S. Korea has "bitched" out recently as well. Just in the last few years they have allowed one of their warships to be sunk as well as allow one of their islands to be shelled by the North. It makes me think that somebody is telling S. Korea what to do.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...-and-daryl-g-press/the-next-korean-war?page=2 Interesting take on why a conflict started by North Korea has a strong possibility of going nuclear. Of particular interest is the notion that the US strategy of blinding our opponents and cutting off their command and control capabilities might well drive the North Koreans to escalate to a nuclear war rapidly at the outset of hostilities.
Thats my fear. BUT to be brutally honest they are a long way off being able to build a nuke. Thats what all the hoo-ha is over them re=starting their nuclear reactor. The by-product of plutonium which is key in making a bomb. Theres nothing the west can do to stop them either
if a war broke out with north korea, the country would be turned into a parking lot. i dont necessarily think that the problem is with kim jong un not understanding this and escalating into a real conflict, i think the problem is that he may not know where the line between the usual posturing and actually starting a conflict might be. in that case, it could turn ugly. china has too much to lose from a war with the united states, and frankly, the two are so closely economically tied at this point that its probably never going to happen, and if it did, it would potentially shatter the world economy. i wouldnt expect anything crazy to happen just yet, but then again, nobody knows what kim jong un might do, and so they are taking this threat a little more seriously.
It is a common belief at this point that the North Koreans have already built and tested a plutonium based nuclear weapon. Western intelligence agencies are coming around to the belief that the latest test was an enriched-uranium bomb. The odds are excellent at this point that North Korea is a nuclear power. The point of the reactor was to produce plutonium which could be used to make more weapons. If the enriched uranium scenario is real then the North Koreans don't even need the reactor. North Korea has lots of uranium and at that point they just need to start enriching it and they'll have the capability to make as many nuclear weapons as the US, Russia, China, etc. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle. We can't put it back in. We need to develop rules of international behavior that prevent people from using nukes. The age of the super power defining the international stage is over. It only existed in a narrow window defined by the super powers and their close allies having a monopoly on nuclear weapons.
Yes, but for a country like North Korea, the value of its nuclear weaponry is in the threat, not the use. For battle purposes, it's a single-shot weapon. It's also a self-destruct button. The real concern is in the sale of nuclear material to those for whom pressing a self-destruct button is the fun part. For a dirt-poor country like North Korea, it's probably the only immediately saleable commodity it has. We've tried everything with the Kims. We've tried showing strength. We've tried "basketball diplomacy." We've tried ignoring them. We've tried nuclear technology swaps. We've tried multilateral talks. We're fresh out of ideas. Worse still, our policies in the past didn't restrict North Korea's nuclear development; they enabled it. And we DO have international rules on nuclear power and weaponry. North Korea was a party to them. Operative word: "was." What good would more rules do? I'm thinking we should just team up with South Korea and Japan, and make an offer to BUY North Korea. I'm only half-joking. Warren Buffett is worth more than the entire North Korean economy. If we would spend $500 billion fighting for what is presently a worthless parking lot; which, if we win in battle, we would just give back to the North Korean people anyway; then why can't we just open up negotiations right now? Even better, maybe we lure China into a bidding war and let China own the stupid parking lot. Maybe we have someone from India make the call. They're pretty good at telephone work. Perhaps we put a public offer on the table where we'll give Kim Jong-un a few billion dollars and all the strippers and kimchi he can eat. We'll give every North Korean family a savings account and a new La-z-Boy. In exchange, we get to install a caretaker, coalition government and get immediate control and accounting of all nuclear material and facilities. We give land ownership back to the North Korean people - farmers, most of all. We immediately build up their ports and infrastructure and start sucking every natural resource imaginable out of the entire upper peninsula. We give it a new name and a fresh coat of paint - and voila! Instant country!
Pretty easy to bitch out when your capitol is within artillery range of your adversary and they have well known chemical and biological weapons capability. It doesn't matter that we'd get them all in the end, they could do a lot of damage to the South Korean economy in 24-48 hours of shelling. Toss in a few persistent chemical strikes, a little panic, and it would get really ugly really fast. On the plus side, I really think that the possibility of this is what has been holding back the South Koreans (and US) from really retaliating much and escalating the situation.
Hostage cities scenario. Hostilities start (North Korean attack), US and allies begin the usual plan of blind, sever command capabilities, cut supply lines. North Korea nukes a secondary target in Japan. Tells the US that if all the above doesn't stop immediately they will nuke 3 more cities including Seoul. Rinse and repeat. There will always be more cities at risk in range of North Korea's short range missiles. The US and allies will have to make a fast determination if the military gains are worth the destruction of the hostages. This theory is not North Korea's. It's the formulation that NATO came up with as the best way to deal with an overwhelming conventional attack by the Warsaw Pact forces in Western Europe. Read the article I linked above. It's an eye-opener.
Easy to say if you're an American. A lot harder if you're South Korean or Japanese and you have the hostage cities on your soil. Think about Japanese allegiances after WWIII if they're devastated by it due to American strategic decisions.
Gold hahaha :lol: :up: After the whole fear of nuclear war, and Americans in danger the only other fear I see for battling North Korea is the vulnerable position it could leave our military. We are spread pretty thin at the moment, having just finished up a war in Iraq and in the process of demobilizing in Afghanistan. When do we have opportunity to regroup? Not to mention, our U.S. led "Coalition" in Libya, attacked embassies throughout the middle east and Mexican drug lords on our borders. Who's next?
"N. Korea approves nuclear strike on United States By Jung Ha-Won (AFP) – 36 minutes ago SEOUL — North Korea dramatically escalated its warlike rhetoric on Thursday, warning that it had authorised plans for nuclear strikes on targets in the United States. "The moment of explosion is approaching fast," the North Korean military said, warning that war could break out "today or tomorrow"." http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...docId=CNG.4eb43e27607cb9d4be6b952b88ddefeb.01 At least we wont have to live through anymore Jets disappointments. Nice knowing you all.
Incorrect; they used to. Kim jong un has increased the rate at which NK has issued threats/signals/tests/etc. rapidly to the point of posturing and signalling a distinctly different tone from his father. I.e. more potential military volatility.
Correction: likely targets are LA, Austin TX and Hawaii (theoretically) so 49ers and Cowboys fans? *Clarification: Reported targets according to a picture of NK military leaders and a map of the U.S. in the picture
They don't have the delivery systems to hit even Hawaii at this point. If NK nukes start going off on the west coast it means the munitions were likely pre-placed. I am starting to wonder what the threats indicate though. They're going to have to back down at some point and then future threats will be brushed off as more blustering. There has to be a payoff for all of that and I don't see that payoff at the moment. China has to be really annoyed at NK at this point. The US is beginning to pre-position assets for either a sustained conflict or a nuclear exchange under the cover of responding to the NK threats. That's got to be messing with strategic planning by the Chinese. I guess it could be to their benefit in some ways though. They get to see the moves the US would likely make in a US-China crisis without putting China on the line in the process.
