That's probably true. I just think there's a general lack of public interest I the situation. There's probably constructive things the West could do to help, bit there seems to be no impetus to come up with ideas.

Wrong. NK has no intention of going to war. They know it would be suicidal. They are literally surrounded by their enemies, and the support from China is questionable. They don't even have the expertise to reliably deliver a nuclear weapon, especially in terms of hitting the US.

The only reason they even pursued the nuclear program was to gain leverage in negotiations to lift sanctions, receive more aid, or have a sit down with the US directly, which we aren't willing to do. The South has been sending them food for decades. They feel bad for the citizens of the regime. The north tries to use their weapons program as leverage to get more aid (food). SK's Kim Dae-Jung used his "Sunshine policy" towards the north for years, trying to help/appease the North. It might have gotten the wrong idea in their heads. Some people looked at this policy as detrimental, and I have to partly agree.

In short NK acts like a petulant child. When they don't get what they want they start their saber rattling. When they are ignored, they do it more. That's why they tested nukes. Everyone was ignoring them for years.


Wrong. Their power is absolute. Kim needs no legitimate reasons to do anything. He's made political purges and simply executed any perceived rivals in government. If he can do this to the people who actually wield some sort of power, why do you think he needs to have do anything to control people who can't even feed themselves? The population are starving, poor, and routinely put into prison camps or executed when they disobey. There is no chance of an uprising in NK. The people are controlled by the propaganda of the Kim family being living gods and absolute police/military power. They have that pounded into their heads since birth. Their hatred of the US/South Korea is only a part of it.

I don't know about Cumings and I don't care to. I don't need to read some academic's interpretation of North Korea to understand what's going on there, I can read for myself what's going on.

This is a constant type of argument by people like you. "You should read X". It's silly. I don't have to read someone's book to understand a topic.

When did the above happen? In what instance are you referring to?

Grunching...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/181667/am...-negative.aspx (23 Feb 2015)

Story Highlights

- N. Korea the least favorable country for second year in a row

- Fifteen percent of Americans say N. Korea the "greatest enemy"

- Most Americans perceive the state's military as critical threat

There you go again. My statement was that "something could go wrong," not that they wanted a nuclear war.

You are incapable of conversing without distorting the other person's position.

And you think that is an easy thing to maintain.

Gonna hang on to that one.

In fact, I'll quote that whole section in case you have second thoughts about prizing stupidity.

We know how the English language works, Bill. I'm not distorting anything. When you say "something could go wrong" and I ask you what, and you reply with "nuclear war, of course", how could any logical person be looking at that as me distorting your opinion?

What is the other possibility? That the US would carry out a nuclear strike against NK? Or that they would enter a nuclear exchange, even though they didn't "want" to?

You're a silly person and your arguments are stupid. I've dealt with your nonsense across multiple threads. You've come off as completely ignorant of the North Korean regime, and now you're simply coming off as disingenuous and playing word games.

I won't bother interacting with you anymore. You're totally worthless in terms of debate. Go play word salad with someone else. While you're at it, read up on North Korea and learn wtf you are trying to talk about before you coming into a thread about the subject and start running your mouth about something you obviously don't know anything about.

wil, have you ever been to Korea?

No, I never had the chance when I was younger. Now I just don't have the time because of my family. My mother would tell me what she remembered about it, and explain some things about the government and why they were helping the North so much in terms of food aid years ago. I try to read up on it sometimes. Nothing serious, just casual.

I would love to go, I heard it's a blast. My luck the war would break out when I show up to party, though.

Very far off topic...but I was wondering if NK would do something really stupid and threatening like setting off a nuke under water just to show they had them and were committed to their LAG foreign policy game. I came across this video which I decided to share just because it is impressive:

http://gizmodo.com/5942246/this-is-w...des-underwater

I'm thoroughly confused here. Is the situation in North Korea and our presence in the Pacific/7th fleet (especially in light of the recent US military "pivot" towards the Pacific) completely unknown? You guys seem really well versed in Middle Eastern politics and the dynamics of it, but seem way behind when it comes to this topic.

NK has detonated nuclear weapons multiple times underground. They obviously have them, it's their ability to deliver them through ballistic missiles (ICBM? I'm unsure of the correct vernacular) that is under discussion. We just don't know their capability in terms of how far they can fire them. Almost everyone agrees they couldn't hit the US.

In a direct answer to you, Deuces :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_No...n_nuclear_test

Bill's assessment of NK is laughable, but I'm surprised the rest of you seem uninformed about the topic. Trust me, I'm no expert on NK (or anything, for that matter), and maybe I have a bit more insight because I'm Korean, but I thought a lot of this was common knowledge? No?

From Wikipedia :

The Seventh Fleet is a numbered fleet (a military formation) of the United States Navy. It is a permanently forward deployed force headquartered at U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka, in Yokosuka, Japan, with units positioned near Japan and South Korea. It is a component force of the United States Pacific Fleet. At present, it is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets, with 60 to 70 ships, 300 aircraft and 40,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel.[1]

I want to know who these 9% of Americans are that rate North Korea favorably.

You said you'd stop engaging me and I wish you meant it.

Be sure at the next family gathering to announce your theory that NK never uses international provocations to create fear and control the populace.

i don't think any1 doubts that the US wouldn't eventually "win" a war with North Korea. its not much of a win when 10 million+ South Koreans would die and large parts of the peninsula would become nuclear wastelands.

other than that i'm not sure what your point is pointing out that the 7th Fleet exists? all those ships didn't stop the NK's from torpedoing a SK ship in 2010.

i think you're wrong to completely dismiss internal political reasons for NK's belligerent international behavior. NK's policy/ideology is predicated on a constant existential threat from the Yankee imperialists that only the Dear Leader can protect NK from blahblahblah.

I wasn't jumping in the debate really. My post was basically 'hey look at what a nuke going off underwater looks like'.

I'm aware that NK has tested nukes before but it's true I don't know that much about the country. I only know the standard outline about how NK came to be how it is. I hear little factoids and tales of NK's weirdness which are widely reported in the U.S. press/docs. It's really one of the saddest things I've ever heard of- an entire country in a psychological and physical fascist headlock. One of the latest factoids I heard (maybe NPR?) was that many of those who escape NK choose to go back voluntarily. Like many Americans I suppose, they can't shake their worldview no matter what hard evidence they consume. Maybe because of the reports of starvation and the transparent crude government psy ops of NK, I used to think everyone there wanted to leave and was being forced to stay. It's been made clear though that the problem goes deeper than that. NK is more like a militant cult (did I mention with nukes?) than a population held at gunpoint.

How does a country deal with foreign fascism once it has metastasized across a population? Considering even Nazi Germany, I get the sense that much of the veneration of Hitler and the Reich was forced. NK situation involves trans generational, focused indoctrination including that of children and then their children. That's like some phase II, if Germany had won, type of **** in terms of group psychology. It's like replacing religion with worship of the militant state, the head of state in place of the deity. Have any atheists here tried to convince a religious person that God doesn't exist? I'm guessing that exercise ranks up in their in futility with convincing N Koreans that their leader is fallible or, more accurately, a massively dangerous psychopath. Getting NK to moderate and change is probably, for all practical purposes, about as intractable problem as ending a major religion. Luckily, most major religions are morally correct in their basic doctrines. Not so with NK, and I don't see much possibility of a happy ending there.

I wasn't engaging you, I was talking about you. I always had a sneaking suspicion you were one of those people who type in a fake psuedo-intellectual style but really don't know wtf you are talking about. I'm glad you proved me correct.

Your posts in this thread have been god-awful.

Well we have multiple choices in the area if an actual fight broke out.

The issue is that Seoul would be decimated if they decided to go to war. There is so much artillery pointed directly at Seoul that they could never stop or prevent massive destruction to the city. It seems strange that one city should seem so important but Seoul is the 2nd largest metro area on the planet, behind Tokyo.

I understand the point of having the populace hate an enemy, but remember NK wielded the same influence over their people before they pursued their nuclear program. It's needed much more for external reaction.

Here is what to expect from a N Korea nuclear strike if it makes it through the defense system to a US city.

The device will be 10-20 kgr Pu239 or U235. It will be a fission device of at most 40 ktn (say 3-4 times worse than Hiroshima) but nothing like the megaton fusion/fission combo tests planet saw in the 60s. The earth is still here of course just fine (well that said the atmosphere still has traces of that era and the local areas did suffer to an extend until they recovered eventually). Such a detonation probably a bit higher than city level altitude if they were successful should be about 100 times worse than the 9/11 event in total energy released (the fall of the towers released less than 0.3Ktn energy and Hiroshima was about 10 ktn or 30 times worse).

At best such bomb can destroy an area of radius 4km and lead to death of 300000 people if it hit the most densely populated areas (are they that accurate?).

NK has no more than 40 such devices at worse (maybe only even 10 very good ones). They wont be able to deliver all 40 before they are attacked massively with everything allies have available in the area including nuclear strikes and because they are not all placed in icbms anyway. And it is too much to imagine to have all or even most of them perform perfectly/accurately and most of them will be less than 10ktn in the end (so ~4 times less damaging than above like Hiroshima probably). They would also have to attack S. Korea and Seoul would be the most dangerous place that a true devastation would be more likely to take place. It takes a special kind of traitor of course to do that to your own people because after all they are still Koreans and they will never stop being brothers. Then maybe Tokyo? (in fact those are all poor choices if your problem is with the US). After that maybe LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Honolulu etc. I currently imagine that these cities are all possible targets and their ports also in sudden detonations from cargo ships (those will be far less effective though). Still if you live there its probably less than 10% that you die if an attack took place and maybe even 1% if living in the suburbs. What may be a bigger concern is if they have a way to attack nuclear stations and they are not properly designed to avoid a meltdown as a result of the general area strike within a few days (like with Fukushima). (So we must have protection against these targets that can magnify the attack and other toxic factories too)

If they decided to do it i expect they could at best strike 5 cities and deliver the damages described 5x maybe topping 1 mil victims. The cities attacked would only be partially damaged and most of the population is in the suburbs anyway.

It would not destroy the United States or its economy. I would be a small dent in its history and population/infrastructure etc. Some 1% thing maybe or less. It might certainly stimulate the economy for the rebuilding and unite people that would enormously boost the country in other areas. The initial shock of course would be catastrophic for markets and near term economic processes in the areas affected.

It would be a death sentence for the country that did it of course within hours. So what is the point to do it other than react to a threat of total extinction. Only someone completely insane does it only to be recorded in history as the guy that did it to US and killed his entire country to make it possible. It is not a rational choice. It is better to be occupied by the enemy (and win through other ways eventually by never yielding at the core of your spirit) than have all your citizens and all your cities/industry/army bases etc destroyed with over 100 strikes of smaller nuclear missile/bombs strikes.

But of course someone that is losing everything and feels even his own people betrayed him will go for it (Hitler would have done it of course).


You cannot allow yourself as superpower to be terrorized because 5-10 of your cities can suffer such strikes at worse. To do so enables those countries to feel they can play with you.

Every year over 100000 people in US die from smoking or traffic accidents. Maybe double that due to food related issues (long term bad diet, chemicals,environmental issues etc). So every decade we lose over 5 N Korea nuclear weapons all out attacks and nobody cares as it is (and we could save over 50% of them if we had a better society). Oh but when it happens suddenly at once we care then because it was an outside strike not a self inflicted one at our own poor structure choice. Ok sure.

The best defense against nuclear weapons strike you can get from a smaller country, until some proper laser defense system is in place for most of the strikes and perfect monitoring of all their submarines is possible, is to force the world into a situation that all stand to lose something important by using them. (the bigger nuclear war game is probably impossible to win because the opponent will always have a much easier job than the one defending in terms of resources required to be efficient).

I will not give up of course in the idea that we may eventually develop technology that neutralizes nuclear weapons.

So it's not the of nuclear scenario like the Cold War which gave me nightmares as a 1983 kid at the notion we could make the world virtually end, but it still sucks.

Why would we conclude the NK regime would ever want a nuclear war scenario?

It makes a good story scenario, but is it real plausible threat, or just a threat made with real parts? Why be alarmed if it seems time is the only option and the other choices lead to annihilation of a bunch of indoctrinated folks and the people who exploit them?

This is the part that has always fascinated me about NK. I remember reading they could destroy Seoul in 20 minutes.

Let's say Kim gave the order to destroy Seoul. How long would it take to carry out the orders? I guess I'm just surprised that at some point in the past 50 years the Kim family hasn't made a drunken order at 3 AM to launch an attack just for ****s and giggles.

See my post above. Here are some questions maybe Brian is ambitious enough to answer: Is NK like a cult? Do cults often or sometimes follow some kind of classic bubble pattern whereby the underlying beliefs in value must over expand in contrast to emerging realities until everyone is convinced they have to kill themselves or something in order to pay the ante (for lack of a better word; I really mean follow through with some final belief which has been used as a buffer against some emergent contradictory reality)? Could NK commit national suicide?

Like say I believed in a conspiracy theory, but one which wasn't true and was falsifiable (I know this isn't a stretch to imagine given my image here). Every time some piece of evidence comes up which contradicts my theory, I just expand it, upping the ante so to speak. Eventually, if I am to stay consistent, the ramifications of the theory would compel all sorts of beliefs, or I would cease to have them and be disillusioned or whatever. If I was too invested in the theory, I might not be able to face the hard reality. Translate this dynamic to a group. Loss of belief in that case threatens not just individuals but social cohesion and stability. People in a group reinforce apparently wrong beliefs more and more as there is massive, maybe instinctual, incentive to keep the narrative going. Some comet flies by (heaven's gate) or the government wants your guns (Davidians) and its time to show your heart and commitment to the "truth". Is there a possible N Korean twist on that?

Points for acknowledging we don't possess that technology currently. Points taken away for supporting a major boondoggling effort.

Its not unreasonable to arrive at fairly decent not very expensive technology (once finally perfected) that can neutralize nuclear weapons from not very advanced powers and take the threat down to only port threats or introduced covertly through the border to be detonated in terrorist attack mode not via icbm (intercontinental ballistic missile) format.

Then other technology may be deployed to help with such issues. But we have already taken the threat down to 20-30% of the original level. Effectively a country then can claim they have the ability to strike only if they have already the weapon inside the US waiting orders. Even then is not entirely impossible to think about ways to reduce the risk. Just let your mind free to use technology in creative ways and eventually advanced AI may prove a huge assistance in putting the pieces of the puzzle together before humans.

For now try these references next and of course even if these fail in some reports, eventually they will become quite efficient, have no doubt about it. Its just that the opponent can in principle overwhelm the system by sending thousands of targets and then you have to shoot all of them down and only a tiny fraction will be the real thing. But at least smaller countries will be unable to do that to you from a huge distance. Until they become able the hope is the planet will be at a better political condition of stronger overall prosperity and democratic governing for all (that makes it harder for individuals to control the fate of a nuclear weapon) and our defense technology even more advanced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_En...Defense_System

Promotional videos aside, I get the sense that the dominant view among experts (outside the industry$) is that missile defense systems of the star wars variety barely work in ideal conditions, fail miserably in the real world (see iron dome), and are not robust against simple counter measures. At least this was the view when I last checked, which was admittedly years ago. When you look at specific systems and the massive lying and fudging which have been exposed, the real aim of the programs becomes evident.

If someone did sneak in some kind of suitcase nuke and set it off in a major city, would we be able to confirm it's country of origin? I'm guessing maybe not? since it would probably be a unique construction designed to be smuggled in many smaller pieces and assembled somewhere.

Will N Korea go to war tonight?

Probably the same people that support Deez Nutz.

You never know WTF NK will do, but probably not. They may lob a few shells over the border so Kim can earn some bona fides as a megagenius wartime tactician. But it's probably just the usual bluster from them.