Nobody asked but …
North Korea is the latest nominee for total war, ie. instant annihilation, from the sabre-rattlers. Pepe, the frog, points out that we are letting Kim’s regime collapse of its own weight, just as we mistakenly did with Hitler.
I must reply that we never had the capability of instant mastery over der Fuhrer. As a matter of fact, no nukes were ready before the end of hostilities in Europe. The worst we could do was fire bomb a couple of cities. Any ploy would have been some degree of “allowing” the Third Reich to exist, for some duration.
We do not have the capability of making a problem go away instantly. Wishful thinking aside, it is irresponsible to stoke the myth of total war.
— Kilgore Forelle