War Drums: North Korea edition

[Free Northman Reborn]

3 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

That's nice. Of course there's the little problem that they'd probably lose a conventional war against the South Koreans.

That's irrelevant. They would also lose a conventional war against the US. Or a nuclear war for that matter. So why are they allowed to get away with so much? Why did South Korea not retaliate in equal measure to the sinking of their warship? Because these are rational actors, always worried about what the irrational and fanatical North Koreans would do. And the answer is always: "It is not worth provoking them further:"

Just like the current argument. Only, once they have nuclear missiles, the consequences of provoking them escalate exponentially.

[James Arryn]

1 minute ago, ljkeane said:

That's nice. Of course there's the little problem that they'd probably lose a conventional war against the South Koreans.

But it's still a risk of many people dying if NK does that. The only sensible thing to do is to make sure that many, many, many, many, many, many people die before that could happen. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

6 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

But it's still a risk of many people dying if NK does that. The only sensible thing to do is to make sure that many, many, many, many, many, many people die before that could happen. 

North Korea is a major problem. A problem that currently has few solutions. One of the few, is a military solution. Once they have nuclear missiles, that solution disappears. Forever. And the problem just grows.

I read your Bertrand Russel tagline. I don't think North Korea should be left. They will be too dangerous once they have the capability to deliver their nuclear weapons effectively.

[James Arryn]

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

North Korea is a major problem. A problem that currently has few solutions. One of the few, is a military solution. Once they have nuclear missiles, that solution disappears. Forever. And the problem just grows.

I read your Bertrand Russel tagline. I don't think North Korea should be left. They will be too dangerous once they have the capability to deliver their nuclear weapons effectively.

Please answer my 70 year question. Otherwise you're saying they are an aggressive expansive power because you say they are, and that's it. Sorry if I don't think that merits millions of deaths and possible Armageddon. I'm just not 'wired' that way.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

North Korea is a major problem. A problem that currently has few solutions. One of the few, is a military solution. Once they have nuclear missiles, that solution disappears. Forever. And the problem just grows.

I read your Bertrand Russel tagline. I don't think North Korea should be left. They will be too dangerous once they have the capability to deliver their nuclear weapons effectively.

But that's assuming their goals are offensive. We don't exactly know. They could be seeking nukes to prevent a Western evasion and preserve the Kim regime or they could be seeking them as means to reunify the peninsula.  Or both. But either way it's unlikely that they'd ever directly attack the United States. That would be suicide and defeat both of their most likely goals. 

As for what to do, we need to get China on board to rein Kim in. Otherwise one of the worst wars in world history is all but inevitable. But I think it would be wise to exhaust all possible diplomatic solutions before laying waste to a country of close to 25,000,000 people and suffering substantial loses in South Korea, Japan and other neighboring countries, plus all the blood and treasure that will be lost in trying to repair the region, which would probably take decades to achieve. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 minute ago, James Arryn said:

Please answer my 70 year question. Otherwise you're saying they are an aggressive expansive power because you say they are, and that's it. Sorry if I don't think that merits millions of deaths and possible Armageddon. I'm just not 'wired' that way.

Considering that you are trying to equate the United States to a tyrannical, totalitarian regime which rules its population with an iron fist, god-worships its supposedly divine leader, is a pariah state to most of the world, and has the stated intention of re-unifying the Korean peninsula against the wishes of the South Koreans, well, I don't really know why it matters that they may have a fear (legitimate or not) of facing a US invasion in that context.

Bottomline, they should not be allowed to have nuclear warheads.

[Free Northman Reborn]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

But that's assuming their goals are offensive. We don't exactly know. They could be seeking nukes to prevent a Western evasion and preserve the Kim regime or they could be seeking them as means to reunify the peninsula.  Or both. But either way it's unlikely that they'd ever directly attack the United States. That would be suicide and defeat both of their most likely goals. 

As for what to do, we need to get China on board to rein Kim in. Otherwise one of the worst wars in world history is all but inevitable. But I think it would be wise to exhaust all possible diplomatic solutions before laying waste to a country of close to 25,000,000 people and suffering substantial loses in South Korea, Japan and other neighboring countries, plus all the blood and treasure that will be lost in trying to repair the region, which would probably take decades to achieve. 

Well, there is another option I would potentially favor. And that is withdrawing completely from the region. Leaving the South Koreans and Japan to fend for themselves. But the US cannot be expected to continue protecting these nations in a situation where you have a nuclear armed North Korea.  So it's either stay and take out the North Korean nuclear capabilty, or leave and let the region sort itself out.

Of course, if you do that, you might well end up with a region completely dominated by China. So the US has to remain there to retain its geo-politcal influence. Bringing us back to the conundrum of how to do that without facing a nuclear armed North Korea. Which in turn brings us back to having to strike them before they achieve that capability.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So the US has to remain there to retain its geo-politcal influence.

...And the DPRK believes it has to continue its nuclear program to retain its geo-political influence, which is entirely rational.  Whatever happened to realpolitik?

[James Arryn]

6 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, there is another option I would potentially favor. And that is withdrawing completely from the region. Leaving the South Koreans and Japan to fend for themselves. But the US cannot be expected to continue protecting these nations in a situation where you have a nuclear armed North Korea.  So it's either stay and take out the North Korean nuclear capabilty, or leave and let the region sort itself out.

Of course, if you do that, you might well end up with a region completely dominated by China. So the US has to remain there to retain its geo-politcal influence. Bringing us back to the conundrum of how to do that without facing a nuclear armed North Korea. Which in turn brings us back to having to strike them before they achieve that capability.

So, yeah...connect the dots and millions need to die for the US to keep it's geo-political influence. And it's wrong to equate NK and the US and in point of fact I agree with you. In terms of domestic policy the US is much better, but in terms of foreign policy record (and ethos as expressed by you above) the US is much, much, much, much, much worse. And the situation we're addressing here is foreign policy, as much as you keep wanting to conflate them.

[Free Northman Reborn]

2 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

So, yeah...connect the dots and millions need to die for the US to keep it's geo-political influence. And it's wrong to equate NK and the US and in point of fact I agree with you. In terms of domestic policy the US is much better, but in terms of foreign policy record (and ethos as expressed by you above) the US is much, much, much, much, much worse. And the situation we're addressing here is foreign policy, as much as you keep wanting to conflate them.

I am seriously not entirely against the US just withdrawing from the region. Would South Korea and Japan be happy with that? I need to think through all of the long term ramifications, so I will caveat the idea, but certainly, that would be one way to avoid war there. The fate of Japan and South Korea would be less clear, in the long term though. The vacuum would be filled pretty quickly.

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

I am seriously not entirely against the US just withdrawing from the region. Would South Korea and Japan be happy with that? I need to think through all of the long term ramifications, so I will caveat the idea, but certainly, that would be one way to avoid war there. The fate of Japan and South Korea would be less clear, in the long term though. The vacuum would be filled pretty quickly.

Wait so now your alternative to 'nuke them so they don't get nukes' is 'withdraw and who cares if they get nukes'?  

So why do you want to blow them up if you're so ready to walk away?  This is the entire problem with Trump's worldview, it's all about #winning and #didntlosejustwithdrew and who gives a fuck if anyone gets hurt or killed.  It's literally spoiled little boys with war toys throwing a tantrum.

[Kalbear]

52 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Less than what would happen once North Korea has nuclear warheads on ICBM's.

Exactly!

So why do a few thousand American civilians matter if it means that we reduce the chance of millions dying? 

We're already decided that being cold and calculating and ruthless is fine - after all, we are advocating a pre-emptive attack that may involve nuclear weapons and accepting that SK and Japan are likely to be hurt badly by this. Now you're upset at the notion of a few thousand nonessential Americans? Come on. 

[Rippounet]

59 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Yeah, because all North Korea cares about is protecting itself from the big bad imperialist US. If the US just let them be, they would just be a peaceful, pacifist threat to no one. So rather let them get nuclear missiles and everyone would be better off.

Not far from the mark actually. Left to its own devices, the North Korean regime will eventually crumble, or at the very least turn into a milder form of authoritarianism over time.
The parallels with the Soviet Union are uncanny. For decades, because of how closed Soviet society was, many Americans assumed they were dealing with expansionist fanatics ready to use nuclear weapons at any moment. But the moment Gorbachev tried to introduce even a small measure of liberalism, the great enemy collapsed in a matter of years. Turns out the regime had been unpopular for some time and the ideology had lost its appeal because of a very basic reason: for all its blustering it could not deliver wellbeing to the people, and no one could be fooled anymore, no matter what the news said.
Given what we know of North Korea, it's actually rather surprising the regime has endured this long. If history is any guide, brainwashing and personality cults work as long as a totalitarian/authoritarian regime delivers a least some measure of comfort to the people. A different way of putting it is that -shockingly enough- people judge their government on its merits rather than on its propaganda. Which means that North Koreans are extremely unlikely to be "brainwashed raving fanatics." Instead they're most likely to show all the chracteristics of a people oppressed by a brutal totalitarian regime: depressed, terrified, hungry... Somehow struggling to survive by escaping the secret police, hoping that the harvests will be better next year, and that neither their "dear leader" nor the American president will start a war that will destroy everything they know.
Though many of them are probably hoping for a war. Hoping that the Americans can be sensible and generous enough to dispatch Kim Jong Un without harming the population, that they can understand that they are but victims and have no choice but to comply.
Heck, I'm not one to believe in the "good guy American liberator" card, but this is one case where the US could be that. It's been sixty years since the Korean war ended. Hatred for America could no doubt recede, as long as the US president does not actually play right into the hands of the regime's propaganda. It's a real pity Trump got elected because having a woman as US president after a black man would have been devastating for North Korean morale ; it's just not that easy to pretend your enemy is barbaric when it's obvious that it has a functioning society. But that ship has sailed. Point is, you're dealing with a very cynical, highly rational dictatorship that somehow manages to preserve an iron grip on its people through the classic means of totalitarianism, and which has (or will soon have) the means of nuking you. What do you do?
Well Reagan -of all people- managed to do the right thing. And sure, Gorbachev did most of the work, but there's no denying that Reagan had started to drift toward a sensible strategy even before Gorby came to power. And the Soviet Union was something else. Its economy was in shambles, but it had resources North Korea can only dream of. And the military... oh boy, the Soviets were only a decade or two behind as far as military technology is concerned... The North Koreans are almost half a century behind.
So for god's sake dude, take a history book and some time to consider what you're advocating here. Sure the US can choose to bomb North Korea into oblivion if it wants to. But history will not be kind. Other peoples will not be kind. Once the whole world is justifiably scared to death of the US, its soft power will effectively be gone. The pax americana will end and god knows what kind of world will emerge, but it will be a dark and scary place.
 

[Werthead]

Quote

 

What does 'back off' entail? You realize that their entire point in getting nukes is so the US can't invade or nuke w/e they want, right? So what about threatened to do just that motivates them to throw away the only thing separating them from the fates of any other non-nuke country the US decided to oppose? 

 

I have a dose of scepticism that North Korea is solely developing nuclear weapons to hold off the USA. Of course that's the primary reason, but once Pyongyang has those weapons in place, there is nothing to stop them turning around and demanding the surrender of the South Koreans. They remain technically at war and North Korea's long-term geopolitical and strategic goal is the unification of the Korean Peninsula under North Korea's rule. If they demand South Korea's surrender on the pain of four or five nuclear bombs being dropped on Seoul, does anyone risk 20 million lives on the chance they are bluffing? If North Korea launches a nuclear weapon at Seoul from just its side of the DMZ, there is zero chance of intercepting or stopping it before impact.

At that point, five or ten years down the road, you will have people screaming that we should have done something now, before North Korea achieved immediately-mobilisable nuclear weapons.

Conversely, if the US launched a military campaign now that did successfully minimise casualties on all sides (an unlikely scenario), then you're still looking at tens of thousands dead. And it might well be that the North Korean regime would collapse from within given another decade or two: there's already a growing black market and awareness of the outside world and discontent in the provinces that simply wasn't there 20 years ago, although it is still very nascent.

And that of course is another question. Say North Korea gets nukes, doesn't use them on anyone, gets peace talks with the US and South Korea, doesn't kill anyone, hell, Kim and Trump even get that burger together and cut a new business deal or something. But then something happens in North Korea, the regime collapses and its nukes suddenly go walkabout. This is actually the primary #1 fear of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, not that they'll start firing them off at will but that the regime will collapse overnight (not that far-fetched: from the outside world Syria looked far more stable a couple of years before the civil war than Pakistan does now) and someone like the Taliban ends up with a few megaton-class warheads.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I'm not as familiar with the geopolitical nuances of the area as some of the folks around here are, so i guess I've got a question. Just how big a stick does Japan have to swing if the worst happens and push comes to nuke?

Not a whole lot. Japan has a defensive military only by law, and relies heavily on the US for doing any kind of offensive threats. (Japan this year has decided to revisit this, on the grounds that Trump et al are certifiably fucking insane and unreliable). They do have an air defense squad and some troops, but they have no real way to project any kind of force, undertake major air strikes or do any kind of ground assault, especially one on another coast.

And they have nothing like their own missile systems. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Not a whole lot. Japan has a defensive military only by law, and relies heavily on the US for doing any kind of offensive threats. (Japan this year has decided to revisit this, on the grounds that Trump et al are certifiably fucking insane and unreliable). They do have an air defense squad and some troops, but they have no real way to project any kind of force, undertake major air strikes or do any kind of ground assault, especially one on another coast.

And they have nothing like their own missile systems. 

So basically, the demand is for continued US protection, but under conditions that become exponentially more dangerous for US troops once Kim gets his nuclear missiles.

They can't have it both ways, in my view. Not sure why Trump has to be the bad guy in this, when it should be left to Japan and South Korea to choose whether they want the US to stay or not. But if they do want the US to stay, then they must accept that it comes with the need to remove the nuclear threat before it fully manifests. They can choose to oppose that, but then the US should leave and let them to face the consequences of their inaction on their own.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Just now, Let's Get Kraken said:

That sounds like a lot of over-simplifications with little thought to long-term consequences.

It is thinking of long term consequences that makes prevention of a nuclear armed North Korea a top priority.

[Kalbear]

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

So basically, the demand is for continued US protection, but under conditions that become exponentially more dangerous for US troops once Kim gets his nuclear missiles.

No, the demand is for the US to honor their promises (to act as the primary military for Japan) in exchange for Japan to remain without weapons. 

When the US  threatens to pull out and let Japan go on all alone, just like that, it is not unreasonable for Japan to ask da fuq, because their entire political system and military system had been put aside at the US request for 70 years now. 

So if the US doesn't want an armed Japan, cool beans - maybe give them time to arm first? Because their being unarmed and relying on us is entirely a US requirement that they have fulfilled. 

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

They can't have it both ways, in my view. Not sure why Trump has to be the bad guy in this, when it should be left to Japan and South Korea to choose whether they want the US to stay or not.

They want the US to be reliable and not threaten to break treaties unilaterally every 4 to 8 years.

Just now, Free Northman Reborn said:

But if they do want the US to stay, then they must accept that it comes with the need to remove the nuclear threat before it fully manifests. They can choose to oppose that, but then the US should leave and let them to face the consequences of their inaction on their own.

Japan and South Korea have a whole lot more skin in the game than the US does. It seems like you're the one that wants it both ways. 

[Free Northman Reborn]

Just now, Kalbear said:

No, the demand is for the US to honor their promises (to act as the primary military for Japan) in exchange for Japan to remain without weapons. 

When the US  threatens to pull out and let Japan go on all alone, just like that, it is not unreasonable for Japan to ask da fuq, because their entire political system and military system had been put aside at the US request for 70 years now. 

So if the US doesn't want an armed Japan, cool beans - maybe give them time to arm first? Because their being unarmed and relying on us is entirely a US requirement that they have fulfilled. 

They want the US to be reliable and not threaten to break treaties unilaterally every 4 to 8 years.

Japan and South Korea have a whole lot more skin in the game than the US does. It seems like you're the one that wants it both ways. 

By all means, Japan should have its own armed forces. WW2 is long gone. These days it is the Japanese themselves that consistently vote against arming themselves. Let them arm and defend themselves. Pity it would be an impossibility once Kim has nuclear warheads on missiles stationed just 100 miles from their coastline. Japan has as great a motivation as anyone to prevent a nuclear armed North Korea. In fact Japan, South Korea and the US should be on the same page in terms of the need to prevent a nuclear armed North Korea at all costs.

[DMC]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Conversely, if the US launched a military campaign now that did successfully minimise casualties on all sides (an unlikely scenario), then you're still looking at tens of thousands dead.

The only way a pre-emptive US military campaign is in its interest is if China does not respond, which would be a decidedly naive assumption.

20 minutes ago, Werthead said:

This is actually the primary #1 fear of Pakistan's nuclear weapons

This is always the primary fear.  Was when the Berlin Wall fell as well.