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How about that North Korea?

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
I haven't seen anything discussed here regarding the recent developments with North Korea (other than the quickly derailed next conflict thread). Over the last couple of weeks they've demonstrated more advanced ballistic missile capabilities with the potential to strike the US. The last couple of days have revealed they now have smaller nuclear warheads capable of fitting in the missiles. On top of that, the rhetoric between us and them has increased with a threat to strike Guam.

I was of the opinion that they are doing this for attention and to be seen as a world player and treated as such. If you have nukes, no one can touch you and you're taken more seriously. Hence the weapons development and the tough talk. What do you all think?
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
Conventional war is likely the only answer. Bring it.

Reading the tea leaves, I think China secretly wants North Korea to go away.

I say bring it. The long term opportunities for prosperity and peace make it feasible.
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
If you're paranoid about being attacked by your neighbors, there's two ways to do deterrence: huge conventional standing army, or nukes. Nukes are the vastly less expensive option, once you've got past the up-front cost of building them. NK can't afford to keep and feed a million-man army any more.

The cleverer option would have been to go the Israeli route and develop a deliberately-worst-kept-secret nuclear deterrent plus a relatively small but credible conventional military. That's not really how the Kims have ever rolled, however.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
If you're paranoid about being attacked by your neighbors, there's two ways to do deterrence: huge conventional standing army, or nukes. Nukes are the vastly less expensive option, once you've got past the up-front cost of building them. NK can't afford to keep and feed a million-man army any more.

The cleverer option would have been to go the Israeli route and develop a deliberately-worst-kept-secret nuclear deterrent plus a relatively small but credible conventional military. That's not really how the Kims have ever rolled, however.

What makes you think that?
 

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
Conventional war is likely the only answer. Bring it.

Reading the tea leaves, I think China secretly wants North Korea to go away.

I say bring it. The long term opportunities for prosperity and peace make it feasible.

I agree that China would like the norks to disappear, too. But they also don't want the South or US to have assets right on their border either.
 

jmcquate

Well-Known Member
Contributor
Any one read anything on what the South thinks about this? I haven't seen anything.
 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
Conventional war is likely the only answer. Bring it.

Reading the tea leaves, I think China secretly wants North Korea to go away.

I say bring it. The long term opportunities for prosperity and peace make it feasible.

I like the idea, assuming it can stay conventional, but what kind of geopolitical end-state do you see that resulting in? I'm genuinely curious- leaving a power vacuum in N.K. would be extremely bad, IMO.
 

Skywalker

Student Naval Aviator
How far does this situation devolve until the political elite in the DPRK start to push back? Granted, they run the risk of execution if they don't rally enough support - but surely nobody in charge of things thinks they'll actually win a military confrontation.
 

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Any one read anything on what the South thinks about this? I haven't seen anything.

There are extremist weirdos on both ends but I think the mainstream ROK opinion is that they're content with the status quo. Fucked up as it is, it's better than any other conceivable option, and except for the very elderly, nobody remembers anything different. They view the DPRK as impotent weirdos who make a lot of noise but haven't actually done much. The center left (current gov't) favors engagement with the North, the center-right wants to keep them more at arm's length. What nobody wants is a war (for obvious reasons), or a collapse of the North. They don't want Chinese occupation of the North, because then you get an efficient and dangerous Communist neighbor. They're in favor of reunification in very general terms, but they don't want a situation like West Germany got: a modern, high-tech, first-world economy stuck with decades of repairing, rebuilding, and deprogramming backwards Commie cousins.
 

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
And that's the reason why the can keeps getting kicked down the road. As bad as it is for those in the North, it's the easiest situation for the rest of the world and most stable.
 
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