Uh. I said remove it. Then YOU said no. Then I said add a corridor for now then clear up the rest later. And now you want to remove it? You're doing some weird gymnastics here, which was exactly the reason I bowed out the last time when you were debating.
Another correction, in the post quoted below you said it would be removed. How we are not sure potentially by magic.
I feel that it's not China who needs to worry about refugees. If the rich South is calling, do you think they will go to yet another communist state?
Well your 'feelings' are going against the historical record. Which is kinda logical as the Northern border isn't a 4KM wide Demilitarized Zone. Which is reputed to be lousey with landmines and other such nasties designed to keep the Americans and South Koreans out the North and the people from the North in.
The DMZ would be removed once North Korea falls. If there is no North Korea, there is no need for the DMZ.
Then Lithl responded saying that was going to be harder than you thought it would be bringing up Cambodia. A position I then agreed with partially but said it would likely take longer bringing up France.
To which I then said would the 'Safe corridors' would be anything but safe.
Here you then accuse me of wanting the DMZ left in place. When all I have said is that clearing would be difficult.
All of the mental gymnastics have been made on your end I am afraid. Lithl and I have been making logical inferences based on your initial claim that there would be a massive wave of people heading South and that DMZ would not be a problem.
Since the inferences we were making weren't that complimentary to you, you have attempted to attack us. Unfortunately in doing so you have at least in my mind confirmed the inference I was making, you have not got a clue what you are talking about and don't really want to consider other view points or other sources of information. Rather you would prefere to paint Lithl and myself in as poor light as possible.
So to make this more productive would you care to back up your claim that people are much more likely to go South into South Korea or continue using the Northern Route through China in the event of a collapse in North Korea.
This is all supposing that the collapse in North Korea isn't of a nature that is has turned large quantities of South Korea into a Nuclear Hellhole. Something you don't seem to worried about.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
Uh. I said remove it. Then YOU said no. Then I said add a corridor for now then clear up the rest later. And now you want to remove it? You're doing some weird gymnastics here, which was exactly the reason I bowed out the last time when you were debating.
You suggested that after a hypothetical fall of the North Korean regime, most people leaving the country would go to South Korea, rather than China; your statement suggests this would occur shortly after the hypothetical fall, rather than many years after the fact. When Kahedron pointed out the mine-infested DMZ, you claimed that the DMZ would be removed, implying that it would be an easy and quick thing to do.
While removing the label and permitting entry could certainly be quick and easy, removing the dangers of the area would not be quick nor easy in any sense. Even with concentrated demining efforts, the ex-DMZ would remain a dangerous place to travel for decades, at the very least.
Uh. I said remove it. Then YOU said no. Then I said add a corridor for now then clear up the rest later. And now you want to remove it? You're doing some weird gymnastics here, which was exactly the reason I bowed out the last time when you were debating.
You suggested that after a hypothetical fall of the North Korean regime, most people leaving the country would go to South Korea, rather than China; your statement suggests this would occur shortly after the hypothetical fall, rather than many years after the fact. When Kahedron pointed out the mine-infested DMZ, you claimed that the DMZ would be removed, implying that it would be an easy and quick thing to do.
While removing the label and permitting entry could certainly be quick and easy, removing the dangers of the area would not be quick nor easy in any sense. Even with concentrated demining efforts, the ex-DMZ would remain a dangerous place to travel for decades, at the very least.
Urgh. Obviously it's not an easy thing to do. But it would need to be done at some point now wouldn't it?
Obviously, the DMZ would need to be demined. But your earlier post suggested that North Koreans would flee to South Korea immediately following the fall of the North Korean regime. That would be an extremely dangerous course of action for anyone who tried for many years following the fall, so anyone fleeing the country during that time period would be more likely to consider China as a safer alternative.
It took just a few hours to transform Seongju from a sleepy farming village in the South Korean foothills into a symbol of the US military might ranged against North Korea.
Once a retreat for amateur golfers , the Lotte Seongju country club is now in the hands of the most powerful military in the world and its South Korean allies.
On land where dispirited golfers once cursed a badly sliced drive, work is under way to rush into service a defence system able to locate and destroy North Korean missiles before they threaten the South – or the 28,500 US troops stationed there.
Villagers complained about the disruption caused by the arrival of the terminal high-altitude area defense (Thaad) system but the impact has been spread far beyond the bucolic hills of Seongju.
The deployment has dominated the final days of South Korea’s election campaign, pushed Seoul’s relations with Beijing to breaking point and cast doubt on the wisdom of Donald’s Trump’s decision to dispense with “strategic patience” towards Pyongyang.
Most of Seongju’s few hundred residents were asleep when six camouflaged trailers rolled in before dawn on Wednesday, carrying the components of the Thaad system.
As they digested their sudden – and unwanted – propulsion into the heart of the latest round of tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, bewilderment quickly turned to anger.
“Look at how beautiful this place is,” said Baek Gwang-soon, a resident in her mid-70s who was briefly questioned by police as she left her home to tend her crops. “Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea what Thaad even was and now it’s right on our doorstep.”
When assembled, the first battery will comprise six truck-mounted launchers that can fire up to 48 interceptors towards incoming missiles picked up by the system’s X-band radar.
Originally scheduled to go into operation by the end of the year, Thaad could be up and running in time to further complicate South Korea ’s presidential election on 9 May – a vote triggered by domestic political scandal but which has been dominated by the North and Thaad.
Moon Jae-in, a liberal former human rights lawyer who is favourite to Park Geun-hye, who was impeached , condemned Thaad’s deployment. But to disappointment of his liberal support base, he has promised only to reconsider its long-term future.
More at the link.
“People of my generation are more worried about our national security because we know what war is like,” said Kwon Ki-hwan, who was 12 when the Korean war started in 1950. “I’ve seen what happens to people during a war with my own eyes, so I support anyone who puts our security first. And that includes deploying Thaad. I would prefer peace through talks, of course, but that’s for the politicians to decide. My biggest fear is that one day we will have a second Korean war. It might be sparked by a decision made by the US, but the victims will be Koreans.”
Just and extra quote that really highlights the situation on the ground. They want North Korea gone or disarmed. They don't want it done at the expense of Korean lives such and incident would cause.
No, it's a fact. The Korean War has never actually ended. It would be a mistake to think that it has.
Whilst there might not have been an official ending to the Korean War, just an armistice. That has held for 60 years successfully
"Successfully" is a term I am challenging here. You have not addressed my previous post. If by "successfully," you mean that North Korea continues to exist due to the aid money the international community continues to send to it, and is now a nuclear power, making it far more of a threat than it ever was, then no, that's not a success, now is it? That's the textbook definition of a failed policy.
for us to justifiably break it something fairly significant would have to change. On current form North Korea is very good at staying just the right side of the line that military intervention is not currently justified.
Are we talking about the same North Korea? North Korea commits acts of provocation all of the time. If we wanted a justifiable act of retaliation, all we have to do is wait for the next time they launch a missile at Korea or Japan, I guarantee you it won't be long.
No, it's a fact. The Korean War has never actually ended. It would be a mistake to think that it has
Whilst there might not have been an official ending to the Korean War, just an armistice. That has held for 60 years successfully
"Successfully" is a term I am challenging here. You have not addressed my previous post. If by "successfully," you mean that North Korea continues to exist due to the aid money the international community continues to send to it, and is now a nuclear power, making it far more of a threat than it ever was, then no, that's not a success, now is it? That's the textbook definition of a failed policy.
for us to justifiably break it something fairly significant would have to change. On current form North Korea is very good at staying just the right side of the line that military intervention is not currently justified.
Are we talking about the same North Korea? North Korea commits acts of provocation all of the time.
This the pedantic part. Yeah we know officailly the war has not ended offically. You need to overcome 60 years of inertia if you want to end that and now engage a hot war. A hot war that is going to most likely involve lobbing shells into down town Seoul with in hours if not minutes.
If we wanted a justifiable act of retaliation, all we have to do is wait for the next time they launch a missile at Korea or Japan, I guarantee you it won't be long.
This is the disengenous part. North Korea has not lobbed shells/missiles at Japan or Korea. They deliberately pick stretches of Ocean in the middle of nowhere. Sure if the North Koreans were dumb enough to do the above, which is a complete break from what they have done up to now. Yeah then we could justify an attack.
But that is very unlikely to happen. What is more likely to happen is the status quo is going to continue. North Korea doing undergroung attacks and lobbing missiles into desterted areas of Ocean that if you contined the radius round in a full circle would include a large area of South Korea or Japan.
Are you willing to accept massive numbers of casualties in those areas long before you could neutralise all the North Korean artillery/Rockets? If you are not then regardless of our feelings the status quo is the best we can realisticly hope for. And then hope we can change the script with North Korea. Because news flash the threats we have used since the Korean War has not worked.
They were actually counter-productive. We effectively forced North Korea to develop Nuclear Weapons, and every time we attempt to ratchet up the pressure we confirm to them just how much they need the damn things.
After 60 years of the status quo yeah something different probably should be tried. Poking them harder is not doing something new. It is going with the status quo and attempting to turn it up to 11.
Moving it into another sphere, Iran has been able to absorb pretty much any threat directed at them and still maintained thier desire to have nuclear weapons. This did not change until Obama and others choose to change the script and actively engaged with the Iranian government on a diplomatic basis.
As the South Koreans mentioned in the article I linked above want, now there is a very real risk of nuclear weapons dropping on South Korea perhaps we should be trying to open more stable communications with North Korea and hopefully use that to peacefully convince them to disarm. Something we can't do if we keep threatening them.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
Sure, we could be doing things with less confrontation but I think this completely 180' change in our posture has already paid off in some key ways:
1) NK has really been in the driver's seat for several decades now when it came to international discussions of its future as a nuclear power. For the first time in a long time, that has changed. Did you hear about this? I mean, since when has NK given a one single **** what its neighbors thought about its behavior? Since we started taking a very aggressive posture, that's when.
2) China and Russia have both been competing for (and subsidizing and providing aid and comfort to) the Kim Regime for several decades. Now there are troops massing on both borders. They clearly realize things are moving into a new phase and they realize this situation will not continue. They're taking it very seriously. They're not in Pyongyang lining up mining deals anymore. They're asking themselves how to keep this guy from wrecking everything. For the first time in several decades they actually feel motivated to get rid of this irritant instead of figuring out new ways to make money off him. That's kinda significant?
3) I guarantee you there are an ever-increasing number of senior (likely military) leaders within NK reconsidering their bets on the Kim family, ICBMs, and the terrible future all of this created for them and everyone they care about. A coup d'etat would be the best possible outcome, no? Why not encourage it. This approach does that plenty.
OK, so on to regime change. I think regime change really is a bit 'Pollyannaish' when it comes to foreign policy and should be avoided whenever possible. However, in this case I would make a special exception. If I find a single fault in the situation unfolding before us, it is this. I can't think of a single more evil, wretched regime than the Kim family. Worse than Saddam. Yeah, equally bad if not worse than Hitler. They did what no one else has done: they turned an entire nation into a prison camp that is set up to enrich a single family. They systematically tortured and murdered millions of their own people along the way. Even those who survived this were still just slowly starved and brainwashed into total compliance. I would like nothing better than to wake up one day to photos of Kim getting the Mussolini treatment by his own countrymen, even though I think he really deserves way, WAY worse than even that. Just **** that guy and his whole terrible family.
I don't like many of the things he has done in his first 100 days but I do credit Trump and all those helping to, yes, basically force the entire world to finally step up and do what's right vis-a-vis NK and this entire situation.
This the pedantic part. Yeah we know officailly the war has not ended offically. You need to overcome 60 years of inertia if you want to end that and now engage a hot war. A hot war that is going to most likely involve lobbing shells into down town Seoul with in hours if not minutes.
Clearly you did not read my post. I have already stated that peaceful resolution to the problem is obviously better than war.
However, in order for something to be called a resolution to the problem, it must actually solve the problem. You're praising the same status quo that has produced a nuclear Korea and a perpetuated Kim regime. That's the equivalent of calling an exterminator to deal with a mouse infestation, finding out that the mice have been replaced with alligators, and declaring mission accomplished.
This is the disengenous part. North Korea has not lobbed shells/missiles at Japan or Korea. They deliberately pick stretches of Ocean in the middle of nowhere. Sure if the North Koreans were dumb enough to do the above, which is a complete break from what they have done up to now. Yeah then we could justify an attack.
But that is very unlikely to happen. What is more likely to happen is the status quo is going to continue.
Which would be fine, if the status quo did not also involve the international community essentially bankrolling the Kim regime.
If you are not then regardless of our feelings the status quo is the best we can realisticly hope for.
Again, if this would not involve us giving North Korea the very money that continues to prop up their horrendous regime in response to their saber-rattling, then North Korea is free to dump whatever missiles it wants into the ocean. This is not, however, the status quo.
They were actually counter-productive. We effectively forced North Korea to develop Nuclear Weapons, and every time we attempt to ratchet up the pressure we confirm to them just how much they need the damn things.
Because they were on the fence about whether or not they wanted nukes? What the hell are you talking about?
Convincing someone to not go nuclear only works when they haven't gone nuclear already. Are you seriously insinuating that North Korea might have scraped their nuclear program if we were to give them more money, after already explaining about how the status quo of North Korea is them threatening hostility to get money?
perhaps we should be trying to open more stable communications with North Korea and hopefully use that to peacefully convince them to disarm.
Yes, let's convince the regime that gets by through essentially extorting the international community for money that they need to present less of a threat to the stability of Southeast Asia. Let's convince the hostile totalitarian regime that they would be better off without the very thing that's making people balk at any idea of military intervention. Because I'm sure you'll get really far with that, seeing how ANYTHING about that makes any sense at all.
perhaps we should be trying to open more stable communications with North Korea and hopefully use that to peacefully convince them to disarm.
Yes, let's convince the regime that gets by through essentially extorting the international community for money that they need to present less of a threat to the stability of Southeast Asia. Let's convince the hostile totalitarian regime that they would be better off without the very thing that's making people balk at any idea of military intervention. Because I'm sure you'll get really far with that, seeing how ANYTHING about that makes any sense at all.
And poking a nuclear armed bear, potentially forcing him to do the one thing that you really really don't want him to do somehow makes more sense?
The current confrontational stand off has not worked.
Any form of armed escalation is going to cause a hell of a lot of casualties and embroil the US in yet another war when you are already heavily involved in 3 armed conflicts.
A Collapse of the Kim regime is going to cause chaos on the pennisular and is also very likely to result in a large number of North Korean Nuclear scientists becoming available for hire. With luck they could be quickly snapped up my a more reasonable nuclear power like China, US, UK or Russia. If we are unlucky they get picked up by one of the less stable ones like Pakistan or one that has the ambitions to get the technology but is yet to make it practical like Iran. Hell if we are really unlucky they might be picked up by a country that has so far had no ambitions of joining the nuclear club due to the expense and the lack of technical expertise, a personal fear from the UK perspective would be Argentina.
At this point something on the Korean Penisular has to change. Armed stand off has failed. Armed escalation is liable to fail worse. May be peaceful negeotiation could succeed, we won't know until it is attempted.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
And poking a nuclear armed bear, potentially forcing him to do the one thing that you really really don't want him to do somehow makes more sense?
I'm pretty sure "use magical fairy dust to turn the nukes into wildflowers" would work a lot better than any plan either of us has suggested, but guess what? That's a complete fantasy. So is asking North Korea to give up their nukes.
For ****'s sake, dude, you just said that it's North Korea's modus operandi to extort other countries for money, and then we give them money and they back down. Right? So, is that country ACTUALLY going to give up its main source of leverage?
No. No it is not. Of course it isn't. So obviously we're not going to be able to convince them to give up their nukes.
---
Once again, making ourselves feel good about how we've maintained the status quo when things are really just getting worse and worse, and with us helping it get worse and worse, makes exactly as much sense the aforementioned mice/alligators exchange and congratulating ourselves on its fulfillment.
The only way we can call anything a solution to the problem is if it solves the problem. The Kim regime is the problem. Getting rid of the problem means getting rid of the Kim regime, either through the Kim regime collapsing on its own, or through intervention. Obviously, the former would be preferable. The problem is, we're not working towards it. We are currently responsible for the Kim regime having existed all of this time and continuing to chug along due to our giving them aid. That's not only not a solution, it's perpetuating the problem.
Not to mention that the current Kim may be crazy enough to use nuclear weapons on his own people to ensure a lose-lose situation of fighting him or not.
Considering that the US and North Korea are still at war, it makes sense for the US to oppose the development of ICBM's by North Korea.
The heinous crimes committed by the North Korean regime are a big barrier to any solution. Their only endgame is staying in power.
Glad I don't live in Seoul.
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These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
Not to mention that the current Kim may be crazy enough to use nuclear weapons on his own people to ensure a lose-lose situation of fighting him or not.
That reminds me of a strategy employed by a friend of mine in the Rise of Nations RTS game. He would let his opponent swarm in with their army and then drop a nuke on his own territory. Nukes in RoN kill all units in the radius but only heavily damage buildings, and one of the late-game technologies prevents enemy nukes from being dropped your territory at all. But having a missile shield doesn't stop your opponent from dropping a nuke on themselves while your army is invading. He would garrison units in his buildings or withdraw from the area to protect them, and then release his workers to start rebuilding after the invading army was dead.
Of course, each nuke that's launched in RoN ticks down the Armageddon counter, and if it hits zero everybody loses.
a personal fear from the UK perspective would be Argentina.
Really? That's surprising to me. I realize it's slightly off-topic for this thread, but could you maybe expand on this?
You seen any videos of nuclear bomb tests against Naval Squadrons? They aren't pretty.
If the Argentines get a nuclear bomb and then decide that they would like to have another go at the Falklands. I could see a Nuclear bomb making a bit of a mess of any Naval Fleet we sent down there to contest the issue. Granted it would turn the entire world against Argentina but that is not that much of a comfort if they have destroyed one of our 2 Aircraft carriers and its support fleet.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
Another correction, in the post quoted below you said it would be removed. How we are not sure potentially by magic.
Then Lithl responded saying that was going to be harder than you thought it would be bringing up Cambodia. A position I then agreed with partially but said it would likely take longer bringing up France.
You then said we were being obtuse in wanting all the landmines gone and suggested the "safe corridors".
To which I then said would the 'Safe corridors' would be anything but safe.
Here you then accuse me of wanting the DMZ left in place. When all I have said is that clearing would be difficult.
All of the mental gymnastics have been made on your end I am afraid. Lithl and I have been making logical inferences based on your initial claim that there would be a massive wave of people heading South and that DMZ would not be a problem.
Since the inferences we were making weren't that complimentary to you, you have attempted to attack us. Unfortunately in doing so you have at least in my mind confirmed the inference I was making, you have not got a clue what you are talking about and don't really want to consider other view points or other sources of information. Rather you would prefere to paint Lithl and myself in as poor light as possible.
So to make this more productive would you care to back up your claim that people are much more likely to go South into South Korea or continue using the Northern Route through China in the event of a collapse in North Korea.
This is all supposing that the collapse in North Korea isn't of a nature that is has turned large quantities of South Korea into a Nuclear Hellhole. Something you don't seem to worried about.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
While removing the label and permitting entry could certainly be quick and easy, removing the dangers of the area would not be quick nor easy in any sense. Even with concentrated demining efforts, the ex-DMZ would remain a dangerous place to travel for decades, at the very least.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
More at the link.
Just and extra quote that really highlights the situation on the ground. They want North Korea gone or disarmed. They don't want it done at the expense of Korean lives such and incident would cause.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
"Successfully" is a term I am challenging here. You have not addressed my previous post. If by "successfully," you mean that North Korea continues to exist due to the aid money the international community continues to send to it, and is now a nuclear power, making it far more of a threat than it ever was, then no, that's not a success, now is it? That's the textbook definition of a failed policy.
Are we talking about the same North Korea? North Korea commits acts of provocation all of the time. If we wanted a justifiable act of retaliation, all we have to do is wait for the next time they launch a missile at Korea or Japan, I guarantee you it won't be long.
This the pedantic part. Yeah we know officailly the war has not ended offically. You need to overcome 60 years of inertia if you want to end that and now engage a hot war. A hot war that is going to most likely involve lobbing shells into down town Seoul with in hours if not minutes.
This is the disengenous part. North Korea has not lobbed shells/missiles at Japan or Korea. They deliberately pick stretches of Ocean in the middle of nowhere. Sure if the North Koreans were dumb enough to do the above, which is a complete break from what they have done up to now. Yeah then we could justify an attack.
But that is very unlikely to happen. What is more likely to happen is the status quo is going to continue. North Korea doing undergroung attacks and lobbing missiles into desterted areas of Ocean that if you contined the radius round in a full circle would include a large area of South Korea or Japan.
Are you willing to accept massive numbers of casualties in those areas long before you could neutralise all the North Korean artillery/Rockets? If you are not then regardless of our feelings the status quo is the best we can realisticly hope for. And then hope we can change the script with North Korea. Because news flash the threats we have used since the Korean War has not worked.
They were actually counter-productive. We effectively forced North Korea to develop Nuclear Weapons, and every time we attempt to ratchet up the pressure we confirm to them just how much they need the damn things.
After 60 years of the status quo yeah something different probably should be tried. Poking them harder is not doing something new. It is going with the status quo and attempting to turn it up to 11.
Moving it into another sphere, Iran has been able to absorb pretty much any threat directed at them and still maintained thier desire to have nuclear weapons. This did not change until Obama and others choose to change the script and actively engaged with the Iranian government on a diplomatic basis.
As the South Koreans mentioned in the article I linked above want, now there is a very real risk of nuclear weapons dropping on South Korea perhaps we should be trying to open more stable communications with North Korea and hopefully use that to peacefully convince them to disarm. Something we can't do if we keep threatening them.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
Sure, we could be doing things with less confrontation but I think this completely 180' change in our posture has already paid off in some key ways:
1) NK has really been in the driver's seat for several decades now when it came to international discussions of its future as a nuclear power. For the first time in a long time, that has changed. Did you hear about this? I mean, since when has NK given a one single **** what its neighbors thought about its behavior? Since we started taking a very aggressive posture, that's when.
2) China and Russia have both been competing for (and subsidizing and providing aid and comfort to) the Kim Regime for several decades. Now there are troops massing on both borders. They clearly realize things are moving into a new phase and they realize this situation will not continue. They're taking it very seriously. They're not in Pyongyang lining up mining deals anymore. They're asking themselves how to keep this guy from wrecking everything. For the first time in several decades they actually feel motivated to get rid of this irritant instead of figuring out new ways to make money off him. That's kinda significant?
3) I guarantee you there are an ever-increasing number of senior (likely military) leaders within NK reconsidering their bets on the Kim family, ICBMs, and the terrible future all of this created for them and everyone they care about. A coup d'etat would be the best possible outcome, no? Why not encourage it. This approach does that plenty.
OK, so on to regime change. I think regime change really is a bit 'Pollyannaish' when it comes to foreign policy and should be avoided whenever possible. However, in this case I would make a special exception. If I find a single fault in the situation unfolding before us, it is this. I can't think of a single more evil, wretched regime than the Kim family. Worse than Saddam. Yeah, equally bad if not worse than Hitler. They did what no one else has done: they turned an entire nation into a prison camp that is set up to enrich a single family. They systematically tortured and murdered millions of their own people along the way. Even those who survived this were still just slowly starved and brainwashed into total compliance. I would like nothing better than to wake up one day to photos of Kim getting the Mussolini treatment by his own countrymen, even though I think he really deserves way, WAY worse than even that. Just **** that guy and his whole terrible family.
I don't like many of the things he has done in his first 100 days but I do credit Trump and all those helping to, yes, basically force the entire world to finally step up and do what's right vis-a-vis NK and this entire situation.
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However, in order for something to be called a resolution to the problem, it must actually solve the problem. You're praising the same status quo that has produced a nuclear Korea and a perpetuated Kim regime. That's the equivalent of calling an exterminator to deal with a mouse infestation, finding out that the mice have been replaced with alligators, and declaring mission accomplished.
Which would be fine, if the status quo did not also involve the international community essentially bankrolling the Kim regime.
Again, if this would not involve us giving North Korea the very money that continues to prop up their horrendous regime in response to their saber-rattling, then North Korea is free to dump whatever missiles it wants into the ocean. This is not, however, the status quo.
Convincing someone to not go nuclear only works when they haven't gone nuclear already. Are you seriously insinuating that North Korea might have scraped their nuclear program if we were to give them more money, after already explaining about how the status quo of North Korea is them threatening hostility to get money?
Yes, let's convince the regime that gets by through essentially extorting the international community for money that they need to present less of a threat to the stability of Southeast Asia. Let's convince the hostile totalitarian regime that they would be better off without the very thing that's making people balk at any idea of military intervention. Because I'm sure you'll get really far with that, seeing how ANYTHING about that makes any sense at all.
And poking a nuclear armed bear, potentially forcing him to do the one thing that you really really don't want him to do somehow makes more sense?
The current confrontational stand off has not worked.
Any form of armed escalation is going to cause a hell of a lot of casualties and embroil the US in yet another war when you are already heavily involved in 3 armed conflicts.
A Collapse of the Kim regime is going to cause chaos on the pennisular and is also very likely to result in a large number of North Korean Nuclear scientists becoming available for hire. With luck they could be quickly snapped up my a more reasonable nuclear power like China, US, UK or Russia. If we are unlucky they get picked up by one of the less stable ones like Pakistan or one that has the ambitions to get the technology but is yet to make it practical like Iran. Hell if we are really unlucky they might be picked up by a country that has so far had no ambitions of joining the nuclear club due to the expense and the lack of technical expertise, a personal fear from the UK perspective would be Argentina.
At this point something on the Korean Penisular has to change. Armed stand off has failed. Armed escalation is liable to fail worse. May be peaceful negeotiation could succeed, we won't know until it is attempted.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
For ****'s sake, dude, you just said that it's North Korea's modus operandi to extort other countries for money, and then we give them money and they back down. Right? So, is that country ACTUALLY going to give up its main source of leverage?
No. No it is not. Of course it isn't. So obviously we're not going to be able to convince them to give up their nukes.
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Once again, making ourselves feel good about how we've maintained the status quo when things are really just getting worse and worse, and with us helping it get worse and worse, makes exactly as much sense the aforementioned mice/alligators exchange and congratulating ourselves on its fulfillment.
The only way we can call anything a solution to the problem is if it solves the problem. The Kim regime is the problem. Getting rid of the problem means getting rid of the Kim regime, either through the Kim regime collapsing on its own, or through intervention. Obviously, the former would be preferable. The problem is, we're not working towards it. We are currently responsible for the Kim regime having existed all of this time and continuing to chug along due to our giving them aid. That's not only not a solution, it's perpetuating the problem.
The heinous crimes committed by the North Korean regime are a big barrier to any solution. Their only endgame is staying in power.
Glad I don't live in Seoul.
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
That reminds me of a strategy employed by a friend of mine in the Rise of Nations RTS game. He would let his opponent swarm in with their army and then drop a nuke on his own territory. Nukes in RoN kill all units in the radius but only heavily damage buildings, and one of the late-game technologies prevents enemy nukes from being dropped your territory at all. But having a missile shield doesn't stop your opponent from dropping a nuke on themselves while your army is invading. He would garrison units in his buildings or withdraw from the area to protect them, and then release his workers to start rebuilding after the invading army was dead.
Of course, each nuke that's launched in RoN ticks down the Armageddon counter, and if it hits zero everybody loses.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
You seen any videos of nuclear bomb tests against Naval Squadrons? They aren't pretty.
If the Argentines get a nuclear bomb and then decide that they would like to have another go at the Falklands. I could see a Nuclear bomb making a bit of a mess of any Naval Fleet we sent down there to contest the issue. Granted it would turn the entire world against Argentina but that is not that much of a comfort if they have destroyed one of our 2 Aircraft carriers and its support fleet.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru