Can we get HarveyCanal's take on this Korea rift? (NRR)
white_tea
3,262 Posts
Seriously interested on the policy paper you might pen for your own school of diplomacy, as far as what the U.S. should or should not do. Stay out of it? Consult the elders? Pull our troops out of South Korea or bolster our forces there? Lean on China?
INCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) - North Korea fired scores of artillery shells at a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing two soldiers, in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbor since the Korean War ended in 1953.
Comments
Whatever the U.S. decides to do , someone will be pissed off about it.
this is not the 1st time kim jong trill punks them
they never retaliate
There are some vets that may be lurking here.
They will tell you when they were stationed on the Korean boarder in the 80s and the 00s, that tensions were high.
Gun fire across that boarder is not unusual.
they are so gully
Yes. In addition, they want money in the form of "economic aid."
current s korean pres is a little more "hardline" though no? e.g. not interested in negotiating with/placating/caving to the north so long as the north continues to develop nukes?
Dude, check a map. Look at where the DMZ is then look at where Seoul is and then factor in the fact that NK is run by someone who can't be trusted to be rational and has a nuclear arsenal at his command.
When "retaliation" could spark off a conflict that might lead to your largest city being either 1) invaded or 2) nuked, you'd probably want to play things icy chill.
What NK could potentially do makes the Cuban missile crisis look like a game of Risk.
I think Soviet missile and nuclear technology in 1962 was way WAY WAY a head of what North Korea has now.
I was living in DC at the time of the CMC by the way.
what do you mean by this? before their dismantling and subsequent removal from the island, the nukes Cuba had been provided were capable of destroying DC.
if shit were to pop off forreal forreal I see it as an opportunity to put an end to this tickling game (that seams to somehow always leave more casualties in S Korea's camp) and snatch one more cherry for team worldwide democracy
I mean aren't N Korea's soldiers supposed to be malnourished ?. how tough to defeat can they really be
I say it's a slam dunk
but hey it's S Korea's call
North Korea has very little to lose and South Korea has a lot to lose.
By the time Nato did anything Seoul would be a radioactive crater.
This is what it comes down to. Talking about SK being wussies like this was some school yard fight is ridiculous. It's like starting a fist fight with someone packing a shotgun. Doesn't matter who is right/wrong or in the case of NK, fucking crazy.
;-P
BTW- I think all this is more about China.... NK aint shit without China and I think China likes to let NK act up once in a while to fuck with the West. China is like that big tuff bully and NK is the little smart ass that runs his mouth and if you try and slap him China gets in your way.....
http://fromtheold.com/news/politics/uvb-76-wakes-4chan-message-warns-world-war-new-world-order-20316.html
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 22:12
UVB-76 is the call-sign of a shortwave radio transmission that broadcasts what many believe to be Russian Morse code. Also known as the buzzer that has the sound of a alarm clock with a flat battery. Since 1982 there were only 3 times when the buzzer's signal got interrupted and on August the 23rd something happened. A person with a "Hebrew" voice said the following words:
UVB-76, UVB-76 ??? 93 882 naimina 74 14 35 74 ??? 9 3 8 8 2 nikolai, anna, ivan, michail, ivan, nikolai, anna, 7, 4, 1, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4
No one really knows what the station is for but many believe it is for Russian spies and military to receive encrypted code but a voice speaking is very unusual. If you take the first letter of each word it spells NAIMNA which could be "na imena" which means "on names" as if someone is giving them names.
What makes the story even stranger is that a few days ago a user posted a message on 4chan, you can see the picture above. The entire threat is now missing on 4chan.
It says:
First message:
The information I am about to relay to you is highly classified. No one is supposed to know this. I do not know how much time i have to relay this to you. Currently, I am behind several unknown proxies so the government is unable to track down my location. However, I know that with several people educated about the events about to unfold, I may be able to save hundreds of lives. These evens have been planned out for years in special sessions of the United Nations, barring some representatives from these meetings which were never to go down on record. This is completely staged, and everything that occurs results of these evens will be expected and set into motion by the government officials all over the world.
Second message by same user:
The Russian Station UVB-76 is a "Dead Man's Switch" created to detonate a nuclear device set in South Korea's capital. It will be activated by Dmitry Medvedev's assassination in early September. It has been made clear in the sessions that North Korea will take the blame and war will begin.
The United States and Japan will join South Korea as China will with North Korea. Nuclear weaponry will be involved, especially in nuclear incidents on USA's Western Coast.
The Middle East will get involved, attacking the Eastern seaboard. President Obama and other continental political figures will be evacuated to an undisclosed location as the stock market crashes, civil unrest erupts and the National Guard takes over and puts martial law into effect.
Western Europe, Africa and South America will be heavily affected economically while Australia remains virtually untouched. Russia will join China and North Korea and win the third World War, and a New World Order will be put into effect. Tell everyone you know to go into hiding in the most isolated corners of the earth and prepare for the worst.
I can reveal very little information except for this. I am endangering my life and those of my loved ones by uncovering this massive plot. Please, let no one with authority know.
End of message.
and NK sunk that SK navy ship this year & no one did shit about it
A return to economic sanctions and/or an embargo?
Military action?
Harsh diplomatic language?
Dan: i"m saying that the threat NK presents to SK is more dangerous than what Cuba presented to the U.S. insofar as NK can launch a ground invasion in ways that Cuba, obviously, couldn't and you have the threat of nuclear arms that could easily be brought to bear on Seoul. And to me, the NK leadership is less rational than Cuban or Russian leadership of that era.
Motown: By "fucking crazy" I don't necessarily mean that Kim Jong Il or his military leaders are certifiably insane. But I don't see how one can argue they're terribly rational players given how they've starved their own country with schemes that rival some of the worst policies under Mao and have engaged in dangerous saber-rattling with unclear aims of what they hope to get out of it. The Iran regime seems far more rational by comparison and they say some truly crazy shit.
In my private foreign policy garden, I assume China has pieces in place to wipe out the entire NK leadership if things get too far. I can't imagine they can afford to see NK escalate things into all all-out war.
Nukes aside, yes, NK would crumble if S Korea sneezed on it. But absorbing a giant population of tens of millions of starved people and a vast swath of decimated land with zero infrastructure would make W Germany taking back E Germany look like a picnic.
OT - I LOVE cruising the globe with google maps. That uranium refinery that the guy from the US visited in N Korea can be seen quite clearly. You can also see their slave labor camps. It's fascinating.
And, of course, even in Pyongyang, no cars on the streets.
Posted By David Rothkopf Tuesday, November 23, 2010 Foreign Policy
Bill Clinton once noted that nuclear weapons were North Korea's only cash crop. It was a wry and on-target observation that underscores a critical point. There is clearly a method to the madness of Kim Jong Il and the regime he leads.
After this week's revelations about North Korea's latest nuclear initiative followed by today's exchange of fire between North Korean and ROK troops, it would be easy to suggest that the country is once again going through one of its periodic bouts of irrationality. And by any traditional calculus of behavior, it is hard to deny that a small, impoverished nation frittering away scarce resources on a giant military despite the fact that there is zero chance they could ever defeat their principal adversary seems nuts.
But that would only be the case if the value of that military were measured in traditional, abstract terms. If this measurement is balanced in the context of the North Korean leadership's political needs, it makes more sense. Maintaining a confrontational stance with the South provides a rationale for an authoritarian state and a reason to have the forces in place to maintain that state. It also provides a useful distraction from the utter failure to create a healthy economy within the country.
Furthermore, every time North Korea flexes its muscles, threatens its neighbor, or violates international law it gains stature unavailable to it via any other means. Think about it: North Korea has a GDP smaller than Costa Rica, roughly the half the size of that of say, the Sudan.
Finally, every time the North does one of these things, the response of the rest of the world actually, brings about benefits. After the "official condemnations" die down and the sanctions are proved to be ineffective -- as they inevitably are when pitched against a country in which the will or discomfort of the people does not exactly drive the political system -- North Korea gets a reward of some sort, a deal, an aid package, energy supplies, food. Best of all, the rest of the world accepts its word on vital matters even though North Korea has never ever kept its promises.
As they say in my part of Pyongyang, "such a deal." Is it any wonder that Kim Jong Il continues to turn to his nuclear program to be his main cash crop, to make "lunacy" his country's principal export?
This is not to minimize the risk from the North. Actually, it underscores that it is likely to remain and fester for the foreseeable future. In fact, some observers see this week's events as an effort by Kim Jong Il to provide "victories" for his son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-Eun. The fact that the unveiling of the sophisticated "astonishingly modern" (see today's FT story "Kim Jong Il Plays His Aces") uranium enrichment facilities are seen as yet both a coup for the North and a shocking intelligence failure for the United States and our allies already puts it in the win column. The fact that the exchange of gunfire today was met with communiqu??s and deep restraint (thus far) suggests it too may end up in the plus column for the dear leader and his clique.
These events may also ultimately be seen as wins for Kim on two other levels. First, the nuclear facility almost certainly required international collaboration. If it turns out that support came in part from, say, Pakistan, already suspected of helping the Koreans develop a nuclear ballistic missile capability, it would be deeply embarrassing and awkward for the United States. Next, the fact that the United States and South Korea are really hamstrung on this issue, almost entirely dependent on the Chinese to put real pressure on the Koreans, makes this issue yet another that underscores how the balance of power has shifted away from Washington -- even with almost 40,000 troops on the ground in South Korea and North Korea a top diplomatic priority for the administration.
In short, call Kim strange, joke about his quirks and collection of VHS tapes. I can't help doing so sometimes. But we ought to stop suggesting he is irrational or unpredictable. What he is doing, it's completely in character, following a clear pattern and may very well ... and yet again ... pay off, precisely as he intended it to.
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/23/why_kim_jong_il_continues_to_make_lunacy_his_principal_export
Because North Korea has been quite calculating and successful. What they hope to get out of these incidents is more aid which will keep them going. Despite everything falling apart they're still in power, and have been able to play off different countries to remain there.
I got some room at my house for any SS refugees...but it will cost you your record collections! :-)