North Korea shells South Korean island

[Lightning Lord]

What concessions have been granted to NK by SK in response to this attack? Or to the sinking of the Cheonan?

[The Magic Man]

What concessions have been granted to NK by SK in response to this attack? Or to the sinking of the Cheonan?

The successful killing of SK civilians and Soldiers, which provoked zero retaliation, reinforced the Kim regime and facilitated the next generation's planned succession to the throne.

Oh, and SK also postponed an artillery drill, compounding SK's demonstrated weakness.

[The Magic Man]

SK has three options:

1 and 2: inadequate retaliation or no retaliation (thus far the chosen reaction). Prudent and smart, these responses are, unfortunately, demonstrations of weakness and will facilitate further attacks.

3: adeqaute retaliation: invasion, regime change, and occupation followed up with unification and nation-building. Though costly, the end of the Kim regime will prevent further attacks through a demonstration of strength.

1 and 2 are the norm, but it maintains the status quo. Unfortunately, it buys time for the Kim regime to maintain power, increase its nuclear weapons capacity, etc., which undermines a more peaceful SK strategy of allowing the NK regime to collapse on its own, which may never happen so long as NK demonstrates a continued capacity to smack SK on the ass and get away with it.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

What concessions have been granted to NK by SK in response to this attack? Or to the sinking of the Cheonan?

Permit me to explain....

At the outset, Magic Man is arguing a tautology -- an adequate response is one that deters further attacks. With respect to North Korea, an "adequate" response has never been demonstrated because it would likely start an all-out war. He also claims that the failure to make an adequate response is "weakness". With me so far?

But he also claims that in this case, an "adequate" response would be both imprudent and foolish. Therefore, he supports the decision of the South Koreans to appear weak, because that is both prudent and not foolish.

As best as I can figure it, he used the word "weakness" as bait to start a disagreement where none really existed on the underlying issues. And added in the fun of the "adequate" tautology so as to avoid discussions of specifics.

Now apparently, he hasn't yet tired of this, so his last post gives three options. The working of those "options" suggests that he prefers Option 3, but wait! That's just a trick to drag you into a circular debate, because he also agree that options 1 and 2 were the "smart" option.

So to distill his entire point, it is just that these attacks are likely to continue because South Korea and its allies don't have any other good options, which is a conclusion everyone else sort of agreed with pages and pages ago.

Now personally, I think there is another possibility, and that is that the Chinese allies of NK may get sufficiently annoyed by these provocations and the threat of regional destabilization that they may pull the plug on NK support. So to the extent that is a possibility, greater bellicosity by the NK's may actually backfire on them. That's just supposition, really, but at least it's not circular.

[Lightning Lord]

The successful killing of SK civilians and Soldiers, which provoked zero retaliation, reinforced the Kim regime and facilitated the next generation's planned succession to the throne.

Oh, and SK also postponed an artillery drill, compounding SK's demonstrated weakness.

That's not a "concession." I suppose SK gave up the crown of "Irrational King," but they weren't really going for that.

It's telling that your definition of an "adequate response" to four people being killed (and the other provocations) is "Invasion, regime change etc," resulting in at least tens of thousands of NK dead, if not hundreds of thousands. If I repeatedly step on FLoW's foot, his "adequate response" would be to murder me and my family, then burn down our houses.

Additionally, the current regime isn't in power solely because they can "smack SK on the ass." It may help, but there's more to it than that. If China pulls their support, the regime will become a lot less stable than it is now.

FLoW, I don't often agree with you, but this time around, you nailed it.

[Atreides]

Magic Man, would South Korea rather suffer a few attacks per year by North Korea or engage in a war that would likely cost thousands of military and even more civilian casualties? If Seoul was devastated by North Korean artillery or nukes than it would cripple South Korea that much more and make it even harder for it to absorb the North after the US and SK army achieved victory. Or maybe China would just take North Korea, which would be an improvement for most of its people. Point is, it's more beneficial for South Korea to shrug off relatively minor incidents than suffer the damage that would be caused by full scale war. I agree that it would be for the best if the North Korean regime was removed, since things there could hardly get much worse. But unless there's a way to do it without full scale war I'm not sure if it will be worth it. A NK-SK war could inflict casualties equal to a century of those under the current status quo.

[BLU-RAY]

At the outset, Magic Man is arguing a tautology -- an adequate response is one that deters further attacks. With respect to North Korea, an "adequate" response has never been demonstrated because it would likely start an all-out war. He also claims that the failure to make an adequate response is "weakness". With me so far?

But he also claims that in this case, an "adequate" response would be both imprudent and foolish. Therefore, he supports the decision of the South Koreans to appear weak, because that is both prudent and not foolish.

As best as I can figure it, he used the word "weakness" as bait to start a disagreement where none really existed on the underlying issues. And added in the fun of the "adequate" tautology so as to avoid discussions of specifics.

This, precisely. How is this discussion ongoing?

[Galactus]

The south korean defence minister was apparently quoted on why they didn't make a more forceful response as saying "This isn't StarCraft."

[Horza]

:laugh:

[danro]

The CIA reports a minimum of 32% of the population are Sunni. Let's reduce that to 1.0% just to be safe. Out of a population of about 30 million, that leaves what... 300,000? A safe bet, I think.

So, that makes 300,000 targets. Add the Christians, and the number of targets move toward a million. Thus, given an extremely low estimate, the claim that the lack of targets is the reason for the absence of killings is a bit hard to swallow.

To be fair when he mentioned "running out of targets to kill" it was mentioned in reference to etnical cleansing, not of the country but of neighbourhoods and areas. And he does have a point.

Sure there are a lot of sunni in Iraq. But communities are a lot less mixed now than they used to be. this brings the immediate violence down, but might blow up at some point if shia-sunni tensions grows.

As for the iraqi christians, an awful lot of them are now in Syria (and quite a lot in Sweden) because of the recent years of violent persecusion. I don't have any good numbers on this but wouldn't be surprised if the majority has fled the country at this point. At least a significant minority.

[danro]

The south korean defence minister was apparently quoted on why they didn't make a more forceful response as saying "This isn't StarCraft."

The new or the old one (minister, not StarCraft)?

And was it in the context: "This isn't StarCraft.We have no counter to their early Zerg rush!"

[mormont]

Could we drop the Iraq digression, please? Start a thread on it, if you like.

[KAH]

Gotta say that themagicman's posts have brought to this board a fresh and unique perspective (aside from ckrizs) that is quite distinctive from your usual gungho military type.

Unique, perhaps...but fresh? It's Wade. He's been here for years.

You can take the boy out of the tank, but you can't take the tank out of the boy.

[Horza]

Bumped on account of:

"The planned firing drill is part of the usual exercises conducted by our troops based on Yeonpyeong Island. The drill will occur within our territorial waters," the South Korean official said. "We won't take into consideration North Korean threats and diplomatic situations before holding the live-fire drill."

[...]

Newly appointed Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin has vowed to hit back hard in a counterstrike that would include air power if North Korea attacked again. Seoul has put its F-15K and KF-16 fighters on standby.

South Korea has said that its artillery guns will be aimed southwest and away from North Korea, as was the case last month in drills before the North's attack. Officials said that clear weather is vital to observe the artillery trajectory and closely monitor the North Korean military's movements during the drills.

[jurble]

Drills are over, nothing happened.

[Phantom]

Drills are over, nothing happened.

People are still flipping out over here though. Teacher made a comment in class the other day, something like "Have a great weekend, unless North Korea decides to bomb us too, then, well...Class'll be cancelled so, have a nice life!"

[Lightning Lord]

So....does this mean that now North Korea is weak and SK is strong, since SK got what they wanted and NK didn't do anything back? Until the next time the North pokes?