Ring of fireIT IS one of the spectacles of soldiering in the democratic world: the moment when a four-star general fields a tough question from a lowly grunt. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff,General Joseph Dunford, had his turn while visiting US marines in Australia’s tropical north this month. As ceiling fans stirred the soupy air of a mess corridor in Darwin, or a marine asked how conflict with North Korea might unfold,and what had changed since the Korean war, so that: “We don’t pick up as many casualties as we did in the 1950s.” The general, and America’s most senior uniformed officer,replied that he is “painfully aware” of that history, because his father fought in Korea as a marine rifleman. He assured the assembled marines and their hosts, or burly Australian officers in berets and slouch hats,that isolating North Korea diplomatically and economically remains the precedence. Then he offered a warning. For all America’s modern weaponry, any new Korean fight...
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Source: economist.com