North Korea

xp also most Americans have already internalized NK=enemy that millions of dead NKers is just lil bit of "collateral damage".

Fox analyst dismisses that millions would die in nuclear strike because “they'll be mostly North Koreans”

this is why they don't like Don

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2XVNFzNlZ8

here's Lindsey Graham casually talking about wiping out 100,000s "over there" in Asia pic.twitter.com/uKcnoE2qvl

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) August 11, 2017

Huckleberry's never seen a bombing campaign he didn't like

but just so everybody remembers Asia is "over there". It's not here. so we can bomb them because they're there not here. over there.

Fox analyst, Graham...truly sickening

hmmm... *self lobotimizes* ... yea that checks out

Thx for thread title change

Jeffrey Lewis cohosts a podcast. I've only heard the latest one but it does a good job contextualizing the events this week.
http://armscontrolwonk.libsyn.com/the-donald-and-the-nuclear-goblet-of-fire-and-fury

my brother told me North Koreans have started getting internet & social media, & that the alternate reality/cult of personality of KJU is in jeopardy. i have no evidence or articles to support this

since the late 90s, when kim2 opened basically let the border become v porous to let goods flow into the black market and stop people from getting desperate enough to overthrow him... there were vcds and then dvds and usb drives coming across the river from china. there's a book by jieun baek, north korea's hidden revolution which is maybe too bullish on, like, the ideological threat or the potency of the rays of capitalism that filter down to the black markets of 2nd tier north korea, but at least reports from defectors and people working/visiting, academics--andrei lankov: "markets have proliferated and have largely supplanted the moribund state economy" / North Korea begins journey from feudalism to crony capitalism--all seem to say that the grey/black market is driving the economy.

kim jong un might be shooting off more missiles and testing more bombs but he's also quietly allowed a lot of unofficial or just quiet reform to take place alongside projects like ryomyong road, maybe to outflank unofficial or only officially tolerated but unregulated segments of the economy that could challenge his regime + get a piece of the profits. dprk 2017 is nothing like dprk 1997, '87 etc. even if it looks fucked up, i think most signs point to increasing market reform and openness that will eventually lead to something like prc post-1997 heavy statist authoritarianism/strong military/nationalism/coming down heavy on any threat to central government power but generally improving quality of life for its citizens and growing the economy, even if they're locked in the same perpetual showdown with the u.s. and regional rivals.

i got off track in the first paragraph but i wanted to say, like, i don't think many north koreans are using twitter but they're watching south korean soap operas at least, which might be more of a byproduct of the border being opened up/black market being allowed to flourish because nobody wanted more people to starve and the weakening of the state owned economy--i think the dprk will look about like the prc eventually, where market reforms still allowed for authoritarianism to remain the preferred choice.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/media-smuggling-north-korea/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/11/north-korea-us-south-korea-huge-military-exercise?CMP=share_btn_tw

US and South Korean militaries will go ahead with massive sea, land and air exercises later this month, despite a spiralling situation in which North Korea has threatened to fire missiles towards a US Pacific territory.

LOCKED AND LOADED

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/04/12/asia-pacific/north-korea-quietly-reforming-economy-denies-change/

category: satellite imagery

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2103147/satellite-images-identifies-40-mass-grave-sites-north-korea

Witnesses – who include state security officials and prison guards who have defected – have also claimed to have seen mass graves in the hills around towns, while others reported seeing bodies simply dumped by the roadside on the outskirts of villages.

http://www.38north.org/2017/08/sinpo081117/

Recent commercial satellite imagery reveals several developments suggesting that North Korea may be accelerating the development of the sea-based leg of its nuclear forces. Of particular interest in the imagery is that netting or tarps have been suspended above both the fore and aft decks of the SINPO-class submarine obscuring any activity taking place beneath them.

Whenever new information comes out about NK that paints it as a growing existential threat to the world and piles up new atrocities to lay at its doorstep, it is good to ask oneself whether this is part of a campaign to create a war hysteria that would allow the US government to justify a preemptive attack on NK.

History has proved that the NK regime cannot be dislodged or dissuaded from its course by any external force short of all-out war and annihilation. Reason would conclude that the global & human cost of an all-out war FAR outweighs any imaginable benefits. Perpetuating the status quo is really the only reasonable course. However scary Kim Jong Un might be, a preemptive attack would be x1000 times worse than just letting him stay in place.

Only Denis Rodman can save the world now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CYVwq0DYvw

But as dylannn is pointing out, there is no status quo. North Korea is changing, has always been changing, just as every country is always changing. And perhaps, just perhaps, North Korea is changing for the better.

think he met the status quo of the rest of the world not pre-emptively attacking NK

there is no status quo

I was speaking of US policy towards NK, which has settled into a fairly narrow and predictable range of options: military containment, economic and diplomatic sanctions, offers of looser restrictions in exchange for specific NK shifts of policy. The mix of which option is being emphasized at any time is constantly being adjusted in minor ways, but the overall the pattern is very static. Precipitating a war would be a very large departure from the US policy's status quo.

I was speaking of US policy towards NK, which has settled into a fairly narrow and predictable range of options: military containment, economic and diplomatic sanctions, offers of looser restrictions in exchange for specific NK shifts of policy. The mix of which option is being emphasized at any time is constantly being adjusted in minor ways, but the overall the pattern is very static. Precipitating a war would be a very large departure from the US policy's status quo.

i would say that even though making threats of nuclear war with his arms folded over a chicken caesar salad at a new jersey golf course is not really status quo and seems vile and opportunistic coming from a scandal-plagued real estate developer, the united states has had a gun held to the dprk's temple for almost seven decades. bush ii and obama both probably did more to damage the opportunity to denuclearize the peninsula than trump will manage in his hopefully single term. trump came into this very, very late and he's playing the hand he's been dealt mostly for his own political gain but i don't see it as precipitating a war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97GnZUzeK4c

this is a good look at what the options are / what the stakes are, with three divergent opinions on sanctions, breaking with the status quo and accepting north korea as a nuclear power, how to deal with china, regional allies and other states with a trade and military relationship with the dprk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5qmKGfmrxc

a good long dull al jazeera panel featuring lankov again.

Here's some wonkporn (10 pictures) from Kim Jong Un's visit to the Chemical Material Institute of Academy of Defense Science.

— Joshua H. Pollack (@Joshua_Pollack) August 23, 2017

are there any TANKies on ILX?
― ian, Tuesday, August 8, 2017 5:20 PM (two weeks ago)

hey guess what

North Korean missile flies over Japan, escalating tensions and prompting an angry response from Tokyo

Pay attention to meeeeee!

Poor North Korea. The daily shitshow that is the Trump administration is drawing out all the oxygen from their own petulant tantrums.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/03/north-korean-nuclear-test-confirmed-in-major-escalation-by-kim-jong-un

Huh. The question is, what happens when NK is given what it wants (assuming such a thing exists) and they keep testing nuclear stuff?

I think they just want a nuclear deterrent to kibosh any question of "regime change."

It makes sense.

That's the paradox, isn't it? If they were just quietly treating their own people like shit, like so many countries, there would likely be no talk of regime change. Testing bombs and threatening war is what draws the spotlight, and with it the threat of regime change. Like, Iran has long been a more explicit player on the world stage, but NK even at its most active is still pretty isolated, right? So it becomes self perpetuating. They build bombs to forestall regime change which earns calls for regime change because of their bombs. And short of getting rid of or putting a pause on the bombs, a la Iran, regime change will always be a threat. At this point NK is probably too far along to accept giving up their bombs, so the question goes back to "what do they want?" Unless they go the route of Pakistan and India (and Israel and pretty much everyone) of being a nuclear power that does not threaten others with nuclear war.

Um, your last sentence is bizarre nonsense.

Testing bombs and threatening war is what draws the spotlight, and with it the threat of regime change.

i would say, it's not as if north korea is operating in a vacuum, just randomly lobbing weapons to fuck with their neighbors.

two of those neighbors are u.s. client states, garrisoning an increasing number of american troops and armed with american weapons. the united states starting waving the nuclear trident first. military exercises have continued, right through the tensest periods. north korea's other two land borders are shared with nuclear-armed superpowers, as well, who i'm sure wouldn't shed a tear if kim jong un was pushed out, as long as they made sure the right crew replaced him.

Yea, but "everybody's doing it" dead-ends don't really help with a relatively irrational player like NK. If NK wants nukes for security, that's fine. Like I said, no one is seriously concerned about Israel, Pakistan, India, France, etc., lobbing nukes at anyone. Or the US for that matter. But NK, is there any indication that once they get nukes and are therefore ensured their security that they will stop saber rattling and making threats? Maybe, but probably not. And as much as I agree their paranoia may be justified, or the US started it, or whatever else people want to invoke, that doesn't really solve any problems. I mean, the converse is that the US backs down, takes troops out of South Korea/neighboring client states and lifts sanctions on NK. Think that would settle things down?

i would argue that north korea is rational and this is a measured response. even if north korea manages to produce a nuclear arsenal, they are still at a strategic disadvantage,

Because at this very moment, there are probably at least two Ohio-class US nuclear ballistic missile submarines on patrol in the Western Pacific. Their mission? To provide surety for the nation’s strategic nuclear deterrence posture. Supporting U.S. land based and air launched nuclear missile forces, the SSBNs move slowly in a variety of pre-defined patrol sectors far out at sea.

Under the military’s nuclear attack base plan, OPLAN 8010, the SSBNs stand ready to launch their Trident D-5 ballistic missiles at either preselected or actively chosen targets.

Regardless, the SSBNs represent the pinnacle of warfighting lethality. With each SSBN armed with 24 missiles and at least 8 independent nuclear warheads per missile, one US Ohio-class submarine carries at least 192 nuclear warheads varying between yields of 100 and 475 kilotons. Moreover, as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists blog noted in March, these missiles possess exceptionally accurate targeting systems.

but maybe the greatest problem is

Trump posted on Twitter shortly before his phone call with Abe that “talking is not the answer” in dealing with the nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang.

“The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!” he tweeted.

the u.s. suddenly withdrawing from east asia is impossible but toning down the fire and fury rhetoric and entering into talks with north korea would be a positive first step. the dprk's nuclear program isn't only a result of american provocation but also the u.s. withdrawing from agreements and refusing to talk.

i'm more concerned about a u.s. nuclear strike than a north korean nuclear strike. the u.s. and israel have probably come the closest to pulling the trigger on their nukes post-cold war, i would say. i like pakistan and india better, too, if i was putting money on it.

The way I look at this, this has nothing to do with Trump. I mean, he can make things worse, but NK now is not behaving in a terribly novel way. It's all very familiar. The only difference is the quality of the rhetoric when it's backed by nukes. There have been so many attempts at talks with NK. Have any been "successful?" What do the talks usually hinge on? Sanctions? Fuel and food supplies? Have any concessions been made in the past? What did they get? Did they quiet down once they got them? Have there been any concessions they've won that have since been revoked? What do they want? And if they get what they want, again, is there any indication that will be enough? What happens if they get what they want and then demand more? These are all pretty unknowable things right now, right?

There are tons of contradictions here that may or may not have anything to do with NK as rational actors. Of course NK is at a strategic disadvantage. But does that matter? That only matters when it comes to the country actually starting a war, which it likely won't do, if it's rational. But if it's rational and won't start a war, then how seriously should anyone take their threats? And so on. Which again boils down to: what does NK want? Simply to be left alone? Beyond that, what can they be given if they do in fact pose a real and active threat?

I ask this stuff because I know some of you are more tuned in and may have answers.

xp you would say based on what?

The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017

Seems like an absurdly empty threat.

Seems is an understatement.

No trade with China, yeah, about that.

it would mean bannon fished his wish

mordy i don't think either has come CLOSE but they've deployed nuclear weapons in conflicts.

i'm getting here wildly into speculation that goes far beyond what i can comfortably speculate about.

i'll do it one more time.

i do think part of recent tests is that the trump regime is seen as incompetent, inexperienced, not in sync with its allies, inconsistent in its statements.

talks with north korea have been limited, like since 2003. the agreed framework in 1994, which got north korea to stop enrichment, allow inspectors in, stay with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty was in exchange for talks, money, oil and a couple reactors. bush and his team were quick to ratchet up tensions, leading north korea to withdraw. the six party talks after that... the problem was mostly north korea demanding cash and food aid. the u.s. has been mostly unwilling to talk to the dprk directly. so, concessions to north korea on sanctions, providing food aid and oil, and being willing to talk did chill them out.

what would they demand in negotiations now? i don't know, actually. in the six party talks, it was more about money and aid than military exercises or anything like that. i think things are different in 2017 as the north korean economy is much stronger and is quickly liberalizing. sanctions can't hurt the economy and military like they did before. it would probably be a great idea to better integrate north korea into the global economy and talking things out with them. i think one-on-one talks without chinese influence, a flood of foreign direct investment and american officials visiting north korea would be a good move at this point, deescalating the tension and maintaining its interests in the region and smoothing the process of six party talks that would lead to actual chilled outness on the peninsula. north korea ramping up tests help their positions in the negotiations, more they have the less they're going to lose, so the sooner the better.

^ the two biggest stumbling blocks are that the trump regime is seen as incompetent, inexperienced, not in sync with its allies, inconsistent in its statements. And that a large majority of the US population has been raised in the belief that NK and its leaders are pariahs, madmen, warmongers, liars and cheats, so that any change of policy in the direction of moderation and cooperation would be a tough sell.

the US has nuked its own country hundreds of times since nuking Japan, in nuclear tests like these, since at least the 50s. nuclear test sites out west made mushroom clouds that could be seen from Las Vegas hotels in the 60s. they told everyone it was safe and continue to do so. there has been a planned atomic bomb detonation proposed as recently as 2006 (cancelled due in large part by activists).

i grew up in Cold War era when the memory of school safety videos telling you what to do if a nuke drops were propaganda that raised an entire generation. the threat of nuclear annihilation is a real part of the American psyche. part of the Cold War paranoia has always been that the US would drop it again.

During the 1950s, the mushroom clouds from the 100 atmospheric tests could be seen for almost 100 mi (160 km). The city of Las Vegas experienced noticeable seismic effects, and the distant mushroom clouds, which could be seen from the downtown hotels, became tourist attractions. St. George, Utah, received the brunt of the fallout of above-ground nuclear testing in the Yucca Flats/Nevada Test Site. Winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through St. George and southern Utah. Marked increases in cancers, such as leukemia, lymphoma, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, bone cancer, brain tumors, and gastrointestinal tract cancers, were reported from the mid-1950s through 1980. The vast majority—828 of the 928 total nuclear tests—were underground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site

it has become normalized in the US through politics and pop culture and this is why we feel we are the experts on this. i also feel it is a convenient and empty threat, and has been for generations now. look at Vietnam look at Russia in Afghanistan, look at WMD's in Iraq, these were mostly territory skirmished portrayed to be global existential threats. it's also promotion for the US military budget. think of the expensive planes we can buy off this paranoia.

Again, perfectly valid points. We are where we are for many reasons and thanks to many mistakes, many our own fault. But it still doesn't really offer any solutions. Ideally, a return to talks seems like the smartest move, however unlikely right now, but it still begs the question of 'what does North Korea want, and can talks give that to them?"