North Korea bought its nuclear tech from Pakistan. Any new buyers would probably just go directly there and avoid the middleman.

The problem is that we are thinking rationally whereas psychotic dictators do not.

This seems problematic



https://twitter.com/newsjean/status/912330218890829825

It appears the statement also explicitly mentions shooting down bombers that are NOT in NK airspace.

Rocket Boy really is on a suicide mission if the DPRK fires at a U.S. military plane.

This would be the dream scenario for Trump and the hawks in his administration. One can sense the U.S. is trying to corner the "frightened animal" so that the animal has no recourse but to lash out. How else to explain the rhetoric and general posture of the U.S. under Trump.

It's hard to believe millions of people getting killed is part of anyone's dream scenario, but that may well be the case. More racism imo. The hawks would have a much different attitude if Paris and London were under the gun instead of Seoul and Tokyo.

S. Korea has to be a major trading partner of ours by this time. I can't go anywhere without seeing a Kia or an LG piece of electronics. We (the U.S.) would certainly suffer economically if conflict engulfs that region.

Uh yeah. Japan is #4 and Korea is #6.

All out war on the Korean peninsula is a disaster for the world economy.

From what I understand those B-1s are flying right on the edge of NK's coastline. If NK warns the US not to fly warplanes right on their coastline and then tries to shoot them down when they fly so provocatively I think they're within their rights. Certainly the US would not tolerate armed warplanes from a hostile nation flying right along our coastline.

Don't the Russians violate our airspace on the reg just for fun?

Is it? Trump + any cronies close to him in Russiagate; Halliburton, Raytheon, General Dynamics execs/lobbyists; 3- and 4-star generals itching to get another star; war planners sick and tired of playing war games and ready to cut their teeth on the real thing.

The US and Russians probe each other's airspace with electronic recon planes on the reg. That's different from flying armed strategic bombers escorted by armed fighters right down the coastline.

I'm nor sure whether Russia does that to us, but they do it to European countries all the time. Like, down the English Channel and stuff.

I don't think they actually enter each other's sovereign airspace. That would just not be a good idea. Up to about 1972, Soviet aircraft used to intrude into British airspace through the 'Faroes Gap' in British radar coverage, coming in from the north-west. On one occasion a Soviet bomber overflew the city of York and wasn't reported till people in York, who looked up and got the distinct feeling that the odd-looking plane wasn't 'one of ours', phoned the police. Only then were RAF fighters scrambled, and of course the bomber was out past the twelve-mile limit long before they arrived to intercept.

The Faroes Gap was soon closed as a matter of priority and the Soviets stopped trying that approach. Later in the 1970s a Soviet Tu-95 Bear, flying down the North Sea, tried edging into the British twelve-mile limit off the Yorkshire coast and the accompanying RAF Lightning interceptors got very aggressive, coming in extremely close and 'shoulder-barging' the Bear, implicitly threatening to shoot it down, and it turned away. I don't think the Soviets tried that again.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/21/politi...ump/index.html

The Russians most certainly have entered into airspace they shouldn't.

But I assume we have stealth bombers over Russian airspace without anyone knowing.

Yeah, by probe I meant brush up against airspace to see the response and get as close as possible for ELINT. And even then there's a huge difference between a recon plane and an armed strategic bomber flight escorted by armed fighters. The latter is a huge escalation.

And of course the U-2 and SR-71 flights explicitly flew over Soviet airspace and the Soviets tried their best to shoot them down.

It's kind of the defining thing about international waters that countries aren't allowed to tell other countries what they can do there.

Very much doubt we have bombers flying in Russian airspace, that would be crazy dangerous.

No clue how you doubt it when we did it during the cold war.

I know we flew spy planes, don't recall actual bombers. Sounds like a good way to start WWIII.

***A Turkish Air Force F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M attack aircraft near the Syria–Turkey border on 24 November 2015. According to Turkey, the aircraft—whose nationality was unknown at the time—was fired upon while in Turkish airspace because it violated the border up to a depth of 2.19 kilometres (1.36 miles) for about 17 seconds.***

Just one mile and 17 seconds will get you shot down in most countries. We would never allow it. Yes, this is provoking war.

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It's just speculation about selling aspects of deals internally to NK, so why wouldn't I be? The Iranian nuclear deal included reducing stocks of uranium, heavy water and nuclear equipment. I'm sure the US and its allies would want something about existing capacity reduction on the table at the start. If you're saying it's very unlikely then *shrug*.

You can't deescalate the conflict too much, if NK loses its ability to attack Seoul and kill millions of people then USA would remove the regime without too much hesitation.

I think the problem is that Trump actually did think that the reason NK was trolling is because nobody has the balls to come out and put them in their place.
The current challenge is to come up with a solution in which USA backs down from threatening NK but at the same time allows Trump to save face and not look like a pussy. I think the solution involves giving NK a good deal but no bragging rights and some minor economic sanctions.
Trump then can say that the macho thing is putting sanctions on them and that Obama didn't have the balls to do because he is a liberal snowflake, his base will believe him and the world will be safe for a couple of years or something.

Edit: No bragging rights means that they can't say they owned Trump on the media or in public.

The Ramifications of Going Nuclear

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/09/...ar-north-korea

I wonder if both Trump and Kim Jong Un are delusional. Trump is delusional if he thinks we can win a nuclear confrontation with North Korea. Of course we can "win" a nuclear showdown, but at what cost? (The listener who calls in and comments on the [worldwide] economic impacts of a nuclear war makes a very good point.) Kim Jong Un is equally delusional if he believes his country (and his people) will "survive" mushroom clouds by hiding in underground shelters.

A worrisome aspect to all this is Trump's heated rhetoric (and goading) of the North Korean dictator. One gets the impression that Trump is [intentionally?] trying to get North Korea to strike first. If Trump can goad Kim into acting first, Trump will claim his justification for destroying Kim's country. The wild card is China. According to various media accounts and diplomatic sources, China's leaders have reportedly told Kim Jong Un that if he strikes first, he's on his own - no support from China. On the other hand, if the United States strikes first, China will defend North Korea - just as they defended NK in the 1950's. Does China's apparent pledge to "defend" North Korea mean that China and the United States would be on a collision course - with all that would imply?

If these reports are correct, the sobering truth is that Trump is playing with dynamite. If Trump orders an attack on North Korea, we could [all] possibly wind up dead.