Nuclear pre-emptive strike on North Korea?

These arguments are premised upon fantastic, hypothetical, far-fetched scenarios – all while failing to mention the apocalyptic catastrophe those decisions would signify for the Korean Peninsula and people.
Such measures would betray a stunning disregard for Korean lives – both southern and northern.
In the UK, the Independent criticised one such commentary observing, “While [advocates] write of the potential “millions of casualties” of a [North Korean] nuclear attack on the US, they do not analyse the potential impact of a US first strike on ordinary North Koreans.”
“In 2014 the United Nations concluded the North Korean people were subjected to ‘extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,’” the article noted.
In a Bloomberg column earlier this year, Andrei Lankov wrote, “a strike would likely destroy the US-Korea alliance. Many South Koreans would view pre-emptive American action as criminally selfish – addressing a distant threat to the US at the cost of creating a much more immediate threat to South Korea.”
What is being called “pre-emptive” strikes over Kim Jong-un’s  inter-continental missile programme are in fact preventive strikes –striking to destroy an adversary’s capability but without any indication of an imminent attack.
As Robert Gallucci, a Georgetown University professor of diplomacy and former State Department official noted last month, “such an act could not properly be called pre-emption, because it would not be responding to an imminent attack. Rather, we would be taking preventive action and risking a preventive war. ... The invasion of Iraq in 2003, for instance, was a preventive war, not an act of pre-emption. Ethics, law and prudence are on the side of pre-emption but not on preventive strikes.”
Preventive strikes, which are erroneously being paraded as pre-emptive, could lead to what former US Defence Secretary William Perry characterised as “a second Korean War, far more devastating than the first”. Some 5 million died in the Korean War – most of them civilians. Korean non-combatants, with nowhere to evacuate to in such immense numbers, would again suffer overwhelming deaths. South Korea’s Defence Ministry concludes that Kim’s regime aims to “dump 31 tonnes of biological and chemical weapons into the South on Day 1 of the war by using its long-range artillery and airplanes,” Dong-A Ilbo reported on February 27.
The newspaper added: “The number of expected fatalities due to such an attack will be up to 2.8 million people.” 
Nor does the notion of military strikes against the North “on humanitarian grounds” possess any credibility. North Korea’s long-established policy of massacring all those within prison camps in order to “erase evidence” of atrocities would immediately be implemented in the event of war. North Korea could also respond with a nuclear counterattack targeting the South.
Instead, we must undertake a vigorous, tailor-made information campaign focused on estranging North Koreans from Kim Jong-un, leading to his ouster and the reunification of South and North.
New information from defecting North Korean ambassador Thae Yong-ho revealed that “the absence of a second-in-command in the North opens up the chance of reunification ‘if something happens to’ leader Kim Jong-un”, wrote the Chosun Ilbo on December 20. 
After the purge and brutal execution of Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle and former regime No 2, all of his associates and their family members were either killed or sent to concentration camps. Subsequent to Jang’s purge, Choe Ryong-hae assumed No 2 status – but not for long.
Choe was suspended from all positions within the central party by 2015, imprisoned and reportedly tortured.
In 2015, North Korea’s Defence Minister Hyon Yong-chol was executed, reportedly for “dozing off during military events and second-guessing Mr Kim’s orders”. 
High-ranking North Korean officials clearly live in fear for their lives at this juncture and a conditional amnesty – requiring the cessation of all human rights violations, freeing of all political prisoners and opposition to the person of Kim Jong-un – which allowed for them to live securely in a reunified Korea would doubtlessly be attractive if offered.
I’m certain resentment against Kim is far-reaching and many in the North want the genocide’s architect ousted. Yet they need to know the South is behind them and that South Korea would embrace and welcome northerners after unification.
Thae Yong-ho has solemnly cautioned, “A pre-emptive strike against North Korea will bring about a huge catastrophe. Before it happens we should remove Kim Jong-un.” I share Thae’s conviction we can and must depose Kim Jong-un through “peaceful” means; namely, by actively reaching out to northerners in prudent compassion. 
At a closed-door forum on March 28, Thae reiterated, “The North Korean regime must be brought down by its own people with the help of outside information.” Thae is correct: it is the North Korean people themselves who must be empowered and assisted to oust Kim Jong-un. We can and must bring about peaceful reunification in such manner.

Robert Park was jailed in North Korea in 2009 after protesting crimes against humanity. He is a member of the non-partisan Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea.