Is North Korea Next?

[tabs]

Ahhh Ohhh the boyz in the White House are thinking about North Korea now.

Wolfie is thinking up ways of getting rid of Kim Ill Jong...in 2005.

Bush said right now we are trying diplomacy to solve the problem of NK Nuclear weapons. If diplomacy doesn't work then what? The US can't very well let them sit there with a growing nuclear arsenal, something will be done.

One can't very well invade NK...they have a Million man army thats well armed.

You can embargo NK to try and starve them out...but if things get really bad the NK's WILL USE military force and ultimately nukes. They will invade SK if they have nothing more to lose.

The Chinese, Russians, Japanese and SK's have much more at stake than the USA. They along with US help will have to get serious and take the bull by the horns. It could get very messy very quickly.

If diplomacy fails, the 5 powers will embargo NK, if that happens you better bet we will be ready to go militarily, we may try to assinate or depose Kim by coup, we may try a premptive strike on NK nuclear potential and on Kim himself. We will undoubtly warn NK that any use of nuclear weapons will result in the US using them in return. That would be the only deterent that would make the NK's hesitate.

One thing is for certain though..the US isn't going to do this one alone...it's going to need at least Chinese help.

[dd74]

I don't know if NK is next. Syria and Iran might have more reason to be worried at this rate.

But since you brought up the massiveness of the NK military, I would venture say tactical nuclear strikes would be better served to disrupt their dictatorship.

* NK is about a lot of posturing and double-talk. There's real threat and veiled threat - the U.S. would have to decipher which is which.

* Embargo? What more can the country do without out? Not much. Embargoes would be red herrings in this case.

* I wouldn't trust China. They're still communist, and the revolution runs deep in some circles.

* The usual detractors, such as France, Germany and Russia, will again cry foul, but once they see a secure region, they'll pipe down.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

BlueSkyMarxist say:

China is communist in name only. They're more just a police state. Oligarchy? Not sure.

Though for the life of me I have no idea how else you'd govern 1 billion people.

[dd74]

Originally posted by BlueSkyJaunte

Though for the life of me I have no idea how else you'd govern 1 billion people.

Birth control mixed in their rice balls, that's how.

[nostatic]

or cut the rice balls off

[Adam]

LMAO!

NK seems to be into the whole threat and bluster routine. They've got typical short-man's syndrome, really. However, when they make idle (and totally unnecessary) threats of launching ICBMs against Japan, the USA, Australia then someone needs to slap their face... and slap it hard.

Seems that rogue Asian nations can't stand losing face by making concessions to anyone. It's always their way or no way.

What about a trade blockade?

[edited for spelling]

[Jeff964]

Trade blockade to which country? NK? I don't think the US is exporting anything to NK?

Yes, the NK currently have the largest number of military soldiers in the world, but their technology and weaponry knowledge are Soviet-era. Besides, probably most of these soldiers are ill-trained due to the lack of ammunition or fuel to waste during training sessions.

[Overpaid Slacker]

NK will be an very difficult problem to solve, no doubt. Having cut their teeth on Afghanistan and Iraq, however, the Bush Administration has probably got some ideas up its sleeve. W may be waiting until our anti-missile systems are deployed (mid-2005?) before putting the screws to NK.

I think NK will go after SK if NK is squeezed. That's one more reason to pull our unappreciated troops out of the DMZ.

As is evident on other recent threads, I have no problem with justified pre-emptive attacks, but such an attack against NK would probably have to involve tactical nukes to be really effective.

JP

[Overpaid Slacker]

Lynn -

It's no secret that our actions in Korea (and Vietnam, for that matter) were largely shaped to avoid drawing China (even more deeply) into the conflict. But those were different times, full of nominally communist zeal, Soviet participation and NK was in no small part an extension of Chinese policy. More importantly, NK didn't have nukes.
I don't claim to be able to get into the minds of the Chinese, but I believe it's plain that they consider a nuclear-armed NK neighbor to be at least a problem, if not a threat.
I doubt W (or anybody else) would go after NK w/o at least some tacit concurrence from China, but it's not the same game it was fifty years ago.

JP

[dd74]

I agree with JP. Fact about China is they are so interwoven within the U.S.'s economy that there's probably a better chance they'll stand back.

Ideologically, China has gone through a reform of what their Communist ideal is. As NK is an extension of the old Chinese Communist party, to be rid of NK now would also relieve China of its hardliners' fond memories of a pre-westernized Chinese culture.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally posted by dd74
I agree with JP. Fact about China is they are so interwoven within the U.S.'s economy that there's probably a better chance they'll stand back.

Hell, yeah. Where d'you think Walmart gets their inventory?

[tabs]

The US would like China to do it's dirty work for it. NK is a client state of China. During the Korean war the military hardware and knowhow (pilots) came from the USSR and the manpower came from China. Chinese interest in 1950 came because we were right on the border of China on the Yalu river. I believe there was a Chinese power plant on the river that they were worried about. For Stalin it was another way to test the Wests resolve and keep it busy. Also McArthur was trying to link the war in Korea with the Taiwanese problem and thought we should invade or use nukes on China. McArthur got yanked by Truman who didn't want WW3 over Korea. He was afraid of Soviet intervention.

The NK's are very tough nuts to crack even if they are ill armed and trained. There regime does more than talk smack they are smack, maybe like a fox who knows? Thats the point of reading about the Korean conflict. The US will NEVER move against NK unless it has concurence from China, end of story. To remove troops from SK is to invite NK to become MORE agressive. They need to know without a doubt that NK will cease to exist if they make a move. U do not fool with NK.

PS: You tell NK once, U tell them twice to make yourself clear. If they move a finger you step on it, to let them know you are watching and have the resolve to act.

[dd74]

Well, I'd fool with NK. In fact, NK has demonstrated itself to be a threat to many countries' economic interest, the US notwithstanding. I'm certain that we'd get the blessing of other countries to take out the regime.

Countries that should be interested in this action are Australia, Britain, Japan and to name three of probably many more. China would be interested because it was mistaken from the outset in its support of NK and now needs to be more a part of the industrial world.

Tactical nukes is the only way. Blockades? Nah. They import nothing as result of their isolationist existence.

BTW: which is better? A Chinese Kalishnikov or Russian Kalishnikov?

[tabs]

Russian...

By not fooling with them..means you do what you have to with no messing around with them.

[dd74]

Originally posted by tabs
Russian...

By not fooling with them..means you do what you have to with no messing around with them.

Of course. No one favors or even half likes NK. Cuba probably doesn't even know where NK is, and they'd be the closest ally to NK. Russia? Please. So who are their allies? Russia? Niet. They're slowly becoming a U.S. puppet. China? I say it again: puppet. Whose left? No one. I say take 'em out.

Pax Americana...

[tabs]

I would say the Chinese are the only ones, but they wouldn't be adverse to seeing them go. But I suspect China is a bit afraid of NK. Like I said they talk smack and are smack...So the situation becomes a bit tricky here...we have some reason to believe they are not totally smack, or the US wouldn't even be talking to them.

[vash]

i wonder if kimchee would get any cheaper?

[CamB]

Tactical nukes is the only way.

Dave, JP, Lynn

I might need educating on what "tactical nukes" are, before I spout off. Never mind, I checked.

They seem to be WMD as I suspected. I can't imagine anycircumstance under which using them pre-emptively would be a good idea.

[dd74]

Believe me, Cam, I wouldn't want their use either. But NK, despite my acerbic tone, is nonetheless a credible force of which no one seems to know the potential.

Completely different than Iraq, where past administrations (Bush I, for instance), gleaned insight of Iraq toward the second Bush administration, I can't remember when the U.S. had any significant relations with N. Korea, particularly since the Korean War. So no one knows what they're made of.

That's why I say "tactical." We don't know much about their military nor their WMD program. Like Tabs says, they talk a lot of smack. Nonetheless, no one's sure if they've got the stuff to back it up.

It's a gunfight one would not want to bring a knife to.

[Overpaid Slacker]

To be clear, I'm not advocating removing US troops from SK, just pulling them out of the DMZ. If ***** goes down, there's no sense in having 30,000 (is that the figure?) US troops run over/shelled -- essentially sacrificed -- esp. for SKs who don't appreciate our being there.

If NK says it's got nukes or other WMD, we've got to take them seriously and act accordingly. If they don't, well their braggadocio brought us down on their heads.

Cam -- my country's use of nukes pre-emptively would be a nightmare, second worse only to my country's having to use nukes in direct response to a nuclear attack on us or our allies. NK is an insane place that considers itself unbound by any convention or comity. Kim's got his people eating dirt and freezing and (through censorship that'd make Stalin envious) believing that they've got it great and everybody else wants to come in and take what's theirs. If a massive conventional attack could virtually simultaneously wipe out command-and-control, most of the 10,000 pieces of NK artillery that can reach Seoul (I'm not making that number up, but I'm citing from memory, so that figure could be way off -- and I suspect it's LOW) and whatever nukes or nuclear material is lying around, I'd prefer that.
I'm not sanguine about the odds w/ that plan, however.

JP