.” Even that risk, by almost all accounts, is better than a war.
外交关系委员会的斯科特·斯奈德说，“我认为最终我们只能与拥有核武的朝鲜共存，但这种情况非常危险。因为那时，任何貌似准备要进行核打击的未加解释的举动都会招致美国先发制人的回应。”可说来说去，即便生活在那种危险之中，也总比打仗要好。
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