North Korea must choose either to have a future or to have nuclear weapons "but it cannot have them both"

Haha

Shitty kids usually have Bratz.

Bratz (the dolls) scare the shit out of me far more than North Korea. Its those lips!

Crude uranium-fission bombs on wobbly ICB missiles make a shitty offensive weapon against a nuclear nation with fusuion bombs, multiple warheads and accurate missiles, don't you know. There's no future in it, because missiles leave a trail right back to where they came from.

"Crude uranium-fission bombs on wobbly ICB missiles make a shitty offensive weapon against a nuclear nation with fusuion bombs, multiple warheads and accurate missiles, don't you know. There's no future in it, because missiles leave a trail right back to where they came from."

The rhetoric at the moment sounds like conventional air strike on North Korea, Kim could do anything after that.

But, if you accept the proposition that Kim is so crazed and unstable as to invite massive nuclear retaliation, then it would also appear that he is so crazed and unstable that threats, cajolery, lollipops, raised voices or any other strategy you care to name will be as effective as any other strategy, since they will all be responded to in a crazed and unstable fashion. At which point, it is impossible to know what to do.

However, should Kim be just a bit sane, that should be sufficient.

doesn't feel that way from here, at least based on rhetoric - i don't see how what he have now is distinguishable from what has come before.

I don't mean to be all ho-hum about this, but Ed, you should be asking South Korea, China, and Japan this question far more than the West Coast U.S.

there wouldn't be any point in attacking these places (especially china, their ally) because then we would have a chance to strike back without having suffered any casaulties.

Love,
The US

PS Please don't allow loose clippings to blow into neighbor's yard thank you.

It is a testament to KJI's ingnorance and ego that he continues to tempt fate by drawing attention to himself and trying to threaten his neighbours. Though I would be incredibly surprised if any of the afroementioned countries took the initiative before Osan and Kunsan AFBs are both calling for a resupply of munitions.

It safeguards the perpetuation of the current regime, so it is good for everyone who currently benefits from that regime - let's say that's several thousand people. Mostly it benefits Kim, as the feudal Maximum Leader. Much as we hate to admit it, he counts as "anyone anywhere". In NK he counts big time.

someone make the argument that anyone having nuclear weapons is good for anyone anywhere. the only people it is good for are those who possess them and their allies. if it's you = great! if it's not you = sucks.

maybe if our president wasn't a saber-rattling numbskull we wouldn't have unstable governments pursuing nuclear options as self-defense insurance policies.

I was gonna say, what's different about this situation from similar ones recently?

Maybe if our president wasn't a gung-ho military adventurist we wouldn't bogged down in Iraq and we would have the military means with which to back our saber-rattling.

(assertions that Japan will go nuclear are ridiculous btw)

yeah UH but maybe they would. cos they did.

but yes, everyone OTM, don't know why this is "news," you could change a few names and this story could have been written anytime in the past 15 years.

This round of wrangling over the nuclear issue with North Korea has been unnecessarily aggravated by Bush's tough-guy approach. As Monsieur White points out above, he's written a whole bunch of checks his ass can't cash.

I turned on CNN briefly and heard Paula Zahn comment that maybe Japan would take military action against North Korea. WTF?! With what military?

Japan has a very capable military. It benefits from state-of-the-art American hardware and close cooperation with U.S. armed forces. The capability is certainly there, but the will and legality may not be.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/10/08/world/09northkorea.3371.jpg

"A South Korean soldier kept watch near the demilitarized zone of Panmunjom, north of Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday before the nuclear test."

Along with ammunition, he's given a stack of quarters before each patrol...

Japan has moved every 'zig'. For great justice.

The bottom line in international politics is that if you have a nuclear weapon, you count. It's about prestige on the international stage. Kim Jong-Il wants to make North Korea a powerful nation that doesn't have to listen to China or Japan or the US or anyone else - and he can go a long way toward achieving that goal with nuclear capability.

That said, North Korea must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. I doubt if the regime even benefits several thousand people, as someone stated above. It benefits the dictator and his close advisors. The people of North Korea are starving to death, and their totalitarian leader is more concerned with arming his nation then feeding it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cb/Zerowingspecial.jpg/800px-Zerowingspecial.jpg

Japan's constitution prohibits the use of the military for war - it's only for "defense" purposes, so I don't know if Japan would be able to take any action against North Korea without being attacked first. Their new prime minister is talking about amending the Constitution, but for now their legal ability to make war is limited.

I wrote that.

My brain is working on pretty low power (I've been preparing for midterms).

What happens next? The world has become a drastically more dangerous place in the last few hours, and people are posting about flip-flops and Star Trek.

Things will not remain the same. This is a different status quo, and a status quo that the US and other powers in Asia have said will not stand.

I honestly have no idea where this will go. It's certainly a big deal.

At least those countries have far better economies, populations, industries, have influence in the world, etc.

I'm far more frightened of India vs. Pakistan (if that ever flares up again) than Almost All Of The World vs. North Korea.

Not saying this isn't of concern, but to focus on North Korea when there's a full buffet of world anxiety to choose from seems like an odd choice.

Um, no, because they've never been seen as a threat to anyone else but each other.

I don't understand at all the blase response to this, but it's quite like Americans to shrug off int. concerns after concerning scenarios to video games. And Japan's responsive militarization iis not at all "nuts," or unthinkable.

Korean test seen pushing Japan down military path - AFP
by Harumi Ozawa

44 minutes ago

North Korea's announcement that it has tested a nuclear bomb is set to push Japan to expand its own military and stir debate on what was once the ultimate taboo of developing atomic weapons itself.

The test comes with Japan in the midst of expanding its defense posture, 60 years after it was defeated in World War II and forced by the United States to renounce the right to a military.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office just two weeks ago, is a sworn hawk on North Korea who has long supported a larger role for Japan's military alongside its ally the United States.

"North Korea's nuclear weapons test can never be pardonable. But we should collect and analyze more intelligence on the matter in a cool-headed manner," Abe said Monday as he visited Seoul, according to a report.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the spokesman for Abe's spokesman, said a North Korean test would post a "grave threat to stability in Northeast Asia" and that Japan will lodge a strong protest if it is confirmed.

Analysts expect North Korea's test to boost the hand of Abe, who wants to rewrite the pacifist 1947 constitution and allow Japanese troops to engage in overseas operations alongside allies.

Despite its pacifism and US guarantees to protect Japan, the country now has around 240,000 troops on active duty and an annual military budget of 4.81 trillion yen (41.6 billion dollars).

A draft new constitution would preserve Japan's official pacifism but acknowledge it has a military -- and not the "Self-Defense Forces" as they are currently known.

Japan has already been taking a larger international military role. It sent a small but symbolic reconstruction mission to Iraq, the first time since World War II that Tokyo has deployed in a country where fighting is under way.
Japan is also believed to be capable of assembling nuclear weapons if it makes the political decision to do so.

But it would be a drastic change of policy for Japan, the only nation to suffer nuclear attack, which has long campaigned to eliminate atomic weapons.
More than 210,000 people were killed in the 1945 US atomic bombings that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"I can't reject the possibility that a nuclear deterrent system would be developed in the region," said Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a professor of international politics at Aoyama Gakuin University.

"Even if the North's missiles do not reach the United States, they could easily put Japan in the firing range and destroy it," he said.

Former prime minister Eisaku Sato proposed developing nuclear weapons in the 1960s as China built the bomb. But his position was rejected by the United States, which provides a security umbrella over Japan.

More recently, a magazine this year quoted Foreign Minister Taro Aso as telling US Vice President Dick Cheney that Japan would need atomic weapons if North Korea pursued a nuclear program. Aso's aides denied the report.

Most Japanese support some revision to the constitution. But the country is sharply devided on how far to deviate from official pacifism.

A recent study by a US House of Representatives committee on intelligence said that Japan -- and also South Korea and Taiwan -- could be driven to pursue nuclear weapons if North Korea tested an atomic bomb.

Although I understand what you're saying, I think the fact is that these guys really are kind of rogues -- paranoid, closed off to the world. I'm sure they'd sell their technology to anyone who was willing to pay. Plus when you think how close they are to striking two world economic powers (Japan and South Korea), not to mention China, well...

It's precisely because it hasn't been focused upon - upon China's design - that the status quo remains. And in that vein, I actually welcome this test if it heralds the eventual demise of the regime, yet what is to take its place is currently unfathomable. The real measure of future normalization all depends on Sino-US relations.

Interesting reccent Times article on the North

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-efron29aug29,0,5849972.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

It's not an odd choice for me. I have friends and family in Japan, and I live in Hawaii.

The thing about a country getting nukes is that you then can't really have a war with them because they can nuke someone, even if it's not you. So for instance it does seem unlikely that N. Korea's going to be able to nuke California or even Japan anytime soon but they can always nuke Seoul, and that radically changes the options the world has in dealing with them. Everyone vs. North Korea sounds lopsided but Everyone vs. Dudes With an Atom Bomb is way less so. It means, for instance, that South Korea is probably going to have to get a nuclear problem, and oh the issues that's going to cause. And yeah, as alluded to in the article above, if one regional player within lobbing distance of your country has nukes and that country is seen as unstable, you're going to want to go nuclear yourself in order to restore the balance above. But of course the situation in Southeast Asia isn't a one v. one issue, it's a complicated mesh that having nukes in the picture is going to really unhinge.

I have even less faith rationality will safeguard us with the likes of 'dear leader' and islamic fundies ( pakistan to thread 2010 ) calling the shots. Good times, good times.

I'm astoundingly blase myself. Like this wasn't going to happen?

Admittedly some people apparently didn't. Blogtrawling calls up the usual amount of bluster and paranoia but what's also been striking is the bodycheck the Bush supporters that possess some form of memory just got handed and are admitting to. Thus dear Mr. Goldberg:

Lots of folks think this nuke thing is good news for the GOP because it puts national security in play and diminishes the Foley stuff. As political analysis, I think that's probably right. But let's keep in mind that North Korea's nuke testing constitutes a failure of US policy. We can debate the details and the extenuating circumstances, but President Bush denounced the Axis of Evil five years ago and promised that he would do everything to keep its members from getting nukes. Well, North Korea just detonated one. Iran is well on its way to getting one. And Iraq, well, that's not quite the bright spot we hoped it would be.

Stratfor's been going crazy, of course. Their latest mailout:

----

The reported detonation of a nuclear device by North Korea on Oct. 9 raises the question of potential military action against North Korea. The rationale for such a strike would be simple. North Korea, given its rhetoric, cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Therefore, an attack to deny them the facilities with which to convert their device into a weapon and deploy it is essential. If such an attack were to take place, it is assumed, the United States would play the dominant or even sole role.

This scenario assumes that North Korea is as aggressive as its rhetoric.

But what about North Korea's well-armed neighbors -- Russia, China, South Korea, Japan? Would they not be willing to assume the major burden of an attack against North Korea? Is the United States really willing to go it alone, even while engaged in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Leaving these obvious political questions aside for the moment, let's reverse the issue by posing it in military terms: What would a U.S. strike against North Korea look like?

The USS Kitty Hawk is currently sitting in port at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan. The USS Enterprise is operating in the Arabian Sea, while the Nimitz and the Stennis are conducting exercises off the coast of California. All are an ocean away, and none is less than a week's transit from the region. Nevertheless, naval cruise missiles are readily available, as are long-range strikes by B-2A Spirit stealth bombers and B-52H Stratofortresses and B-1B Lancers currently supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan out of Diego Garcia. A more robust strike package would take longer to deploy.

When U.S. military planners have nightmares, they have nightmares about war with North Korea. Even the idea of limited strikes against the isolated nation is fraught with potential escalations. The problem is the mission. A limited attack against nuclear facilities might destabilize North Korea or lead North Korea to the conclusion that the United States would intend regime change.

Regime preservation is the entire point of its nuclear capability. Therefore, it is quite conceivable that Kim Jong-Il and his advisors -- or other factions --might construe even the most limited military strikes against targets directly related to missile development or a nuclear program as an act threatening the regime, and therefore one that necessitates a fierce response. Regime survival could very easily entail a full, unlimited reprisal by the Korean People's Army (KPA) to any military strike whatsoever on North Korean soil.

North Korea has some 10,000 fortified artillery pieces trained on Seoul. It is essential to understand that South Korea's capital city, a major population center and the industrial heartland of South Korea, is within range of conventional artillery. The United States has been moving its forces out of range of these guns, but the South Koreans cannot move their capital.

Add to this the fact that North Korea has more than 100 No-Dong missiles that can reach deep into South Korea, as well as to Japan, and we can see that the possibility for retaliation is very real. Although the No-Dong has not always been the most reliable weapon, just the possibility of dozens of strikes against U.S. forces in Korea and other cities in Korea and Japan presents a daunting scenario.

North Korea has cultivated a reputation for unpredictability. Although it has been fairly conservative in its actions compared to its rhetoric, the fact is that no one can predict North Korea's response to strikes against its nuclear facilities. And with Seoul at risk -- a city of 20 million people -- the ability to take risks is limited.

The United States must assume, for the sake of planning, that U.S. airstrikes would be followed by massed artillery fire on Seoul. Now, massed artillery is itself not immune to countermeasures. But North Korea's artillery lies deep inside caves and fortifications all along the western section of the demilitarized zone (DMZ). An air campaign against these guns would take a long time, during which enormous damage would be done to Seoul and the South Korean economy -- perhaps on the order of several hundred thousand high-explosive rounds per hour. Even using tactical nuclear weapons against this artillery would pose serious threats to Seoul. The radiation from even low-yield weapons could force the evacuation of the city.

The option of moving north into the North Korean defensive belt is an option, but an enormously costly one. North Korea has a huge army and, on the defensive, it can be formidable. Fifty years of concerted military fortification would make Hezbollah's preparations in southern Lebanon look like child's play. Moving U.S. and South Korean armor into this defensive belt could break it, but only with substantial casualties and without the certainty of success. A massive stalemate along the DMZ, if it developed, would work in favor of the larger, defensive force.

Moreover, the North Koreans would have the option of moving south. Now, in U.S. thinking, this is the ideal scenario. The North Korean force on the move, outside of its fortifications, would be vulnerable to U.S. and South Korean airstrikes and superior ground maneuver and fire capabilities. In most war games, the defeat of North Korea requires the KPA to move south, exposing itself to counterstrikes.

However, the same war-gaming has also supposed at least 30 days for the activation and mobilization of U.S. forces for a counterattack. U.S. and South Korean forces would maintain an elastic defense against the North; as in the first war, forces would be rushed into the region, stabilizing the front, and then a counterattack would develop, breaking the North Korean army and allowing a move north.

There are three problems with this strategy. The first is that the elastic strategy would inevitably lead to the fall of Seoul and, if the 1950 model were a guide, a much deeper withdrawal along the Korean Peninsula. Second, the ability of the U.S. Army to deploy substantial forces to Korea within a 30-day window is highly dubious. Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom both required much longer periods of time.

Finally, the U.S. Army is already fighting two major ground wars and is stretched to the breaking point. The rotation schedule is now so tight that units are already spending more time in Iraq than they are home between rotations. The idea that the U.S. Army has a multidivisional force available for deployment in South Korea would require a national mobilization not seen since the last Korean War.

It comes down to this: If the United States strikes at North Korea's nuclear capabilities, it does so placing a bet. And that bet is that North Korea will not respond. That might be true, but if it is not true, it poses a battlefield problem to which neither South Korea nor the United States will be able to respond. In one scenario, the North Koreans bombard Seoul and the United States makes a doomed attempt at shutting down the massive artillery barrage. By the time the guns are silenced -- even in the best-case scenarios -- Seoul will be a mess. In another scenario, the North Korean army executes an offensive of even minimal competence, which costs South Korea its capital and industrial heartland. The third is a guerrilla onslaught from the elite of the North Korean Army, deployed by mini-subs and tunnels under the DMZ. The guerrillas pour into the south and wreak havoc on U.S. military installations.

That is how a U.S. strike -- and its outcome -- might look. Now, what about the Chinese and Russians? They are, of course, not likely to support such a U.S. attack (and could even supply North Korea in an extended war). Add in the fact that South Korea would not be willing to risk destroying Seoul and you arrive at a situation where even a U.S. nuclear strike against nuclear and non-nuclear targets would pose an unacceptable threat to South Korea.

There are two advantages the United States has. The first is time. There is a huge difference between a nuclear device and a deployable nuclear weapon. The latter has to be shaped into a small, rugged package able to be launched on a missile or dropped from a plane. Causing atomic fission is not the same as having a weapon.

The second advantage is distance. The United States is safe and far away from North Korea. Four other powers -- Russia, China, South Korea and Japan -- have much more to fear from North Korea than the United States does. The United States will always act unilaterally if it feels that it has no other way to protect its national interest. As it is, however, U.S. national interest is not at stake.

South Korea faces nothing less than national destruction in an all-out war. South Korea knows this and it will vigorously oppose any overt military action. Nor does China profit from a destabilized North Korea and a heavy-handed U.S. military move in its backyard. Nevertheless, if North Korea is a threat, it is first a threat to its immediate neighbors, one or more of whom can deal with North Korea.

In the end, North Korea wants regime survival. In the end, allowing the North Koran regime to survive is something that has been acceptable for over half a century. When you play out the options, the acquisition of a nuclear device -- especially one neither robust nor deployable -- does not, by itself, compel the United States to act, nor does it give the United States a militarily satisfactory option. The most important issue is the transfer of North Korean nuclear technology to other countries and groups. That is something the six-party talk participants have an equal interest in and might have the leverage to prevent.

Every situation does not have a satisfactory military solution. This seems to be one of them.

---

I live within range of NK's missles, and to me it doesn't seem like an odd choice of things to worry about at all.

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/

I hope I'm right, but I'm guessing that North Korea will be talked out of doing anything in the meantime, like in the past. The stakes have been raised now, yes, but if not the U.S., South Korea and Japan are going to be even more vigilant as fuck now.

That's that sorted then.

Genuine question: Is it realistic to be concerned about an attack on South Korea? I mean, North Korea has had the army to do it for a while, a using the one nuke you have on Seoul isn't going to get rid of the South Korean military.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009701.php
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002832.html
http://www.theadventuresofchester.com/archives/2006/10/was_the_nuke_te.html

As the Stratfor article notes, the only reason for this test was to ensure NK's regime survival. It will survive, without a doubt.

Every situation does not have a satisfactory military solution. This seems to be one of them.

I don't believe any situation has a purely military or purely diplomatic solution; it's precisely in the dosing of soft and hard power and in the strategy and tactics that one achieves goals or doesn't. However, the tough guy stance that the conservatives so love, especially whe it translates into a 'fuck you, I ain't talking to you' one hasn't worked any better with the Palestinians and N. Korea than Clinton's supposedly touchy-feely engagement. The usual procdure is divide and conquer, instead he's made bedfellows of Venezuela and Iran, and neither Russia nor China are inclined to allow the U.S. any more U.N. sanctioned adventures - at a time when there may be serious security concerns in N.K. and Iran and when the Sudanese govt. is cynically comparing the prosepct of U.N. peacekeepers to imperialists while a local population of the wrong religion is being slaughtered.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, and I frankly don't see a hell of a lot better strategizing and long-term thinking from the Dems, but this administration couldn't organize a piss-up in a beer tent.

And The Daily Mirror: KIM WILD.

British tabloids - best in the world, blah blah blah.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/09/un.vote.reut/index.html

really? wonder what the japanese have to say about that.

Josh Marshall notes that the question of whether or not this was a nuclear blast is now in the NY Times, and is apparently getting more play in the non-U.S. media.

Like?

I gotta be honest, I see next to nothing that could act stop North Korea from getting nukes precisely because nobody knows what to do to do so. I'm treating it more as an inevitability.

Good point, but if Japan remilitarizes to counter a percieved threat from NK, all bets are off. The Chinese still hate Japan so much that they might be willing to risk a lot to humble their old enemies.

I'll be following this closely. We needn't have interfered with Korea in the first place, but if there's anything the U.S loves, it's reinforcing a mistake.

But on the other hand, who gives a fuck? We're not going to do anything about it. No one is. Wake me up when the Chinese and Rooskies get pissed.

or what super cub said:
I don't advocate anything. I don't think NK would use them, but that's not the point. The US and others will not tolerate a nuclear NK. That means either war or strangling the regime. Either course could have disastrous results.

Do you think that it's irrelevant whether the test was successful or not?

where does it differ?

Second, I don't think the Bush Administration's policy failure in re:Korea is all that debatable

what's your point?

Third, I don't think that one stupid sentence carries the weight that you're giving it.

it was the entire point of his post. and the post that he posted following the one we're discussing.

Do you think that it's irrelevant whether the test was successful or not?

barely.

"KFA eCommerce solutions"

http://www.korea-dpr.com/catalog2/

http://www.korea-dpr.com/catalog2/images/IMG_0013.jpg

This: Oh, so if it was just a small nuke detonation we can just disregard it? So if they tried to attempt to blow up a bomb and failed, we can rest easy? Only the likes of Josh Marshall would proffer something so inane

is not equal to this: Marshall is noting that maybe the test was a total failure, which allows him to crow that Jong-Ill is as incompetent as Bush. Which means that Marshall, as usual, is picking an inane partisan victory over reality,

in any way, at all. Two completely different points.

Second, yeah, you're right that Marhsall appears to be engaging in a little bit of Bush-bashing in that second post. But so what?
As I indicated, the failure of Bush admin NK policy is pretty much nondebatable, and although you claimed not to get my point on that, I'm not sure how you could possibly have missed it.

Anyway, I didn't link to Marshall because of his analysis; I linked to him because he demonstrated that the "Dud" theory had gone mainstream.
The real dispute between us is that you don't seem to think that the failure of the test matters; the more I think about it, the more I disagree, actually. Any sort of sound diplomacy has to be based upon a realistic understanding of your opponent's strengths and weaknesses. While I don't really expect the Bush admin to actually engage with NK (a point on which we apparently agree), if those two sides were to come to the table it makes a difference.

Finally, it appears that the Chinese may well allow the UN Security Council to impose sanctions for the test. Seems to me that the success/failure of the test should have some impact on what those sanctions look like.

I don't see the point of the Bush bashing by Marshall in this situation given that a) Marshall does it all the time; b) it adds nothing to the debate, in context or otherwise; c) Marshall trivializes the action of North Korea by conflating Bush policy with technical ineptitude; d) he appears much more happy to present this as insight rather than simply that the dud theory is going mainstream. His next post, which I referenced, reinforces this.

Any sort of sound diplomacy has to be based upon a realistic understanding of your opponent's strengths and weaknesses. While I don't really expect the Bush admin to actually engage with NK (a point on which we apparently agree), if those two sides were to come to the table it makes a difference.

I don't honestly think that the rest of the world is excited to hedge its bets for more time, to let North Korea continue blowing shit up underground until they get it right, before we hold hands and decide that the 4th largest army is now an honest threat to stability instead of a blowhard with a bad attitude. That's why I think it barely matters that the bomb may have been a dud. Either we are going to recognize a growing threat and use THIS action as our leverage or we are going to wait until they lob another missile over Japan or rattle the cages in China. We don't know how successful the test was, so I'm not really sure we can negotiate effectively.

Part of the reason that the Bush administration doesn't want to negotiate directly with North Korea is because a) that's what the North Koreans have demanded and b) the administration knows the complexity of the situation and would much rather build consensus from the original six nations that we were dealing with a couple of years ago.

Nobody wants a power vacuum in the NK. Even though technically there will be one as soon as South Korea and China simultaneously admit to it. KJI and the DPRK Military are like Schrodingers's cat.

The reason nobody wants a power vacuum is because nobody knows how to carve up the territory. the ROK wants 100%, I'm sure, but they don't want to pay for assimilating medieval East Germany. PRC probably doesn't want SK all up ins, they probably want some little chunk up north to put radar stations closer to the FSU or some shit, Japan doesn't want China any closer than they already are, and they all basically hate each other as much or more than they hate the old tubby drunkard with his No-Dong and his A-Dud.

We barely even have a dog in this fight anymore. Japan's rebuilt, ROK has their own well-equipped military, China's run by the Capitalist Party and will probably just buy Taiwan outright in a decade or two. Oh and we have no money and the military spends all their time in The Suck. We ought to tell the three of them to figure it the fuck out on their own time and admit we don't have the time to play Daddy.

That's all fine and good, except there is the issue of proliferation to think about.

Best thing I've read on the whole situation yet.

I agree with the first sentence, but not the second. I suspect that the U.S. Govt has much more information regarding the effectiveness of the test than the media, and will (hopefully) use that information to gain some sort of strategic advantage--but that advantage can, as a practical matter, come only through diplomacy.

Tom's post raises a really good point, although I think we have more of stake in NK's future than he does, particularly given the number of troops we have in SK. Also, I think whether or not NK is fully nuke-capable makes a major difference in whether that power vacuum becomes a spoken issue vs. an unspoken one.

Aren't you guys worried at all that KJI will actually deploy a nuke (if it actually has one) in the service of remaining in power? Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I don't think that the strategic constraints on the use of nuclear weapons that kept them in check during the cold war are operative any longer, and if MAD doesn't apply, seems to me that a limited/regional nuclear conflict becomes far more likely.

And if the ROK believed with any certainty that KJI was intent on and capable of detonating an atomic weapon anywhere near Seoul, the numbers would probably add up in favor of going ahead and assimilating medieval East Germany. I think they have a better sense of the real detente than we do, as do the Chinese. They can't afford not to.

http://www.cnsnews.com/Pentagon/Archive/1998-2000/DEF20000417a.html

"U.S. Aid Helps N. Korea Build Nukes, Congress Told"

And really, just how combat effective is that 4th largest army? Does NK *really* have the logistics to send that army anywhere or is KJI just going to holler "FREE LUNCH BUFFET IN THE SOUTH!" and hope for the best?

only if you think that 500+ tons of TNT going off in non-DPRK territory is really any more acceptable than a "non-dud" nuke.

I've always understood this less in terms of winning or losing in combat than in terms of wrecking the South Korean economy.

I admit I don't know shit about explosives, but I'm going to guess that a delivery system for 500+ ton conventional weapon is impractical. I may well be wrong.

MOAB has about a 15 ton yield, I think. Big BLU, if it ever gets built, will be about half as powerful again (although neither are as powerful as the T-12, at around 30 tons).

It's not in writing, I suppose, by which I mean some kind of formal treaty, but isn't this essentially what NK has been looking for?

Ooh, scary.

in part:

"Our problem set is no longer containing the Sovs, but we act like we can and should tackle today's problems and the Long War by relying on the same aging cast of allies. North Korea won't be solved by having Japan and South Korea on our side, but by doing whatever it takes to get China to deal with that problem with us and on our behalf. That's the obvious direction our socialization of the problem should go.

Ditto for Iran on Iraq. No one country in the region is going to be able to help us more on settling Iraq than Iran.

Don't want to ally yourself with such a nasty regime? Well, then get the hell out of the Long War, because you're not a realistic strategist who's determined to win but rather a naive tactician who thinks it's cool to take on all-comers at once.

Bush and company are backtracking in both East Asia and the Middle East because they're simply not imaginative enough to see this Long War through in all its strategic implications. Yes, we will make some strange bedfellows in the near term. Such is war. But the real question is whether you want to look good or win.

Me? Like many of my military friends, I don't believe in fair fights. When I enter a fight, I believe in doing whatever it takes to get through it as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. Then I move onto the next challenge.

But this Bush administration has not done that. They came into power all excited to transform the military for future war with China, simply substituting one bogeyman for another. 9/11 pulled this crew into the Long War, but it did not cure them of their Cold War thinking. They added new enemies but no new allies. They got so excited at the prospect of going from A to Z in the Persian Gulf that they forgot all about B through Y as pathways.

Well, now that journey is inescapable.

Want to fix Iraq? Then fix your relationships with Iran and through Iran with Syria.

Want to fix North Korea? Then build strategic alliance with China that can incorporate that solution set.

What we [don't] do now with each is boss them around. Hasn't worked up to now and it won't work in the future. Instead, they'll free-ride us to death--quite literally if we let them. And in the end, they'll get what they want regionally at virtually no cost to themselves. Meanwhile, we'll be bankrupted.

Or, we'll get something much smarter on Jan 2009 and let the bidding begin.

And yes, since you ask, I do realize that in penning this post I've basically restated all of my arguments I laid out to the Bush administration at the beginning of their second term (the Esquire Mar 05 piece, called, "Dear Mr. President, Here's How to Make Sense of Your Second Term, Secure Your Legacy, and, oh yeah, Create a Future Worth Living." It was what I believed then and it's still what I believe now. To me, a serious grand strategist isn't somebody with a new answer every week. He gives you the answer you need when you need it. How long you waste before taking his advice is your problem."

"Gnarly Chaos".

Barnett is a lifelong Democrat, a guy who will almost certainly end up advising foreign policy for someone in 2008.

http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/003862.html

liberal hawk, bush of ghosts fan

Senior Bush administration officials wanted North Korea to test a nuclear weapon because it would prove their point that the regime must be overthrown.

This astonishing revelation was buried in the middle of a Washington Post story published yesterday. Glenn Kessler reports from Moscow as he accompanies Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

---
Before North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device, some senior officials even said they were quietly rooting for a test, believing that would finally clarify the debate within the administration.
---

Until now, no U.S. official in any administration has ever advocated the testing of nuclear weapons by another country, even by allies such as the United Kingdom and France.

One of these officials may have been Rice herself, Kessler hints. Rice, he reports, “has come close to saying the test was a net plus for the United States.” Rice has been trying to counter the prevailing view that the test was a failure of the Bush administration’s policy.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/24/world/asia/north-korea-propaganda-photo.html

from robert neer's napalm: an american biography

http://i.imgur.com/AnT5LqO.jpg

well why are they so damn truculent

yes remind me why the us took part of the korean war and what "containment" is

George Kennan's corpse to thread

perfected by LBJ, McNamara, Henry K & Tricky Dick in Southeast Asia of course

https://www.ft.com/content/9427a7bc-24e1-11e7-8691-d5f7e0cd0a16

While the US wants to tighten the screw on the Kim Jong Un regime to force it to give up its nuclear programme, China — North Korea’s main trading partner — has argued that basic trade must be maintained to prevent millions of refugees from fleeing a failed state.

JUst come across a book from 4 years ago called The Impossible State by Victor Cha. It was mentioned on a 2013 Stephen colbert episode I caught. Was it any good?
Would like to know more about the state of the country, though that is 4 years ago.

By nearly every standard of description NK has long sounded like a failed state hanging on by the barest of threads to some sort of artificial stability. But wouldn't it take a total collapse to even announce to its citizens that the time to flee is nigh? Regardless, it seems sensible for China to perhaps devise a refugee plan, because such a mass exodus seems inevitable, eventually.

Good read:

http://observer.com/2017/04/north-korea-missile-test-cia/

Then there’s the problem that nobody seems to understand what makes North Korea tick. Most Western “experts” on the regime have no idea what they’re talking about, as I’ve explained, and there’s a very good case that the DPRK actually may welcome confrontation with the United States—even nuclear confrontation. While Pyongyang’s bluster about preemptive nuclear strikes against friends of America (read: South Korea and Japan) sounds far-fetched, it’s best to side with caution and accept that the DPRK really might do exactly that.

a mass exodus seems inevitable

Can't be so sure. NK border security is Donald trump's wet dream. Except they excel at keeping emigrants in, not immigrants out.

xp

one thing that has puzzled me for years now is how surprisingly wrong western media interprets north korea and most of east asia

they seem to not care to engage with north korean scholars

scholars/academics who specialize in north korean politics i should clarify

Has anybody read that The Impossible State by Victor Cha which is a 2013 book by a White house staffer that apparently coversa lotof the history of the country. Just wondering if it is worth picking up.
I just came across it watching through old news satire shows but that was asa serious guest. & I just wonder if it is still worth looking at?

you've asked that twice now and no one has answered so i'll give my two cents

i have not read it and never picked it up because my understanding is that it does not deviate from standard us interpretation of nk and it contains pretty egregious errors

have you read the peninsula question by yoichi funabashi?

i read "the cleanest race" this week and it's a very quick + provocative take on the ideology of the state + regime.

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=14480

North Korea is actively using pro-North websites and social media networks to encourage a fear of war in an apparent attempt to influence South Korea's upcoming snap presidential election.

...

It has also been noted that North Korea is actually using the hard-line policy of the Trump administration to influence South Korea's 19th presidential election. North Korea appears to have divided South Korea's presidential candidates into two groups, which it labels the 'peace-seeking group versus violence-seeking group’, and is criticizing the possibility of a preemptive strike.

"North Korea is likely to make the best of the frame of 'war versus peace,' following the Trump administration's mention of a preemptive strike on North Korea. Some predict that reckless military provocations will have the opposite effect. But North Korea appears to be confident in the belief that a fear of war will induce voters to support its best interests," Yoo pointed out.

Some analysts note that the South Korean government should take careful measures against North Korea's blatant electoral intervention. "We should be prepared for limited military provocations by North Korea in its efforts to spread a fear of war during the election period," Yoo added, warning that if the South Korean government responds passively to Pyongyang's provocations, it can expect far greater security threats in terms of Pyongyang's interference with the election.

...

Kim Jin, a former editorial writer at the Korea Joongang Daily, commented at the seminar that, "Now it is a time for the so-called 'strongmen' including Trump of the US, Xi of China and Abe of Japan. But we have an unprecedented power vacuum due to the impeachment of the president. The nature of the next presidency will decide the future of South Korea and its people."

this is an intense time to be alive. so many things seem to be on edge right now.

just bored of strategic patience tbh

hey obama is "breaking his silence"

Barry hasn't been notably silent in this household. We've had about three dozen robo-calls from him since he left office, that all start with a cheery "Hi! This is Barack!"

the book excerpt quoted here a few days ago is pretty chilling. weird how nobody ever talks about the korean war now.

Was this posted/mentioned?

http://www.npr.org/2017/04/21/525010775/nuclear-researchers-spot-north-korean-volleyball-games

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

As North Korea keeps the U.S. guessing about its next moves, American analysts are relying on high-resolution satellite imagery to see what Pyongyang is up to. And for the past eight weeks, they have observed a lot of stepped-up activity at Punggye-ri. This is the same place where five nuclear tests have been staged. And Joseph Bermudez of the website 38north.org says these big loads of dirt have been moved there and that it's a possible sign of tunneling.

JOSEPH BERMUDEZ: This leads us to the conclusion that they have prepared the facility for a new nuclear test. Everything is in place.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Bermudez has studied North Korea for 35 years, and he cautions that analyzing satellite imagery is not as simple as just watching for the dump trucks.

BERMUDEZ: North Korea practices what we in the West call camouflage, concealment and deception.

INSKEEP: It could be a head fake for all we know, but Bermudez never expected to see this.

BERMUDEZ: We looked at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility, and we identified three volleyball games being conducted.

GREENE: Yes, he said volleyball.

BERMUDEZ: The presence of three groups of people playing three separate volleyball games at the nuclear facility is very unusual. We've seen occasionally one game over the past several years. But all of a sudden to have three is quite unusual.

GREENE: Now, he says this could mean that all the preparations for a nuclear test are complete and the personnel are being allowed some downtime. Or it could be the North Koreans were effectively waving hello to the satellite.

BERMUDEZ: This leads us to the conclusion that they're trying to send a message to us. What that message is isn't necessarily clear. It could be, one, that they're trying to tell us they are not going to test. Two is they could be trying to deceive us into believing they're not going to test but they are going to test.

GREENE: Or three, maybe they just like volleyball.

quality kremlinology there

maybe they have a tournament going on

Xxp

I read that

It's bullshit

Activities for military like that are not unusual

Military are expected to have some outlet outside of military life, especially in down time

The US should call their bluff and challenge them to a volleyball tournament.

Spike in activity

lock thread

we can pause to savor a while when a great wit makes his mark, but ilx marches on and so must we.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-entire-us-senate-is-headed-to-the-white-house-for-a-briefing-on-north-korea-2017-4

that...doesn't seem good

https://kr.nknews.org/번역완-에어차이나-북경-평양-노선-5월5일-재개/

중국국제항공(에어차이나)이 오는 5월5일부터 베이징-평양 항공편을 운항 재개한다. 이는 지난 3월 말 NK 뉴스 소식통들이 올해 남은 기간 동안 중국국제항공이 해당 노선 운항을 중단할 것이라고 전했던 것과는 상반된 소식이다.

sorry for the korean article. the english version requires membership

air china will resume flights from beijing to pyongyang starting may 5

that...doesn't seem good

― Karl Malone, Monday, April 24, 2017 5:24 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seems like a first 100 days stunt to me.. but you know its not an accurate measure, or was it really technically 100 days because trump hasnt really been thinking hard about much until recently.

AP story, as written, seems to assume that all 100 senators will obediently go to this briefing, just because all 100 were invited. This is the sort of thing senators resist, because it implies publically that they are not a co-equal branch to the president. The more usual attitude would be "let them come here if they have something to say."

^^^

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/twenty-five-million-reasons-the-us-cant-strike-north-korea/2017/04/21/47df9fea-2513-11e7-928e-3624539060e8_story.html

North Korea has “a tremendous amount of artillery” right opposite Seoul, said Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a senior imagery analyst at 38 North, a website focused on North Korea.

The Second Corps of the Korean People’s Army stationed at Kaesong on the northern side of the DMZ has about 500 artillery pieces, Bermudez said. And this is just one army corps; similar corps are on either side of it.

All the artillery pieces in the Second Corps can reach the northern outskirts of Seoul, just 30 miles from the DMZ, but the largest projectiles could fly to the south of the capital. About 25 million people — or half of the South Korean population — live in the greater Seoul metropolitan area.

“It’s the tyranny of proximity,” said David Maxwell, who served in South Korea during his 30 years in the Army and now teaches at Georgetown University. “It’s like the distance between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Imagine a million-man army just outside the Beltway with artillery they could use to terrorize Washington.”

About half of North Korea’s artillery pieces are multiple rocket launchers, including 18 to 36 of the huge 300mm launchers that Pyongyang has bragged about. State media last year published photos of the system during a test firing that Kim attended.

The 300mm guns could probably fire eight rounds every 15 minutes, Bermudez said, and have a range of about 44 miles.

“This could do a lot of damage,” he said. “If they hit a high-rise building with a couple of rounds of artillery, people get into their cars, causing huge traffic jams, so North Korea could target highways and bridges in cascades.”

If North Korea were to start unleashing its artillery on the South, it would be able to fire about 4,000 rounds an hour, Roger Cavazos of the Nautilus Institute estimated in a 2012 study. There would be 2,811 fatalities in the initial volley and 64,000 people could be killed that first day, the majority of them in the first three hours, he wrote.

Some of the victims would be American, because the U.S. military has about 28,000 troops in South Korea. The higher estimates for the 300mm rocket launcher’s range — up to 65 miles — would put the U.S. Air Force base at Osan and the new military garrison at Pyeongtaek, the replacement for the huge base in Seoul, within reach.

This prospect of extensive damage and casualties has restrained successive U.S. administrations, however provocative North Korea has been.

“Every U.S. administration, as they have looked at this problem, has said that all options are available. But that’s not really true,” said Baker, who is at the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We really don’t have a military option.”

forgot to quote one more important detail, which is obvious, but worth reminding:

“It would be terrible, but the war would be over [in South Korea], it wouldn’t be here,” Graham said in an interview with NBC.

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2089944/opinion-chinas-position-north-korea-appears-shift

Blame for the ongoing nuclear crisis is placed foremost on North Korea for pulling out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty; Niu further notes that regime security (ie, the survival and ongoing supremacy of the Kim family foremost) has become more important than state security in North Korea. Like his fellow historian Shen Zhihua, Niu Jun seems to acknowledge the possibility that North Korea could become an enemy for China.

Both Niu and Shen remind us that any assertions in Chinese state media noting that North Korea should be satisfied with Beijing’s guarantees of security are wildly overoptimistic and unrealistic. For North Korea, no externally generated security guarantees will ever suffice and its nuclear programme will forge forward.

good article

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/instead-of-threatening-north-korea-trump-should-try-this-instead/2017/04/23/70119194-2527-11e7-b503-9d616bd5a305_story.html

The one promising thing about Kim Jong Un is that he harbors ambitions to improve North Korea’s economy, and his domestic policies have already generated modest growth. But his first priority is regime survival and national security, and for that, he considers the nuclear deterrent is to be essential (a rational proposition, sadly). Eight years of sanctions and pressure — but for one spasm of diplomacy just prior to Kim Jong Il’s death — did little to disabuse Pyongyang of the sense that it needs nuclear weapons, or to prevent North Korea from improving its capabilities and expanding its arsenal.

The Trump administration proclaims that the Obama approach of “strategic patience” has ended. But if it really wants to start a new era, the way to do so is not by distracting the public with reckless threats of war, while waiting in vain for Chinese President Xi Jinping to bring Kim to his knees. Instead, the prudent move would be to open direct talks with Pyongyang that start by negotiating a freeze on the fissile-material production cycle, return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and moratorium on testing nuclear devices and long-range ballistic missiles (including satellite launches). In return, the United States should at least entertain Pyongyang’s standing request for suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea. Kim may be willing to accept something less, such as an adjustment in scale. Or he may be open to a different kind of trade — initiating talks to convert the 1953 Armistice Agreement into a proper peace treaty to end the Korean War, for example. The only way to probe these options is to get to the table. With two months of large-scale exercises coming to a close, now is a good time to do so.

A freeze is just the initial move in what needs to be a long-term strategy that changes underlying dynamics and addresses what each side sees as the core of the problem. We cannot really know what Kim wants, and what he might give up to get it, until we initiate dialogue. But since he took power, there have been strong signals that his ambitions go beyond a nuclear deterrent, that his real goal is economic development. Rather than threaten war or deepen sanctions, a more productive path is to nudge Kim down the same road that the major countries in East Asia have all taken: a shift from power to wealth. If Kim wants to be North Korea’s developmental dictator, the United States’ best long-term strategy is to help him do so. We cannot rationally expect him to surrender his nuclear deterrent at the beginning of that process, but it is the only realistic path for getting him to do so eventually.

Now is the time to jump-start a diplomatic initiative that reopens channels, lowers tensions and caps North Korea’s capabilities where they are. Then, working closely with the new government in Seoul and others, the United States should support a long-term strategy that integrates North Korea into regional stability and prosperity. Because the nuclear program is the last budget item that Kim will cut, sanctions only deepen the misery of the North Korean population, and pressure fails to improve human rights abuses on the ground. The best way to alleviate the suffering of the North Korean people is to give them a chance to succeed economically and help open up their country step by step.

By simply inflicting economic pain, threatening military strikes and keeping tensions high, the United States is playing into the worst tendencies of the North Korean system. Kim’s nuclear intentions will harden and North Korea’s capabilities will only grow. It’s time to reverse course.

'It's time to reverse course' = 'Full speed ahead!' in Trumpsylvania.

his first priority is regime survival and national security, and for that, he considers the nuclear deterrent is to be essential (a rational proposition, sadly).

It is sad for the people of NK that they will be the major 'beneficiaries' of regime survival in NK, but anyone who looks carefully at nuclear weapons inescapably concludes that they are total shite as an offensive weapon under current conditions, but most excellent weapons for deterring attack. If it were somehow rendered impossible for them to used by non-state actors or by irrational leaders, then most of their danger would disappear. Because strategically speaking, their only sensible use is to sit idly and deter attack. In this light, NK is acting strategically and rationally. So was Iran. So is Israel. The awful thing about nukes is that simply by existing they could be used. Sometime. Somewhere. By mistake or by miscalculation.

Thank god for the non-proliferation treaty. Because it is the only tool we have for eliminating the obvious rationale for every nation acquiring nukes.

xp

us republicans and south korean republicans pushed to close the kaesong industrial zone back in 2013 i believe

as far as i understand, when it was closed it also meant that the north korean military would leave the major attack route that led to seoul

the us gov't is not completely ignorant, it just likes to play that card to deceive its own people

NYT possibly reprising its Judith Miller shit

@adamjohnsonNYC
The key claim––since repeated by Vox. Yahoo, UPI & others––is attributed to a nebulous blob of "experts studies" and "classified reports".

"Behind the Trump administration’s sudden urgency in dealing with the North Korean nuclear crisis lies a stark calculus: A growing body of expert studies and classified intelligence reports that conclude the country is capable of producing a nuclear bomb every six or seven weeks.

"That acceleration in pace—impossible to verify until experts get beyond the limited access to North Korean facilities that ended years ago—explains why President Trump and his aides fear they are running out of time."

http://fair.org/home/nyts-impossible-to-verify-north-korea-nuke-claim-spreads-unchecked-by-media/

yeah I smell bullshit too

so apparently this big meeting at the WH yesterday was basically nothing, just Trump trying to do something important-looking before the 100 day mark

I heard it from a reliable source that he invited every senator into the Oval Office, locked the doors, and then farted.

http://cdn.charismanews.com/images/stories/2017/01/POTUS-Oval-Office-Resolute-Desk-Smiling-Reuters.jpg

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/china-and-north-korea-on-the-border/article34817039/

“Going ahead with the nuclear test will constitute a serious provocation to the international community, and will bring the most serious sanctions, including oil,” says Prof. Lu. Severing oil shipments to North Korea – which relies almost exclusively on imported crude, most of it from China – would paralyze the country’s economy and military. But mention of this option in China’s state-sanctioned media has suddenly made it a topic of serious discussion.

Such a step would be tantamount to “a nuclear bomb” lobbed toward Pyongyang, says Cheng Xiaohe, deputy director of the Centre for China’s International Strategic Studies at Renmin University. “That would probably be the last economic resort.”

But Beijing has a menu of lesser options that it could consider first, including evicting the tens of thousands of North Korean labourers who have been allowed into China in recent years to work in factories and restaurants.

...

Chinese imports of North Korean gold, iron, tin and rare earths all stopped last year, he said, further evidence of China’s adhering to sanctions. “Big bulk-goods trade of any kind,” Mr. Cui says, “is all now impossible.”

...

The prospect of military conflict doesn’t much worry Mr. Cui. If fighting breaks out, “we will make a fortune,” he predicts, confident that Chinese troops would move into North Korea in order to keep refugees on home soil, thus allowing his business to continue unaffected.

Such insouciance is commonplace in an area where decades of rising and falling tensions have bred boredom – and disdain for those who suggest that this time is any different from previous rounds of anxiety. In Yanji, Chinese tourist agencies have continued booking trips across the border to nearby towns and tourist attractions.

At the Chinese border town of Tumen, tourists still gather on a local boardwalk to gaze across at portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, and at the North Korean guards patrolling the far banks of the river on foot. They feel little cause for concern. “The U.S. is just posturing in order to frighten North Korea,” says Wang Jianbin, a young traveller from China’s Hebei province, who travelled here with a friend.

A short drive away, near the city of Hoeryong, North Korean border guards engage in an intense game of outdoor volleyball, their shouts echoing up to a small Chinese hill overlooking the scene. The game disbands when trucks arrive at the two-lane concrete bridge that forms the border here, a picture of peaceful order.

Then, moments later, an SUV filled with Chinese men in uniform arrives at the overlook. They are bearing binoculars, a reminder that this is the front line of a place that North Korea itself has termed “the world’s biggest hot spot.”

Still, even with recent tensions, “it’s no problem getting across the border. It’s the same as usual,” says Han Bing, another Hunchun businessman with a seafood-packaging factory in North Korea. There is a disconnect, he said during an interview in his store – which was jammed with North Korean shellfish and Russian chocolate – between fear on television and what he sees on the ground. Prices are the same. Business continues.

Besides, he says, the idea of violent disruption in a place pinched between the world’s powers – Russia, China and the U.S. – seems so cataclysmic that it’s not even worth contemplating. “Wouldn’t that mean the start to World War Three?” he asks. That would “not be the same as the Second World War. It would be a nuclear war. And once it starts, the Earth will be destroyed.”

as long as it's not "major major"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LFujE3Y-ZI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsJjP3He4h8

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/world/asia/south-korea-election-president-moon-jae-in.html

when your trying to have a nice quiet walk but the revolutionary masses won't leave you alone pic.twitter.com/Qe7JX54Q2D

— sadbukharin (@sadladbukharin) May 12, 2017

https://qz.com/1004330/north-korea-is-sitting-on-trillions-of-dollars-on-untapped-wealth-and-its-neighbors-want-a-piece-of-it/

North Korea’s neighbors have long had their eyes on its bonanza of mineral wealth. About five years ago China spent some $10 billion on an infrastructure project near the border with North Korea, primarily to give it easier access to the mineral resources. Conveniently North Korea’s largest iron ore deposits, in Musan County, are right by the border. An analysis of satellite images published last October by 38 North, a website affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, showed mining activity was alive and well in the area.

China particularly covets North Korea’s rare earth minerals. Pyongyang knows this. It punished Beijing in March by suspending exports of the metals to China in retaliation for the coal trade restrictions.

Meanwhile Russia, which also shares a (smaller) border with North Korea, in 2014 developed plans to overhaul North Korea’s rail network in exchange for access to the country’s mineral resources. That particular plan lost steam (pdf, p. 8), but the general sentiment is still alive.

But South Korea has its own plans for the mineral resources. It sees them as a way to help pay for reunification (should it finally come to pass), which is expected to take decades and cost hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars. (Germany knows a few things about that.) Overhauling the North’s decrepit infrastructure, including the aging railway line, will be part of the enormous bill.
In May, South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport invited companies to submit bids on possible infrastructure projects in North Korea, especially ones regarding the mining sector. It argued that (paywall) the underground resources could “cover the expense of repairing the North’s poor infrastructure.”

Breaking News: Japan warned some residents to seek shelter after North Korea fired a missile, which flew over the country and landed in the Pacific Ocean.https://t.co/URp51s3wUd

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 3, 2022

oops. i meant to bump another north korea thread.