This Shit with North Korea is Getting More Than Just a Bit Scary.....

Don't listen to dem dirty war pigs. Listen to Ozzy!

Thanks Stu, that about sums it up.

Well years ago there were treaties for arms reduction, but good does that do with the proliferation of more nuclear armed countries? First the original five then probably Israel(Unconfirmed) then India, next India's arch enemy Pakistan. It's like "Russian Roulette" with the more bullets added to the revolver the more likely one would fire. Finally if you think the "Worrie Factor" is high now, well you ain't experienced anything like the "Worrie Factor" if Kim gets his ICBM nukes. Next stop after this NK attainment would be Iran. The game of "Russian Roultette" would be at max capacity plus....game over. Sayonara.

Stu said:

Click to expand...

I will point out that the man-child on the right is 4 decades older than the man-child on the left. He should know better.

Alright, so I'm going to preface my post pretty heavily. First off, I was trained as a baby historian. I have my BA. I took it very seriously - my topics of study were often directed toward nuclear issues and the history of fascism/far-right ideologies. The courses I took, of course, covered a very broad range of issues and I am in no way specialized or academically trained in issues regarding Korean history and my grasp of the methods of military history is somewhat limited, though I did study under a pretty decent military historian who studied Ireland's independence struggle and Irish violence in North America, etc. I have never visited any part of Korea, I have not recently accessed academic articles on the topic, but I do try to stay up to date by reading books (Bruce Cummings, BR Meyers are good authors on the topic that much of the below will draw upon), certain websites (I follow Andrei Lankov on NKDaily, I also follow 38North and a few other publication), and listening to any podcast on the topic. I engage with the writings of talking head neocons like Gordan Chang and do my best to follow the issue as closely as I can without losing my mind.

Kidding about dicks aside, North Korea and the United States are in a very sensitive situation with so many mind bogglingly complicated factors at play. There are the interests of major global economic powers at stake (PRC, ROC, ROK, Japan, Russia, etc.) and there is a very long history that must be taken into consideration. I would like to clarify that for the sake of brevity I will use abbreviations for a lot of countries, ie Democratic People's Republic of Korea = North; Republic of Korea = South; People's Republic of China = Mainland; Republic of China = Taiwan, etc.).

The primary issue at hand is not actually nuclear weapons, though they greatly frustrate the calculus. The whole issue of the Korean peninsula is the matter of reunification. Just like Germany. The issue here, though, has always been reunification on whom's terms. The secondary, and most pressing problem, is nuclear weapons. From these two facets of the conflict flow my entire analysis and thesis.

It stands to reason that the entire pretext of nuclear weapons is regime preservation in the main, and having an added effect of leverage over regional neighbours (particularly should DPRK choose to militarily and forcefully reunify the peninsula). The current talk of a "bloody nose attack", something without international legal precedent since gunboat diplomacy in the Scramble for Africa, is terrifying and any US attempt to control the situation by force of arms will fail in its aims and lead to global conflict. The nature of Kim regime's legitimacy (reunification on our terms, racial purity, resistance against foreign forces) and its relationship with its weapons mean that in my view the weapons would not be fired in anger or a military strike as it would fatally undermine the regime. The use of the weapons militarily would be almost immediate should the DPRK be attacked by the US if the use of force was deemed existentially threatening to the Kim leadership and core elite. The DPRK could handle a limited ROK strike without losing legitimacy though it would greatly increase tensions. An attack by the US would mean that the DPRK leadership would be in a use it or lose it position. Without the immediate the deployment and battlefield use of nuclear weapons the weapons will be lost. A few could be squirreled away in an semi-operational state for later use in an insurgency, but the bulk of the weapons would be operationalized and used. Any US 'bloody nose strike' will lead to 1. massively increased tensions and suspicion/anger on the part of China, 2. massive retaliation on the part of the DPRK on the northern suburbs of Seoul with the option to further escalate the strikes, 3. Global economic uncertainty which would gradually strengthen the north's hand.

Now the big issue is reunification. I firmly believe that the driving issue is always reunification. No matter how cynical the actions at the time the military planning of the North is first to survive any outside threat and then reunify the Korean peninsula. This is ultimately fantasy on the part of the North in the 21st century. Up to the 70s it could have happened by conventional force of arms, but now, not so much. It would take decades of outstanding luck on the part of the north followed by decades of misery in the south to change the metrics of this. Reunification will likely be driven by the South against the wishes of China. In a moderate scenario you would have a confederal state of DPRK/ROK, which would gradually have the wealthy south absorbing the north more like Germany than...whatever now would be. Totally unprecedented in modern terms.

This of course is borne out in the phases of DPRK ideology in the post-Marxist environment. Since the 70s the DPRK has really not been a Communist state in ideological terms. In practical terms its command economy and symbology make it a passable semblance, but its total lack of internationalist outlook and deeply ethnocentric self-image, mean that it has long since ceased to be that sort of state. The main ideals are Juche, songun, and whatever Kim Jong Un is cooking up through increased prestige of the Workers Party of Korea. Juche, formulated by Kim Il Song, is often translated as 'self-reliance' and can be seen in terms similar to the autarky of Nazi Germany. The backbone of the state, has postulated by BR Meyers, is more from Imperial Japan than its Communist patrons. To this end, if you look at the relations of the Second World, DPRK was always looked at oddly, Kim Il Song often given advice that was not followed by Mao, Stalin, Khruschev, Brezhnev, and others. The collapse of its patron state in the 90s and the loss of industrial inputs for agriculture lead to the self-reliance ideology being supplanted by Songun, or military first, during the Arduous March (famine) of the 90s under Kim Jong Il. Military first made a lot of sense, the military was highly controlled and could be counted on for loyalty while the population starved. This was a process borne out across the whole of the Earth with states in Africa, Latin America, and Asia losing the patronage and economic support of the USSR. DPRK was hit particularly hard because of the advanced stage of mechanization of its agriculture. Once you take away the inputs of diesel fuel, hydro-carbon derived fertilizers, you eat into your grain reserves. Once those are gone price instability sets in. All the socialist world was more or less deeply in debt, barring outliers like Romania, but DPRK was just hit uniquely. So, when people talk about the failure of the state, it was kind of foretold that once the state became isolated it would fall apart agriculturally. Nothing unique about it, in fact. The scale of it, combined with once-in-a-century flooding, collapsed the state.

I'll revisit this but I've spent enough time ranting. I was super happy to find this thread and would be super interested in engaging and helping anyone learn more about this very interesting and tres relevant topic by suggesting readings, podcasts, and stuff to follow

Slagzord said:

I'll revisit this but I've spent enough time ranting. I was super happy to find this thread and would be super interested in engaging and helping anyone learn more about this very interesting and tres relevant topic by suggesting readings, podcasts, and stuff to follow

Click to expand...

Do you have Ri Sol Ju's number?

I do, but I fear calling it for she has been so close to glorious perfection. How could my measly frame compare to the sun-scorching justice that is the broad chest of Kim Jong Un?!

Well NK attaining ICBM NUKE capability(Armed and ready to ICMB strike mainland USA) is not an option for the USA. Since most info, strategies, and armaments pertaining to a US-NK conflict or strike are very highly classified, kinda like a 3 Dimensional Chess board and we(everybody except top military, WH etc.)barely see the first level. Conjecture is what's going on for all who aren't in that very small, highly classified strategic/strike team, that's like 99.99% of us. All I say is the USA cannot let NK attain ICBM NUKES. I will not conject.

Now as far as some reunification of North and South Korea, what does the South have to gain? Kim will always be pushing the envelope, and how many starving North Koreans are there? Kim has everything to gain in such an environment, and it seems that the leader of South Korea is weak, kind of a pushover let's say. Kim wants the world stage and so he works a deal to have a unified Olympic Team, what a joke. I love Atheletes and competition but Olympic Politics make me wanna puke.

The south has cheap labour and virtually untapped resources aplenty to gain, as well as territorial integrity up to a natural border system with China. A unified Korea is a very powerful state - a big geopolitical pearl.

The thing about ICBMs and proliferation is that the DPRK has had the knowhow and connections across the globe for the better part of a decade to have made the steady progress they have made. The line for an ICBM was crossed years ago through incremental testing. That capability is there. Now that it is there and a US red line is declared, it is long crossed. How much blood can the United States bear to have on its hands to defend itself? Key allies like the South, obviously, and Korea have been under the threat of DPRK missiles for a long time now. How many Japanese lives, Korean lives, and countless others as the conflict expand, can the United States have on its hands for using military force to enforce its own security needs? A small strike team can take out a few packages if all goes according to plan? What happens if it goes Black Hawk Down or there is a major error leading to major retaliation across the DMZ? Bloody noses and spec ops teams in the DPRK are the stuff of fantasy and Tom Clancy.

My view is that a US led preemptive strike on the DPRK would be a crime of unbelievable proportion and stupidity.

Kim may act crazy, but I subscribe to the notion that he is as crazy as a fox. NK has borders with China, Russia, & SK. Japan is nearby. With these 4 powerful states surrounding a very strategic area, how can a despot survive? If he were to act rationally he would probably come under the influence of foreign powers. Maybe better to act the dangerous lunatic and have the world appease him.

Plus the usa needs its 'enemies' to keep the war machine gravy train rolling, so the crazier the better.

grokit said:

Plus the usa needs its 'enemies' to keep the war machine gravy train rolling, so the crazier the better.

Click to expand...

Yep, hawks benefit too. Oh, the eternal external threat.

NK will get their nukes, we'll build up our missile defense system, and life goes on.

Baron23 said:

I despise arm chair generals spouting "nuke em till they glow" and "bomb them back into the stone age" with them knowing that they will never have to personally face the consequences of what they are advocating.

With all of this said, yes...I would fully support an assassination of Kim if it were feasible....which I don't think it is, frankly.

Click to expand...

While I agree the "nuke them off the map" is an easy fix that disregards A LOT of issues (namely the innocents who'd be killed) - war is hell, people die, and sometimes it really should be that simple. But it never will be.

My bud is a Marine, and he gets very fed up with the politicized nature of war. I remember we were talking about his service (Middle East), and he said something that kind of really resonated with me, gave me perspective at least.

So, say you're fighting whomever, lets use ISIS as an example as that's how he described it to me.

ISIS is a hornet nest. Hornets come out and will sting you, and kill other insects around the hive.

How do you deal with a nest? You can, quarantine it off, avoid it. Provide some sort of barrier and isolate the nest. However, while you are now "safe" , insects who live around the nest will still be getting stung.

You can totally whitewash the nest off your property, destroy it completely, but you'll end up killing some of these other insects as well.

What the US military does, we poke the nest. We may knock a chip off it. Cause the hornets to have to rebuild some of their nest. We don't totally end them, we simply agitate them, and in turn, are left with a bunch of pissed off hornets. We half measure too often.

Basically, war is a conundrum. If we ignore/isolate the hornet nest, it will hurt the other insects and we'll feel bad. If we destroy the hornet nest, there will be collateral insects that are killed and we'll feel bad. Yet, both of these options effectively allow us to not deal with the hornets, at the cost of the other insects.

Instead, we poke the hornets. Spray some bug spray. Smack the nest with a stick. We piss the hornets off. While never actually dealing with the problem. So now, we have pissed off hornets, of which we can't ignore because they'll still disrupting the other insects, or that we can't totally annihilate because we'll kill other insects in the collateral.

It would be easier to outright ignore at the cost of these other people. And it would be easier to just simply wipe them off the face of the earth at the cost of these other people. But neither of those are palatable to humans.

So we poke, we annoy, we disrupt them. But the hornets will always rebuild their nest. And now they're just annoyed they have this guy called USA who pokes em.

TLDR: We "play the game of war" in half measures, but to fully commit, in either absence or annihilation, would be better strategy, it's just not palatable for human conscious.

HellsWindStaff said:

While I agree the "nuke them off the map" is an easy fix that disregards A LOT of issues (namely the innocents who'd be killed) - war is hell, people die, and sometimes it really should be that simple. But it never will be.

My bud is a Marine, and he gets very fed up with the politicized nature of war. I remember we were talking about his service (Middle East), and he said something that kind of really resonated with me, gave me perspective at least.

So, say you're fighting whomever, lets use ISIS as an example as that's how he described it to me.

ISIS is a hornet nest. Hornets come out and will sting you, and kill other insects around the hive.

How do you deal with a nest? You can, quarantine it off, avoid it. Provide some sort of barrier and isolate the nest. However, while you are now "safe" , insects who live around the nest will still be getting stung.

You can totally whitewash the nest off your property, destroy it completely, but you'll end up killing some of these other insects as well.

What the US military does, we poke the nest. We may knock a chip off it. Cause the hornets to have to rebuild some of their nest. We don't totally end them, we simply agitate them, and in turn, are left with a bunch of pissed off hornets. We half measure too often.

Basically, war is a conundrum. If we ignore/isolate the hornet nest, it will hurt the other insects and we'll feel bad. If we destroy the hornet nest, there will be collateral insects that are killed and we'll feel bad. Yet, both of these options effectively allow us to not deal with the hornets, at the cost of the other insects.

Instead, we poke the hornets. Spray some bug spray. Smack the nest with a stick. We piss the hornets off. While never actually dealing with the problem. So now, we have pissed off hornets, of which we can't ignore because they'll still disrupting the other insects, or that we can't totally annihilate because we'll kill other insects in the collateral.

It would be easier to outright ignore at the cost of these other people. And it would be easier to just simply wipe them off the face of the earth at the cost of these other people. But neither of those are palatable to humans.

So we poke, we annoy, we disrupt them. But the hornets will always rebuild their nest. And now they're just annoyed they have this guy called USA who pokes em.

TLDR: We "play the game of war" in half measures, but to fully commit, in either absence or annihilation, would be better strategy, it's just not palatable for human conscious.

Click to expand...

Or we wonder why we didn't strike them before they nuked Chicago. It's like late in a game of Gin with just a few cards left to draw and both players are looking for that "Gin" and victory. However many times a player will call on 10 or less(Usually 5 points or less holding in hand late in game), do you keep going for Gin or do you chance a call on 10 or less? This is kinda where the NK and USA are right now. If the USA waits to long looking for Gin, NK calls GIn, in other words a U.S. City/Cities get nuked. Only a very, very select few know the current strategies and available armaments, and the rest of us can only conject or guess, and that's a fact jack. Sayonara.

ghostofcyberx13 said:

Only a very, very select few know the current strategies and available armaments, and the rest of us can only conject or guess, and that's a fact jack. Sayonara.

Click to expand...

Because of US NPT obligations and Nuclear Posture Reviews, we can know the available armaments and strategic disposition of American forces. Targeting is where conjecture and guess work come in.

The only deployable nuclear weapons in a conflict over Korea would be tactical bombs and short range missiles. You can't launch an ICBM from North Dakota without China and Russia getting very scared of a preemptive strike, nor an SLBM.

One thing to consider in your tone is the genocidal crime that is dropping the bomb. Launching a preemptive strike brings up huge moral what ifs. What if those hundreds of thousands died for naught because the DPRK missiles were critically flawed like early Soviet or American ICBMs? What will the world think of that and what would be the consequences of that reaction? How clean could an American's conscience be after seeing the teeming rivers of melting human flesh and millions of refugees sickened by radiation, shambling like skeletons? One nuclear strike can create those conditions. Given historical restraint by states outside of the NPT like India, Pakistan, Israel, and South Africa, DPRK activity should be viewed in the same defensive light. That only changes in the event of a major conventional or nuclear strike on the DPRK.

I grew up believing in organizations like The Ploughshare Fund and have given a big chunk of my life to nuclear issues and consider further a academic training in the topic. When discussing the use of the weapons and the appalling rhetoric of murderously "glassing" swathes of human existence, I'm often shocked by how the psychopathic nature of the bomb infect all aspects of discourse. It was scary before I was born and I spent years alone in my fears, but now I have company. I hope the new minds joining me also come to the conclusion that the only way forward is the gradual reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons as the expensive sins against all life that they are.

Slagzord said:

Because of US NPT obligations and Nuclear Posture Reviews, we can know the available armaments and strategic disposition of American forces. Targeting is where conjecture and guess work come in.

The only deployable nuclear weapons in a conflict over Korea would be tactical bombs and short range missiles. You can't launch an ICBM from North Dakota without China and Russia getting very scared of a preemptive strike, nor an SLBM.

One thing to consider in your tone is the genocidal crime that is dropping the bomb. Launching a preemptive strike brings up huge moral what ifs. What if those hundreds of thousands died for naught because the DPRK missiles were critically flawed like early Soviet or American ICBMs? What will the world think of that and what would be the consequences of that reaction? How clean could an American's conscience be after seeing the teeming rivers of melting human flesh and millions of refugees sickened by radiation, shambling like skeletons? One nuclear strike can create those conditions. Given historical restraint by states outside of the NPT like India, Pakistan, Israel, and South Africa, DPRK activity should be viewed in the same defensive light. That only changes in the event of a major conventional or nuclear strike on the DPRK.

I grew up believing in organizations like The Ploughshare Fund and have given a big chunk of my life to nuclear issues and consider further a academic training in the topic. When discussing the use of the weapons and the appalling rhetoric of murderously "glassing" swathes of human existence, I'm often shocked by how the psychopathic nature of the bomb infect all aspects of discourse. It was scary before I was born and I spent years alone in my fears, but now I have company. I hope the new minds joining me also come to the conclusion that the only way forward is the gradual reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons as the expensive sins against all life that they are.

Click to expand...

We don't know all the armaments and that's a fact jack. We don't know all the strategies and that's a fact jack. Again it is like the Gin game I described pure and simple. Also, all I have ever maintained is the USA cannot allow NK to have working ICBM nukes and you can add Iran to that as well. After 60 years "Koombyah" time will be over, that doesn't necessarily mean a strike, it may mean that Kim finally stands down and 100% relinquishes his quest to have working, and nuclear armed ICBM warheads once and for all. Many Presidents all let the decades go by and have not accomplished anything substantial, they all just kept sweeping things under the carpet for the next President. Meanwhile NK just kept plodding away for those 60 years and are almost finished with their quest to be the third new country to have Nukes after India and Pakistan. In this all I have stated is the USA simply cannot let this happen and most everything else involving strategies and armaments is conjecture.

Definition of conjecture
1 a : inference formed without proof or sufficient evidence
b : a conclusion deduced by surmise or guesswork

• The criminal's motive remains a matter of conjecture.

c : a proposition (as in mathematics) before it has been proved or disproved
2 obsolete
a : interpretation of omens
b : supposition

ghostofcyberx13 said:

In this all I have stated is the USA simply cannot let this happen

Click to expand...

Cannot let NK have nukes? Why? You know what's more scary to me than NK having nukes? Pakistan having nukes. Why? Because NK is tightly controlled. Is Pakistan? Not even in the same league. And those nukes falling into the wrong hands to those who embrace death more than life scares the shit outta me.

NK, on the other hand, values life and power for their regime more than death. They know, without a doubt that launching an attack on the US is a death warrant. He's building his nuclear arsenal to survive, not to die.

lwien said:

Cannot let NK have nukes? Why? You know what's more scary to me than NK having nukes? Pakistan having nukes. Why? Because NK is tightly controlled. Is Pakistan? Not even in the same league. And those nukes falling into the wrong hands to those who embrace death more than life scares the shit outta me.

NK, on the other hand, values life and power for their regime more than death. They know, without a doubt that launching an attack on the US is a death warrant. He's building his nuclear arsenal to survive, not to die.

Click to expand...

Well I disagree with you sir, but hey "Different strokes, for different folkes". Well I've said all I'm gonna say on this problem anything else is quite simply "Beating a dead horse". Asta la vista baby.

"That's a fact jack."
"Asta la vista baby."

The 1980's called and would like their phrases back, jack.