A North Korea thread

Oh, they’re off that Russia thing finally? I wouldn’t know. Haven’t been in a US airport recently.

Well, CNN got its break covering the first US/Irak close encounter. Love that movie with Michael Keaton.

A timely basis of comparison:

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/13/world/clinton-s-warning-irks-north-korea.html

Bubba wasn’t always wrong about everything.

“if North Korea developed and used an atomic weapon”

vs

“if more threats emerge”

There is a slight difference there I would assume.

Where ever you stand politically, you don’t want Trump starting a war, you just don’t want that clown deciding about the lives of millions of people. Man, Republicans, get that idiot out of the White House NOW!

There’s the war, and then there’s the argument over who started it. The Kim regime is all set to lose that argument. Let’s see to it that they also lose the war, because that matters a hell of a lot more.

For what it’s worth - and it may not be worth much - the international community is talking like they’re not gonna put up with Nork shenanigans. The recent UN resolution was the right words at the right time. But still… not much more than words.

I could see #3 happening in some form. Taiwan will get dragged into this in some way.

It is all about how the others react. How China reacts, even after the dust settles. With the Koreas reunited, on South Korean terms, how will China sit with a new democracy directly on its borders, possibly with US troops as well? (they kind of already had to deal with that up to 1979) Will the distraction of the US be enough to convince Beijing to take Taiwan?
What about Russia? What will they do? How about Iran? India?

That tiny nation has the potential to really set off half the world.

More questions. How will the US or ROK soldiers be welcomed in Pyongyang? Remember we were told that we would be welcomed as liberators in Iraq. A Chinese/Russian fed insurgency could be waiting for any occupying force.

I’ve looked into that. A majority of Iraqi subjects (I’ve seen 80%) did in fact welcome the US as liberators. But the ones we liberated them from… saw things differently.

You can’t free the oppressed from their oppressors without angering and upsetting the oppressors in the process. I say don’t fight other peoples’ fights for them. Why make their enemies our enemies? But if a regime is creating trouble for us, then… yeah. Topple the bastards.

And it really doesn’t matter whether we’re seen as liberators or not.

I predict the majority of starving peasants in North Korea will welcome an invasion. I also predict they won’t be the ones whose point of view matters, because they’re not the ones with the guns and missiles.

It’s going to be a tough fight, but not half as tough as the consequences of not fighting would be.

I think the Chinese know Trump enough not to take Taiwan.

N. Korea isn’t so important to China and Russia as it was during the Cold War. They wouldn’t like US troops there, but N. Korea was hardly a positive force and voice for communism in general. China is tired of all the defections on their border and taking care of all those people that North Korea can’t sustain.

Polls are about as trustworthy as a hack reality tv star who has been in bankruptcy sin many times he knows the wood grain patterns on the floor.

The cult of saddam has nothing on the cult of Kim. Iraq was not completely shut off from the world as is NK. So, really cannot look at one via the other. Looking at a US led invasion of NK to that of Iraq, would be like comparing an inevitable Chinese takeover of Taiwan to that of the Russian takeover of the Crimea.

At least Halliburton shares will rise.

NK is a buffer to keep the US away from Chinese borders. In the same sense Ukraine is a buffer between Russia and NATO/EU. NK could reignite into another proxy war involving the Russians and Chinese.

Don’t discount Taiwan being used as a bargaining chip. Since China has veto power, Beijing will be given a heads up to any US response. Taiwan is bound to come up. If China offers to “look the other way” they would most likely demand the US give up support for Taiwan.

You do understand that cuts both ways, right?

Even if the peasants turn out to be as brainwashed as you postulate, they’re not going to be a factor. They don’t have the weapons.

The regime is the problem to be addressed. Target the regime. Destroy the regime. Make no excuses beforehand, and no apologies afterwards.

Present Beijing with a fait accompli and let them deal with it. Negotiation will be a lot less complicated then. We can even offer them a piece. Not that the logic of buffer states really works all that well, but if it makes them feel better we can give them the Yalu watershed region.

Being abit selfish here, but what is the direction of fallout from NK? SK? Japan?

China is already a bit testy with India troops and wants to take over Kashmir. If they let them, I bet they will make a run for Dharamsala, at least.

Not to mention Taiwan. Compared to Kashmir, we are low hanging mangoes, ready to be kicked aroud at the slightest chance. Trumpf does not care about NAFTA, UNFCCC or anything else he has not signed - or has, like recipts- so TRA my foot.

Happy now that we have an ignorant madman in the White House?

Libya and neighboring countries thought pretty much the same of the previous one. It must be a tradition.

His generals must be horrified. No apparent strategy, thin-skinned, easy to bait, goes to the nuke option straight away.

The generals were not too happy with the last guy,

I very much doubt that the latest “fury” statement was the result of carefully listening to generals.

China has warned India they’d be willing to go to war if the Indian army doesn’t remove troops from a contested area between the two.

Do you think China would LITERALLY go to full scale war with a country with nuclear arsenal such as India over a dusty road in the middle of nowhere? Or was it just a political message?

It’s just political language.

I think it is a very old fashioned approach to start a war in order to reactivate the economy/create jobs/etc But it is a 70 year old at the helm. Moreover, I do believe that since there will be a nuclear arsenal in play and all that involves, that the destruction and environmental harm, in both active and collateral damage, will be detrimental to such economic growth.

If you need a war for legitimacy be my guest, just keep it conventional. However, with NK involved, and an inadequate president in the US on the other, there is no limit to idiocy/carnage in warfare.

Gheddafi was a legitimate ruler and the president of the US was much younger, but things didn’t turn out too well, neither for Libya nor for the EU nor for the US soldiers involved there.