There have been plots to kill the fat bastard. There were plots to kill Hitler. These things are a crapshoot at best.
Let’s talk embargo. The trick there is enforcement…
If this doesn’t work, it will come to blockade - which is considered an act of war. So some diplomatic preparation to see we don’t get stuck with the blame for starting the war. In practice, it would have to be a multinational effort.
That long land border with China complicates things. Tactical nukes can block mountain passes with rubble, but there will be, ahem, fallout.
An enormous death toll. About 25 million people live in the greater Seoul area, just an hour south of the border with North Korea.
Lives would be threatened without the use of nuclear weapons. North Korea has stashed as many as 15,000 artillery weapons in the hillsides behind the Military Demarcation Line, which separates the two countries. The Nautilus Institute, an American think tank, estimates that about 700 artillery weapons could reach the South Korean city.
Mass panic. Seoul is a difficult city to evacuate, divided by the Han River and bordered to the south by mountains.
A potential attack by Pyongyang at Japan, an American ally.
A global economic and financial crisis. South Korea has the 11th-largest economy in the world.
A potential global conflict. It is not clear how Russia or China, North Korea’s closest diplomatic allies, would respond.
A Chinese military invasion of North Korea in the event of a U.S. attack, as part of an effort to control the nuclear weapons and stabilize the situation.
A refugee crisis: Millions of North Koreans could attempt to flee by crossing the border to China.
OK, best case scenario: US bombs Kim et al to kingdom come BEFORE they launch any attack. Peace reigns throughout the land…
…but we still have to deal with starving refugees, lost without their leader, ready to fall for the next gimm-ick, which will probably be China. This would be a win win for them, as they will PR the hell outta this, teh world will embrace them as saviours, while they get boatload after boatload of slave labor to revitalize their industries for free! Feeding? Humanitarian aid? Close borders and shoot press and Bob’s your uncle. Not that they are unskilled in this.
Now, depending on how much time the NK have to react, or if they already have some failsafe dead man’s switch, maybeeven moles in SK or US, or other Dan Brown/Tom Clancy kind of evil plan, or if they survive enough to retaliate… then we have to add loss of life and property and most importantly, investors panic. The muddied waters will make some people really rich, again, a win win.
If the evangelicals can push it into their agenda of the End of the World, even better. Next US president will be violently religious and impose Maiden-like regime.
Going by China’s logic it would seem equivalent to being around someone who says he’s got a gun in a drawer and some bullets on the desk and he’s going to shoot you, then watching as he goes to the drawer pulls out a gun, starts reaching for the bullets and someone saying “you have to wait until he shoots you until you can defend yourself”. I don’t think self defense works like that.
Besides by China’s logic, every country in the world will be given the green light to develop nukes and ICBM’s, just so long as they are not actually used.
Yes, confronting NK and making a stand that development of ICBM’s and nukes is not allowed could have very serious consequences. NOT confronting NK and giving other countries the green light to develop their own ICBM’s and nukes could have very serious consequences too.
I find it really hard to believe that in the case of a USA-NK conflict started by the US, the Chinese army would side with NK. I mean, if by:“siding” we mean to offer diplomatic support then I can see the point, but actively involving their army against the US? It doesn’t look like a smart move to me, especially when the conflict is right next door…unless of course they want to solve their over-population problem.
Actually it would be more like the US thinking that China or anyone else can do the fighting on land for them. Ain’t happening.
China has lost patience with the NK leadership but they are very good at playing victim. A few million less will not hurt and if the NK hit them, it will be because their misiles missed the original target, not because China was the target. More sympathy vote for China.
Nope, China will wait until US hangs itself up by its own strings. Otherwise, they will sit pretty. They have everything to win no matter the scenario.
They wouldn’t need to take sides – take the high road and become the world leader while the US drains it coffers in a war it can’t afford. Meanwhile when the dust settles and the millions dead are buried, who gets access to all those resources un-mined in North Korea and the reconstruction contracts. I bet it won’t be the US.
You are putting a lot of faith in the Chinese, as if they will be the ones to go in and sort it out.
It is more likely that the ROK would simply go in with its own rebuild strategy and aid and assistance, with support from its allies. The idea is that not only would the NK regime cease to exist, but NK itself would also and the peninsula would be reunited under ROK/US terms. I highly doubt Beijing will sit idly by while a new democracy sets up shop on its borders, complete with US/Japanese bodyguards.
Hence, the reason Beijing would start leaning on Taiwan. With her protector busy elsewhere, Taiwan would be a sitting alone for the PLA to swoop in and stomp.
We didn’t get dragged into Taiwan. More like Taiwan got “dragged” into democracy because of us. If it weren’t for fear of us, China would have taken Taiwan long before without much ado.
Taiwan complications could be said to go back to WWII when Chiang-Kai Shek was an ally against the Japanese, and we supported wherever he was or went.
Yeah. Embargoes and sanctions are meaningless. They do more harm to those they are trying to help. Cuba has survived 50+ years of a US embargo, even with declining support for it. No one else will go along. Iran seems to be doing just fine. I doubt that regime will change anytime soon. Iraq survived round after round of sanctions, until that tinderbox was set afire.
Of interesting note, our beloved Taiwan has been guilty of “not playing along.” When the powers that be were begrudgingly trying to do away/not do away with the apartheid regime in South Africa, Taipei -not being a member of the UN- played by no such rules. They did the same, until getting pressured by the US, with Iran.
Sanctions worked against South Africa because they were double with social pressures from abroad and a really nasty image problem. Apartheid was cause celebre in the 80s. Artists, actors, musicians, films all bound together to help force an end to apartheid. Cuba, Iran, Iraq, NK, no one seems to care too much about them.
The North’s artillery and other traditional weapons, even though in large supply, are very outdated, compared to the South, not to mention the US.
North Korea has already suffered starving refugees. Their population is much less than the south because of decades of famine and death, and China already has refugees for exactly this reason.
China won’t invade North Korea like they did last time we took North Korea. We don’t have a Truman in the White House, who doesn’t listen to generals and was afraid to bomb Chinese war factories when MacArthur publicly advised him to do so. Trump will not make the same mistake. If Chinese get involved, we will take the war to them, as Trump listens to his generals.
Trump has threatened to alter the “one China” stance, which means Taiwan isn’t part of China; it is therefore implicit recognition that Taiwan is apart from China, a nation of its own.
He threatened China with the One-China Policy and introduced the issue as a chess piece, and then took it back when China started behaving on trade with XiJiPing. But when China misbehaves again, the One China Policy is always on the negotiating table. Trump is in the driver’s seat.
Trump doesn’t need anyone’s back. America leads first and let the others follow. You’re still stuck in Obama’s personality and administration policies, which is to follow world opinion and don’t make waves and don’t believe in American exceptionalism. Trump is different.
Korean War would not be like Afghanistan or Iraq, as South Korea would rule, and there aren’t vying sects of Koreans in either country or Korean terrorism, other than that sponsored by the NK government.
Your economic understanding isn’t very deep. Even if China cuts trade off with US, they would hurt themselves more than they hurt US. Adams Smith addressed this hundreds of years ago when protectionism was actively practiced. What happens is that other countries fill up the gap for China. It may take some time to happen, but economics will develop along those lines, for where there is demand, supply will meet it.
I didn’t know this topic was about America’s contribution to the world in terms of democracy.
I think it’s hilarious (and terrifying) that you’re painting Trump in some sort of savior brush when he’s more likely to bring apocalypse to everyone in the region. He’s a raging catastrophe personified.
Btw you’d have to be really foolish if you think he stood by what he said about Taiwan. He didn’t.
According a very rightwing, Trump supporting rag Die Furor gave his word that the US would not only “recognize” and abide by the “one China” policy, but also rebuff any overtures by the leadership in Taipei. If Herr Trump is serious about Taiwan, he would land Air Force One in Songshan airport and personally meet with president Tsai. Hint: That will never happen.
You are right, I do not buy into American exceptionalism. I am not a nationalist and I did not buy into the populist rhetoric. Miloševic rode a wave of nationalism and populism to come to power, by pretending to be the voice of the “forgotten”, the “left behind”. Drugi Trump did the same, and he is building himself a cult of personality akin to Mussolini.
You have to go back to Nixon to find this much arrogance in the white house. Oh, while presidents in the past have taken stabs at the the limitations set to their power by the most glorious document ever written, the US constitution (read it sometime), no one has ever overtly called the document a “disaster”, or “the worst” and called for its “eradication” (let alone the nation that the document guides. that is steve bannon, he is a traitor). That means Donnie is not faithfully defending and upholding the document he swore an oath to defend. That…is treason.
I have to walk away from that. That is the most ridiculous thing I have will read, probably until the Twitter feeds explode with another bullshit rant from bullshitter in chief. This underlines your complete lack of understanding of international relations and foreign policy…
…and you have no idea how the real world works, or China. There is no contingency plan for disrupted trade between the US and China. It will not only have an affect on the US, but the global economy as a whole. There is no redundancy, and it would take years for any factory to get up and running, and supply chains to be re-established. And, just because you have factories and raw materials, does not mean you have the people with the skills to work it. It has taken China almost 2 generations to come up to speed. From scratch. The demand will be there, but the supply will not.
I’m just highlighting the difference between traditional Republican and Democrat leadership. Reagan was also scoffed with apocalypse, but he brought the Soviet Union to its knees with his up-to-then innovative provocative stance against them.
Trump hasn’t let up pressure on China with a 1.5 billion arms sales to Taiwan, a destroyer going through the disputed waters on the Spratley Islands and near their artificial island there yesterday, announced China as the worst nation in human trafficking, imposed sanctions on a Chinese bank, and the “fire and fury” remark is also directed at China, to get them to do more to influence NK as they said they would, but haven’t done enough.
It’d be great if he could bring China down but I seriously doubt that. It seems like he’s gonna bring America down first, along with Europe and the American allies in Asia.
You are not a student of history, are you. You have to remain tempered in these situations. While invading or nuking China may have seemed like a good idea at the time, doing such could have meant drawing the Soviets into direct confrontation. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a queen, to get a better position on the board.
What happened the last time a populous blindly followed a leader who demonizes the press (and opponents)? Oh, yeah…
The Afghan muj kicked out the Soviets wearing plastic sandals. The Vietnamese outlasted the US, while wearing pajamas. Do not discount an enemy by their lack of modernization. Also, China and Russia could simply proxy this out the way they did the last time.