North Korea

he will not follow through* my bad

Very much hoping for the "Trump backs down" scenario.

Useful thread

So it's 9:40 a.m. in Seoul, and still no real chatter about either NK nuke or Trump's "fire and fury." Zilch.

— T.K. of AAK! (@AskAKorean) August 9, 2017

"Trump backs down" scenario

The man doesn't care what he says and certainly doesn't care about consistency. He does care about getting a lot of adulation and ego-boosts. His staff just needs to convince him that tough-talking and bluster are in themselves enough to Assert America's Greatness, without having to, you know, rain fire and fury on anyone for real.

that was a good thread, thanks for sharing ned

His body language was weird during that 'fire and fury' statement. Scared shirtless, er, shitless?

yeah that's definitely not one of the three or four strongman poses that he uses in every damn speech

i enjoy the trump is stupid and crazy material on ilx and i agree he doesn't understand the gravity of waging nuclear war on north korea. but i think some of the distortions here are as bad as the american right's (trump is turning up the heat on china, finally. trump scared the north koreans out of missile launches on key dates. watch out, kim jong un). i don't see it. even the tomahawk strikes and special forces operations seem impossible. there have been six decades plus of roughly status quo and trillions of dollars invested to keep it that way. some of the united states' largest trading partners and military rivals in the neighborhood. the u.s. and china have overlooked a lot of shit to keep things as they are--north korea having a nuclear / icbm program has been a problem for a long time (but it was probably more from exporting weapons tech and expertise to yemen, egypt, pakistan, iran and syria than actually sending missiles over guam or whatever).

attempts at regime change, even with ???somehow rok/prc/russian cooperation would be in nobody's best interest. as fucked up as north korea is, most of its violence is aimed inwards, keeping the lid on things. a hard strike with the assistance of regional allies and a quiet blessing from china would just fuck things up even more. probably, right now, the best bet is to leave it alone and keep north korea as a convenient buffer between u.s. / russian / chinese forces and let everyone go about their business as they have been. nobody in the neighborhood wants to be staring each other down over the yalu river.

i think it's sort of inaccurate to say that we don't know what north korea wants. three huge military and economic powers messing around on its borders, it wants to not be rolled over and occupied. the way north korea is being discussed here, it seems to follow the narrative of the american right, which has overblown the threat of north korea to the united states and imagines the kim regime as mentally ill stalinists that hate america for no reason.

Kim’s formulation was somewhat vague in the original Korean—does the qualifier “unless” modify the entire sentence, or only the second half? Yet the question arises, why would Kim have even raised the image of the “table of negotiations”? It’s not normally part of the North’s public discussion.

http://www.38north.org/2017/08/rcarlin080817/ - a close read of official remarks from the north and possible signs of possible negotiations.

But since 2010, the number of government-approved markets in North Korea has doubled to 440, and satellite images show them growing in size in most cities. In a country with a population of 25 million, about 1.1 million people are now employed as retailers or managers in these markets, according to a study by the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

Unofficial market activity has flourished, too: people making and selling shoes, clothing, sweets and bread from their homes; traditional agricultural markets that appear in rural towns every 10 days; smugglers who peddle black-market goods like Hollywood movies, South Korean television dramas and smartphones that can be used near the Chinese border.

At least 40 percent of the population in North Korea is now engaged in some form of private enterprise, a level comparable to that of Hungary and Poland shortly after the fall of the Soviet bloc, the director of South Korea’s intelligence service, Lee Byung-ho, told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing in February.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/world/asia/north-korea-economy-marketplace.html? -- i like this piece on unofficial and official market economy undermining state control - the number of north koreans that went over the chinese border during and after the 90s famines and what started to come across + black markets + new emphasis on economic growth. it's naive to think that market reforms = korean spring of liberal democracy and rule of law, but i think it shows that important changes are irreversible.

The headlines overseas have been just hysterical. I think you’d be surprised if you were to see the headlines and watch cable TV here in South Korea during the same period, because there was very little coverage of the rhetoric from North Korea. This peninsula has been in a state of war for 67 years, so the rhetoric is nothing new.

jean lee on the view from south korea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phqs3y6xQC0

soros is bankrolling a deep state takeover of the white house, led by mcmaster, who is calling for a preemptive strike.

the globalists have rigged the detonator for ww3. but kim jong un "can't wipe his own ass," maybe north korea is bad, so it might be okay.

tokyo is "a few hundred kilometers away" from pyongyang. clinton gave north korea fissile materials and icbm technology to ratchet up strategic tension.

extensive sketching of a plan to destroy north korea begins at 20:20.

but the japanese "have more nukes than santa clause. oh yeah, they're armed out the ass." but it might be a matrix simulation.

"even the liberals" admire hitler even though "he looks like he just blew ten guys outside a gas station."

the clintons gave reactors to north korea because they "resonate on the same evil demonic wavelength."

pray for america. pray for north korea.

the average video game-playing american thinks kim jong un is a hero and trump is bad.

thanks for gathering all that, dylannn! i remember reading the NYT article on the growing marketplaces and black markets.

i think a lot of the hysteria comes from two things. first, the development of the NK nuclear program seems to be proceeding faster than expected. as a casual observer of the issue, my understanding was that as of a couple years ago, most experts believed that it would take several more years for NK to develop a ICBM which could actually reach most of the united states (actually, hysteria reason 1 subpoint: as pointed out upthread, a lot of the hysteria comes from the fact that the US is just now getting used to being within range of a NK attack, whereas east asia has had longer to acclimate to that reality). the expansion of the ICBM range seems to have been much faster than anticipated. Ditto with shrinking the size of the warhead so that it could be used on an ICBM. i could be totally wrong on that, but that seems to have been the popular understanding here in the US. so part of it is just the pace at which this has all happened, faster than expected

the second reason for the hysteria is that we don't have a normal person in charge, and he sometimes/frequently improvises, contradicts his own staff, and inadvertently creates new antagonistic situations just by his pure ignorance and impulsiveness.

This peninsula has been in a state of war for 67 years, so the rhetoric is nothing new.

during those 67 years, our presidents have been truman, eisenhower, jfk, lbj, nixon, ford, carter, reagan, bush, clinton, gwb, and obama. say what you want about any of them, but i can't imagine any of them being so dumb that they accidentally escalate nuclear tensions out of sheer ineptitude. i hate the shit out of gwb but i would rather have him calling the shots in this situation than trump, like 100000x more. trump is not only completely out of his league, but he doesn't know enough to just stfu and defer to others. so that makes a lot of people here extremely nervous, i think.

but anyway, i think your overall critique is probably otm, at least on the NK side. i see NK as rational actors in a highly fucked up closed off universe. i see trump as a giant farting flaming battleship rolling down a mountain

i wrote all that before you posted alex jones. i don't think alex jones represents any sort of mainstream american view. he represents people like my parents, that's for sure, but the amount of people completely off the deep end like that is probably limited to only 20 to 30% of our entire country, no big eal

Karl otm, hysteria stems from the speed at which their nuclear capabilities are supposedly progressing. I remember reading that first report on July 4th they had successfully tested an ICBM that could reach Alaska, and my blood went cold. Americans that don't remember the Cold War or were born after it ended have never lived under threat of possible nuclear war - except in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when anything seemed possible, when anthrax was sent out, etc.

The headlines overseas have been just hysterical. I think you’d be surprised if you were to see the headlines and watch cable TV here in South Korea during the same period, because there was very little coverage of the rhetoric from North Korea. This peninsula has been in a state of war for 67 years, so the rhetoric is nothing new.

It has to be somewhat difficult to miss the point by such a distance. it is not the rhetoric from North Korea that anybody cares about. It is missile tests, and the fact that the WH is occupied by a person who is unfit for the job.

like lol that's why we're upset it's those DPRK talking points

what a surprise

Trump’s Threat to North Korea Was Improvised

Mattis not helping much

A statement threatening mass slaughter of civilians is praised as "tough" https://t.co/zf5ZhEnJQz

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) August 9, 2017

In the Topsy-Turvy Land of the WH, publically praising Trump for saying incredibly stupid shit is probably more sensible than publically undermining him. The undermining must be done quietly and out of sight.

distressingly otm

I've been following Jeffrey Lewis recently who's said to be a NK nuke expert. He keeps stressing how though a US strike on NK is talked of in preventative terms (by both media and govt) it sounds like we're past the preventative stage. Anyone else familiar with this guy?

About one percent of what would be necessary. https://t.co/xg7lBsuuUB

— Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) August 8, 2017

maybe we should just leave them alone

Alas, that strategy has not panned out terribly well in the past.

give them candy

Give the them all a complimentary HBO GO subscription, and a $5 off coupon for Chipotle.

Like, the policies of the past fifty or so years have gotten us nowhere. Time to try something different.

Americans that don't remember the Cold War or were born after it ended have never lived under threat of possible nuclear war

disagree. not only is it deeply embedded across pop culture but global proliferation and continued domestic pursuit of nuclear products has ensured the constant possibility of nuclear war is a basic fact of post-20th century life.

remember all those mushroom clouds they warned us about in the run-up to the Iraq War

Like, the policies of the past fifty or so years have gotten us nowhere. Time to try something different.

― Josh in Chicago

Nowhere is a lot better than many somewheres.

Trump could easily forget what he said about North Korea yesterday, let's agree now never to remind him

— Jon Schwarz (@tinyrevolution) August 9, 2017

wow jeffrey lewis is not reassuring

Americans that don't remember the Cold War or were born after it ended have never lived under threat of possible nuclear war

disagree. not only is it deeply embedded across pop culture but global proliferation and continued domestic pursuit of nuclear products has ensured the constant possibility of nuclear war is a basic fact of post-20th century life.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, August 9, 2017 4:10 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it is not the same as it was in the 80s & during the Cold War. we haven't been living under threat of two or more nations saber rattling like this in decades. nuclear war receded into the distance. now it appears imminent. Iran was so minor compared to this, and they never had the capabilities that NK apparently has. they also were relatively rational actors.

there was definitely a fear of dirty bombs after 9/11, but it wasn't two countries taunting each other with, as others have said, a very high chance of a horribly tragic misunderstanding or fuckup where Trump or Un overreacts or says the wrong thing and then we're all dead.

*with nuclear ICBMs

during those 67 years, our presidents have been truman, eisenhower, jfk, lbj, nixon, ford, carter, reagan, bush, clinton, gwb, and obama. say what you want about any of them, but i can't imagine any of them being so dumb that they accidentally escalate nuclear tensions out of sheer ineptitude. i hate the shit out of gwb but i would rather have him calling the shots in this situation than trump, like 100000x more. trump is not only completely out of his league, but he doesn't know enough to just stfu and defer to others. so that makes a lot of people here extremely nervous, i think.

i wrote something and it didn't go through. but basically: post-korean war all of those guys did misguided things and even dumb things (lbj losing a ship and crew at a time of high tensions, nixon losing a plane and giving the order to ready a nuclear strike while blackout drunk, gerald ford nearly going to war over dmz landscaping, gwb shredding agreements + axis of evil), at much more dangerous times, when the u.s. had fewer ways to actually talk to north korea, and strained relationships with the prc and russia, and north korea was a stronger military and industrial power compared to its neighbors, more evil guys were in charge of american foreign policy. trump is much like his predecessors in that... he makes bellicose statements for domestic political reasons but mostly pursues sanctions and negotiations because the status quo is fine. i think everything is fine, guys.

considering your recent prognostication record itt that somehow makes me feel worse

post-korean war all of those guys did misguided things and even dumb things (lbj losing a ship and crew at a time of high tensions, nixon losing a plane and giving the order to ready a nuclear strike while blackout drunk, gerald ford nearly going to war over dmz landscaping, gwb shredding agreements + axis of evil)

so you're saying that people who were much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much smarter than trump made very bad decisions (although i'm not sure that lbj was the captain of that ship) that almost led to catastrophe, and that's an argument that trump will be fine?

Fortunately for us and for the world, Donald Trump has a clearly thought out and well enunciated position on the threat of nuclear war. Here it is, in full:

Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my life credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who'd have thought?

at least when if it comes time to enter the nuclear codes, trump will just kind of mash at the keypad with his fist and probably fail the password 3 times in a row, prompting a reset

i haven't followed trump closely enough but i have to think it will go about as it did on every major issue: "i'll fix it" -> "this is tough. turns out it's really complicated. i'm putting whoever in charge of it" -> move on to the next thing and things continue as they always do, behind the scenes.

i live in a city within easy range of a north korean strike (a couple hundred kilometers away! according to alex jones) so i hope i'm right on this one.

xposts

sorry for wine drunk, i know that you also made the argument that there are more bureaucratic buffers in place today to prevent the worst from happening than there were before - "when the u.s. had fewer ways to actually talk to north korea, and strained relationships with the prc and russia, and north korea was a stronger military and industrial power compared to its neighbors, more evil guys were in charge of american foreign policy"

but...i'm not convinced of that. are we chatting with NK all the time now? we don't even have an ambassador to south korea, i doubt we're skyping with NK. the relationships with china and russia seem to be strained at the moment, to say the least. and i don't disagree that many of our foreign policy leaders have been straight up evil, but i'm not sure how untrue that is of now, either. one could argue about the relative sanity of people like mcmasters, but how much of that is counterbalanced by trump listening to people like bannon, kushner, miller, etc? and most importantly, in the past NK didn't have ICBMs and warheads capable of reaching the US. that fundamentally alters the situation and intensifies the decisions that are made.

btw all of that isn't an argument to sell your belongings and fuck in the streets or whatever. but i don't think it makes sense to just say everything's fine and forget about it either

this thread has way too much panic imho (note, at least some is okay) and also way too much troping on the ~~~inscrutable~~~ and irrational, mysterious, inexplicable north korean government/people. who knows what they're capable of, these blind and brainwashed puppets and their wacky leaders who do things totally at random for no reason!!?!!... probably not what anybody itt is going for, but it's there and it's a problem imo not just because it's offensive but because it's hilariously ironic. rational actors would probably not structure their worldview around a 'team america' caricature - could lead one into trouble! seems fitting that the awful old threat title still lives on in the bookmark.

when you intentionally gut the diplomatic apparatus and all you have around you are three generals, a dipshit son-in-law and a fanatic who did some time in the Navy as an unremarkable officer, and you're a fucking incompetent yourself, well, pardon me for hoping that those three generals (the "deep state") are keeping us from an SSBN annihilating millions of people and setting off Mad Max shit all over the region and probably beyond

Its odd to think of chummy US and soviet union sharing north korea after ww2 - too bad they couldn't unite the country then and we never would have had all this later - but it's another one of those things that has come back to bite USA in its ass

when will the "MacArthur was right" spin start

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/09/the-game-is-over-and-north-korea-has-won/

"Seoul, Tokyo and New York" - one of those is very much not like the others (and considerably beyond anything I've heard NK is capable of)

yes some of that is a bit "see I was right, I've been right all along"

"Talk to North Korea" is obviously not something the US is going to do anytime in the next couple of years, so it will fall to the Very Brave Strong and Good Putin to save the day, I'm sure.