North Korea

[Dave The Man]

Why don't the US do to North Korea what it did to Iraq under Sudam?

[David]

[stui magpie]

It changes the american public perception of the situation which gives Trump public support to take action.

that's an important shift in the dynamic that seriously changes the situation.

[Dave The Man]

[David]

Of course anyone in charge of such a huge nuclear stockpile could potentially destroy humanity forever. Having an unstable, narcissistic person like Trump in charge only makes that risk worse.

By the way, I found this an interesting backstory to what happened to this poor guy:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/21/otto-wambier-fate-north-korea-tour-company-pyongyang

[think positive]

/\ Jesus. Why would you go there? And more than once, nuts .

And Dave, Trump cant push the button, it doesn't work that way, it's multiple people with passwords, so don't worry about it. I also don't believe for a minute that that's what he wants. He is playing it like an action movie on Twitter to show the ludicrous world of politics for what it is. Hopefully, the real power makers will learn a lesson for the good of the country. And hopefully the greedy knobs that run this country will learn something too.

[swoop42]

Trump loves money to much to risk losing it all when the stock market crashes if a war breaks out with Nth Korea.

[David]

[think positive]

[David]

You're not entirely wrong – there's a chain of command and a theoretical process of ratification – but I think it's true that the president gets the last word.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Command_Authority

[swoop42]

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/north-korea-there-is-only-one-acceptable-endgame-20170705-gx574t.html

[Mugwump]

A very strange article, seemingly very pro-NK after making a few gestures at the start about their problems. To argue that the NKoreans want "engagement, negotiation and respect" seems counter to the fact that they have a history of failing to fulfill agreements they have made at successive negotiations, and their idea of engagement seems very close indeed to extortion. I don't think the world has yet seen an inveterate extortionist with live nukes, but we are very close. It'll be interesting to see how extortion works under those conditions.

I think it is certainly true that KJU and his generals must consider the fates of Saddam, Gaddafi and others, and reflect that nukes are really a tyrant's best friend. To that extent, this is another baleful legacy of the stupid wars of regime change entered into by Americans and the British in recent years.

Ultimately, there is only one sensible question of policy here - can the US persuade China to close its border with NK ? NK seemingly cannot survive without Chinese aid and trade, and by supporting NK, China is effectively threatening the US by proxy. People are very quick, as usual, to reflexively blame the US, but it it's China that is behaving irresponsibly here. Consider the reverse case. Imagine that US-backed SK were extorting aid from China's child, NK, while issuing bellicose threats against China and NK, and testing nuclear devices and missiles able to strike China. How would China deal with such a situation ?

That leaves aside, of course, the question of parity : in NK, China supports one of the most horrible and immiserating regimes on earth, while the US's ally SK has become a beacon of industrial development, knowledge and prosperity. It is so strange that the US attracts such obloquy (a word which the writer regrettably misuses in the article) and China such quiescence from most Western "intellectuals".

[pietillidie]

As usual on this topic, two rudimentary points to help cut through the periodic hot air.

1. The North Korean standoff has no known solution that doesn't involve risking millions of lives in South Korea, China and Japan (and well beyond, both directly and through world conflict). Hence status quo and juvenile tit-for-tat management, with all its charades and uncomfortable risks, is all anyone can do.

2. North Korean nationalism has no more time for China than it does for the US. From the confines of the North Korean cult, all concerned are "unclean", racially-inferior enemies. This is then reinforced by a more clear-minded assessment of existential threat at the hands of all parties alike. (Although South Korea might be seen as even worse than China, the US, Japan and Russia, being "traitors" who have bastardised the purity of the cult).

It's a freakish, unfathomable scenario that would be impossible to engineer if you tried (though if we examined the world locally in many places we might find similar standoffs at much lesser scale).

The unique danger Trump brings to the equation is his reckless priming of primitive emotion over disciplined thought. Ironically, the Kims have made a living by priming primitive emotion in their own population; however, despite bluster, NK is clearly at risk of immediate oblivion if it goes too far, with this acting as a natural check thus far.

Mercifully, the US has other sanity checks instead, such as mutual economic interests and positive relations with Japan, South Korea and others including Australia. These checks are weakest when it comes to perceived distant lands, where folks can more easily be cast as disposable. But the assumption is that Asia "feels" close enough, important enough and powerful enough to keep the temptation of outgroup cleansing, or even just carelessness, at bay.

Despite the bizarre nature of the risks involved, we are left to assume that self-interest, sans accidents, will prevail. Not because it's a good option, but because it's still, at this point, the only option. Pretty much every article I have come across on the topic is an effort to say something more satisfying than that, meanwhile conceding it.

[Culprit]

One nutter v another nutter = a lot of people are going to die.

[swoop42]

Two very good responses above by Mugwump and PTID.

I agree the article I posted was a little simplistic but it did raise a different view point and I think it's always important to realise other countries around the world view the actions of the US differently than it's traditional allies.

No doubt the US and it's significant military presence and nuclear capability in the Asian region has more to do with China and Russia than North Korea and those countries not unexpectedly feel somewhat bullied if not threatened by it and look to push back militarily like we are currently seeing via the South China sea man made islands or cyber terrorism and the Russian interference in the US election.

Of course the most famous incident is the Cuban missile crisis where Russia attempted to achieve exactly what the US has and it took us awfully close to a nuclear holocaust.

In recent days I've seen some experts express an opinion that the situation with North Korea is the most serious we've faced since that time with one quoting some think tank in the US believing there is an 84% chance of military intervention within the next month.

While that feels overly alarmist I still have this awful feeling that the US isn't bluffing and if the time comes they determine Korth Korea has a missile capable of reaching the U.S (not Alaska) then things could escalate quickly and seriously.