'Better a Million Dead North Koreans': Ex-US Army Official

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Ralph Peters has said the moral answer to alleged threats from the People's Democratic Republic of Korea is for the U.S. to strike with military action first.

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In an opinion piece published by the New York Post, Peters argued that in the real world, the great immorality of war is not killing the enemy, but letting the country lose.

“Better a million dead North Koreans than a thousand dead Americans,” Peter wrote. “The fundamental reason our government exists is to protect our people and our territory. Everything else is a grace note.”

“When we’re threatened with nuclear destruction by North Korea, a military response is not unethical,” Peter wrote. “Rather, inviting a North Korean attack by hesitating endlessly — then witnessing the slaughter of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of our citizens — would be unethical and immoral.”

Peters said a peaceful solution would be preferable, but a generation of talks and sanctions have done little to restrain the DPRK over its nuclear and missiles programs.

“Nor have our displays of force in the region done anything to deter a regime conditioned to our empty pageantry,” Peters said. “North Korea doesn’t believe we will act. Because we never have acted.”

Despite Peters’s comment, major world powers are still in favor of a diplomatic and peaceful solution to the crisis.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley described North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "begging for war," Monday, calling for the council to impose “the strongest possible measures” on Pyongyang.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that imposing tougher sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear missile program would be counter-productive and renewed his call for talks.

"Ramping up military hysteria will lead to nothing good. It could lead to a global catastrophe," he told reporters after a BRICS summit in China

"There's no other path apart from a peaceful one," he reiterated.

With more than 300 tanks and some 23,400 U.S. troops stationed at over 40 U.S. military sites throughout South Korea, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that any DPRK threat would be routed by a “massive military response.”

After the U.S.-led war on the Korean peninsula ended in a 1953 armistice, the DPRK is still officially at war with the United States and South Korea, a status the DPRK has repeatedly urged the countries to resolve.