More like ignored, played off, disregarded and rationalized. Darn right it is a hard problem. That is why everyone did all they good to avoid facing it on their watch. Iran is not North Korea for a number of reasons and that is why letting Iran get to the point of a list of shitty choices like NK is now is so egregious .
Honor an eastern notion -think some old Greek guy identified honor early on as a Western reason for fighting
True, but not one that tends to be the focus of modern open source western analysis. We often talk a lot about economic factors but that's not always the only factor that may motivate potential foes. I'm sure there are people who have spent careers wiring to understand the motivations of the NORKs but that's not what comes out in the news.
Correct me if I'm wrong here: In 1941, Allied sanctions against Japan created a situation where Japan's oil-needy war machine was cut off from oil supply routes (for a country with no domestic production), thereby giving Japan X days of oil reserves left before reaching zero barrels, no?
Pretty much. The oil embargo was put in place by the ABCD nations due to Japanes militarism in China and French Indochina. After the embargo Japan saw its choices as:. Economic collapse, expand the scope of the war to access oil in n the Dutch east indies, or to give in to the demands of the sanctions and give up their territorial gains in China and Indochina. Japan and her militaristic government felt that giving up their gains in China was an unacceptable loss of face so they began planning to expand the war. Their decision to expand the war was based on an assumption that the western allies were weak and that the resultant conflict would be a limited war and that they could quickly negotiate a peace after their initial victories.
The families would be sent home well before things could get sporty, and the folks serving over there aren't on a government funded vacation.
So, doesn't mean they're right. If the shooting starts, no one was right. The North wants a deliverable nuke to maintain it's existence. When that's threatened to a point ( no one knows that point, except the chubby kid with the bad haircut) they may strike first. That's why Trump has to calm the fuck down, and talk to the pros across the Potomac before tweeting brimstone and hell fire.
And herein lies the rub, at least in my pea-brained estimation: if we believe he wants deliverable nukes to ensure his existence, how does that square with the high probability that using them would terminate his existence? I don't see this as the MAD dilemma between former USSR and US where each had/has large enough stockpile(s) for subsequent second, third, etc strikes. I believe that if he lets one fly, he's done.
It's like every other time the news media adopts an "official" term that they think gives them an air of credibility. Like when some talking head said Hillary had a "homebrew" server, and from then on, that was the Official Media Term for it. Like they thought it was official computer science jargon that made them look smart.