North Korea to Launch Missile Today - America Watches Passively

[jordan179]

Right now the world waits for North Korea to launch its latest missile.  North Korea has formally abrogated the truce with South Korea and the United States, which means that, technically-speaking, a state of active war now exists between America and the Democratic People's Republic of Tyranny Korea.  This cuts both ways:  if North Korea attacks,

Comments

[xolo]

We ought to be worrying about Iran, whose missiles can hit Europe and the Middle Eastern oil fields.

Let Japan and South Korea develop their own militaries to counter Kim, instead of relying upon the American umbrella. Considering how badly the Chinese hate the Japanese, the prospect of a resurgent and militarily strong Japan might well prompt Peking to take substantive action against Pyongyang.

Edit: Also, under the circumstances, as they're apparently launching a new model of missile, letting them do a test launch unmolested so we can see what it can do is probably the wisest course.

[jordan179]

We ought to be worried about both Iran and North Korea, and acting against both, as both have committed repeated unanswered acts of war against the United States of America. Having said that, right now North Korea is the more active threat.

[xolo]

What threat is there to us from North Korea? What can they actually *do*? They can bust up South Korea pretty badly, which would be a shame, and they can shoot rockets at Japan and probably kill some people there too. In the end, though, they lack the resources to keep the army supplied in the field. It's a big army, and it could fight pretty effectively for a few days, perhaps even a few weeks, but then the fuel is used up, and the supply system is collapsing, and what then?

[jordan179]

If they are foolish enough to believe their own propaganda, the North Koreans could hit South Korea, Japan and/or Guam with nuclear missiles. It would probably mean their own destruction, but they could do it.

[actonrf]

Let's see Obama went along with the sequester cuts even though he tried to go back on social spending cuts while gutting defence. Now North Korea is threatening attack. History repeat itself when aggressor nations sense American defense weakness, just like japan post WWI.

The real card is Chian again, some say China may make to first move a la Vietnam against cambodia to install a saner Chinese style Communist. China doesn't want Kinn or a reunified Korea.

[luagha]

China also wants the US to spend the maximum amount of time and money dealing with Kim.

[xolo]

This. We'd do well to avoid the trap.

[jordan179]

A quick disarming strike would not only "avoid the trap," but also make the next Third World despot think twice about declaring a war that he doesn't mean to fight. Extra points if we sprayed fissionables from the targets all over the landscape, leaving the North Koreans a really nasty mess.

[xiphias]

The fact that North Korea abrogates the treaty and threatens a missile strike every year around the first nice day in spring kind of lessens the threat that I feel.

This is how they celebrate the change of the seasons.

[marycatelli]

I would also take hope in that except that we've got a new leader there. One who extorted concessions in return for not carrying out a test and then -- unlike both his father and his grandfather -- carried out the test. And to cap it off, did it so quickly that our president could cancel that concession, and did.

New level of crazy.

[xiphias]

Eh, he's still learning. He'll get it right by next year.

[jordan179]

Why do we want him to "learn" how to extort concessions from us through threatening to break the terms of the last agreement he signed in return for past concessions which he is not returning? I'd rather that we learn to stop giving North Korea concessions for agreements they do not mean to keep -- because the term for what we have been doing is "paying tribute," no matter how we try to pretty it up with other words, and better to not pay the tribute and then smash the barbarians should they attack. Such action discourages other barbarians from attempting the same.

[xiphias]

Another reason not to worry is that Kim Jong Un's belligerent message didn't actually say anything that was different than the status quo. It sounded impressive, kinda, but it didn't actually SAY anything threatening. It said that, as of this moment, a state of active war exists.

Which is true.

There IS no truce between the North and South. There's a cease-fire. That's a step below a truce. And that's what the situation has been since before my parents were born. We are in an active state of war with North Korea, and have been for three generations.

Could he do something stupid? Well, yeah, I guess, but he's no more likely to do so now than at any other time.

[kalance]

I'm curious, when people say "he" in reference to Un, are they using him as a placeholder for the NK government, or do people honestly think that Un makes actual decisions?

A young 'kid' who has never appeared on the political scene until a few months before his father kicked the bucket is actually running NK? I don't think so. A small cadre of generals who served under Il for decades and simply use the son as a dynastic face for the leadership? I could see that.

So, it's not so much a question of what Un will do, but what those generals who are actually calling the shots think they can get away with.

[banner]

As long as he is alive, he is calling the shots. Anyone who does anything he doesn't like will be killed immediately. So do not think others are in charge, if they were they would have killed him by now.

[kalance]

Kill the figurehead? Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

Which makes sense for keeping a more stable nation: propping up an "heir apparent" who is the logical successor to a cult of personality that was built up for decades around his father? Or, deposing the obvious linchpin of public support and established an untried junta that risks disillusioning the populace?

You really think that a young man who, by all accounts, has spent less than a decade in his birth nation, and held no political offices until 2010 actually managed to amass enough personal power on his own to assume the leadership by his own merits?

Or does he strike you more as the type who can be most easily manipulated by a cabinet of generals?

[igorilla]

What we must avoid doing is making any concessions to North Korea

The stars tell me you will make a lot of concessions

[jordan179]

The stars and the fact that Obama is our President ...