tecoyah

Seriously....what purpose can be served by threatening Nuclear War against a power that would seemingly brush the perverbial mesquito away....and proceed to burn down the swamp and coat the ashes in DDT. The statement made by North Korean Media serves no purpose in my mind short of forcing people to notice the childs tantrum.

""The army and people of the DPRK are now in full preparedness to answer a pre-emptive attack with a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent," its communist party newspaper said on Monday."

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False

One can only hope this is taken as the empty threat it is...by United States diplomats. Now to my question:

Though it is likely North Korea now has a limited Nuclear ability (unconfirmed, but implied), would it not be in the best interest of all involved to pull an "Iraq"....and remove the threat before they can become a serious threat to ourselves, and our allies?

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

archpaladin

I think the appropriate term for what NK is doing here is "sabre rattling". Look at it this way: Iran has large fields of oil, and they know the US wants it. Given that the US could very well just come in and level them all if desired, Iran has to appear large enough (and perhaps desperate enough) to make the US think that invading would be stragetically stupid. They could do this either by gathering political support from other countries (which they notably haven't been doing), or by weapons production. Also, a major reason Iran hasn't been producing large WMDs before now is because of prior tension with Iraq and the need for regional stability. Now that Iraq is no longer in the picture, and because of the aforementioned comments about possible invasion, is there any reason for Iran not to produce and claim nuclear preparedness?

As to your question specifically, I think war is stupid and thus invasions should be avoided. Sabre rattling goes away when people don't feel threatened.

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mokle

Most people learn from their mistakes...

Invading without reason isn't a good thing, terrible way to rally support.

Implied threat is quiet empty and should be taken as so.

__________________
Mokle
"Your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see" -Ali

ratbastid

Read this carefully. They're not "threatening" anything.

This is what's called the Porcupine Strategy. They're not saying they are going to attack. What they're saying is that their response to our attack will be devestating. There's nothing inherantly threatening about this statement. But it may keep American hands off them. Saddam's inability to credibly deliver this message might have been his downfall.

tecoyah

Excellent point (Damn You...heh), so did we Make this happen by mere threat in the Media?....or is this todays Diplomacy?

__________________
Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

powerclown

2 reasons why the USA won't bother too much over the DPRK short term. 1) They aren't a manufacturing and distribution center of terrorism to the rest the world. 2) They are located in a relatively benign geo-political location. I don't believe the spread of communism is much of a concern anymore.

What irritates about DPRK is how they do all their ranting at the United States instead of China. They won't talk to China...they always want to talk to the US and only the US. They're like China's mutated, inbred, criminally insane half-cousin who lives in the basement.

Coincidence you should mention the DPRK. Last night I was looking through some fairly recent pictures of Pyongyang and environs. Peculiar place.

Photos of DPRK 1

Photos of DPRK 2

MoonDog

I am stumped on what to do with these poor people. The leaders devote everything they have to nuclear weapons, and then threaten everyone with retailiation if they are attacked.

Well, of COURSE you'll retailate! How bout in the meantime you try talking rationally at the negotiation table? I'd be very interested indeed to see how the next US administration attempts to deal with N. Korea, because everything the West has tried seems to have eventually fallen to pieces once the North decided to attempt a better deal.

sapiens

"Porcupine strategy" seems like an accurate assessment.

Those were interesting pictures, thanks.

host

tecoyah, you're not thinking big enough. IMO, time is running out for the "home team"...the good ole USA.....

I've covered the "big picture" strategy of pre-emption on this thread:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...97#post2073997

in these posts:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=24
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...4&postcount=26
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=28

...and I don't recall any response to those posts from you.

Do you believe that it is better for the U.S. to "work it's way up" to what it really must do if it hopes to be the sole super power ten years from now, by dealing with the NK "threat" via a pre-emptive strike, now?

Why not seriously dicuss the pros and cons of sweeping the little shits like NK and Iran "up", in a one time, blanket ultimatum, while the U.S. still has the best odds of pulling off world domination via the submission or destruction of REAL adversaries....China and Russia?

irateplatypus

the DPRKs stance can't truly be described as "porcupine" if they fuel the taepodong II missile currently sitting on a launch pad with kim jong-il's finger on the button. an ICBM capable of nuclear armament in the DPRK's hands is not necessarily a purely defensive measure.

saddam was ruthless, ahmadinejad is a zealot, but i'm far more wary of kim jong'il... he (in all seriousness) seems like he could be insane. at least the chances of mental-imbalance are probable enough to cause concern when coupled with the bomb.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

shakran

Did you and Ustwo switch accounts?

You can't be serious here. You're suggesting we wage MORE unprovoked wars against MORE countries? That we further abandon the principals we supposedly hold dear?

Surely this is a bit of satire?

host

irateplatypus, each of these "showdowns", vis a vis minor "actors", if the U.S. experience in Iraq holds any lesson, results in the U.S. emerging with a military and the treasury that finances it in a stronger.....or a weaker position?

Did pre-emptive invasion and occupation of Iraq discourage the leadership in Iran or in NK from emerging as belligerent adversaries who are now likely targets of the Bush doctrine of pre-emption?

Consider whether Russia or China are weaker or stronger economically and militartily than either country was just three years ago.

I am an anti-war protestor from the Vietnam era. I am also a student of history with a practical streak that can be confused with pessimism.

The dollar has weakened against the Chinese yuan and the euro since the FOMC interest rate hike that was supposed to end this series of rate increases.

Oil is $74/bbl tonight......and $70 oil was considered to be a post Katrina, fall 2005 "spike"...temporary. The U.S. military and intelligence budgets fuel a $500 billion annual deficit, with no end in sight....the "supplemental" budget resolutions do "count"....they add to a treasury debt figure that will be $3 trillion higher, six months from now...than it was six years ago.

Afghanistan looks like a "do over"....a new, expensive and uncertain fight to retake "control" of that country. The history student part of me just read the lesson here.... http://www.khyber.org/publications/0...onreport.shtml ....reinforcement of the lesson of the loss of Elphinstone's entire army after it was forced from "Cabool" in Jan., 1842. No foreign force has ever taken and then held control of Afghanistan.

Iraq is by no means decided....an 100 acre, $1 billion U.S. embassy compound, it's 23 buildings, built entirely by an imported, non-Iraqi workforce rising on the Baghdad skyline, not withstanding. The geniuses that chose to win hearts and minds by constructing this comedic contradiction to the notion that the U.S. "presence" is not an "occupation", and then to choose to build it at the exclusion of Iraqi laborers, is not a confidence builder for me that there is time or talent to stem the deficit, and rebuild conventional U.S. forces and their "worn out" equipment, and quickly stabalize challenges in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and NK.....cheaply or even effectively.

While this juggling act goes on....thje treasury bleeds money, the U.S. consumer is tapped out buying expensive oil (i've documented that the bottom half.....$150 million Americans. controlled only 2-1/2 percent of the wealth when oil was half the price it is now.....), and the military is ground down fighting encounters of attrition that do nothing to solve the big threats to near term security. The U.S. grows weaker.....China and Russia grow stronger.

China and Russia are as feeble tonight...militarily and economically, than they're gonna be again....for a long time into the future.

The U.S. is as strong militarily and econmically, most especially in non-conventional force and in dollar purchasing power, as it will ever be, judging by where trends are taking it today. Common sense and practicality seem to indicate that this would be the time to discuss how the U.S. can remain a superpower, and prevent the decline of the dollar and discourage the rising hegemony of China and Russia, and deal with the wasting effects of sideshows like Iran and NK, and the continued expensive quagmires in Baghdad and "Cabool".

The reluctance or avoidance of discussion of realistic "big picture" challenges and the few options (one that I see...) to deal with them, IMO, are symptoms of hubris and of denial.

The King of Spain failed to use his 600 ship Navy to destroy Britain, and Britain failed to survive the debt it built fighting WWI. Both lost their "sole superpower" titles. Is the U.S. somehow exempt from the fate of the dominant powers throughout history?

At first, I was reluctant to even think, let alone write these opinions.
That changed because, I know what I see. I see that the U.S. is failing economically now. The recent military expeditions have worn out a signifigant portion of the ground force equipment, and it is hard to imagine that 3 and 4 "rotations" through Iraq experienced by ground troops have not negatively affected their overall readiness.

In the past 15 years, I've witnessed the sudden collapse of the Soviet Navy and much of the ground and air forces, followed by the economic collapse of Russia. Now comes the recent experience of the economic emergence of China, seemingly overnight, and now the raw material revenue driven ressurgence of the Russian economy. Will the military investment and ambition of these two re-emerging nations, not follow?

I've witnessed the U.S. spending $260 billion annually on it's military just 7 fiscal years ago, with a balanced federal budget at that time. Consumers paid less than $20/bbl for oil, and the trade deficit was half the $800 billion annual deficit level that it is now.

I see where the trends are taking the U.S. ability to finance and maintain it's armed force......$3 trillion in deficits added to the $5.5 trillion prior deficit in just six years. I have no way of knowing how much of the more than docubling of the gold price, and the tripling of copper and oil prices, has to do with demand...or just the weakening of dollar purchasing power.

The current U.S. leadership's track record in Iraq and now with Iran, and the refusal of the U.S. population to conserve petroleum consumption that it now borrows hugely to pay for, along with the direction and trend of federal borrowing, aggravated by my projection of the consequences to the economy of the just now beginning real estate collapse, are icing on the cake of my new thinking.

shakran, I headed this way because the U.S. leadership and the mindset of the electorate has convinced me that it is inevitable that the U.S. will "take
on" China and Russia, militarily, but not until the odds are much more in favor of failing in that endeavor.

Since I am convinced that it will happen, from a practical standpoint, now is the time that comes with the best odds of succeeding either via a demand and deadline for disarmament, resulting in success and domination without firing a shot.....or in the event that U.S. demands are met with refusal or ruse, a devastating first strike which annihilates Russia or China, but leaves much of the U.S. intact, would, to me, be a better outcome than what I foresee happening, anyway.

It is that bad, shakran. There is no solution to the competition for oil and other resources, or for the crippling twin U.S. deficits, or for where Bush/Cheney foreign and military policy is leading the U.S.

I think that Cheney and Rumsfeld could pull off a "big bet" all or nothing showdown like the one that I'm describing, if they are good for anything at all. The only justification for that opinion, is that I think that Russian and Chinese politcal and military leadership would take an disarmament ultimatum from Cheney, seriously.

Isn't that at least half the challenge in deadly showdown....convincing the other guy that you are serious about what you're demanding, and that you won't blink?

shakran

Interesting views, but I think you're 1) overly pessimistic and 2) wrong.

there IS a solution to the oil consumption problem - but people won't like it. First, you make the CAFE vehicle fleet MPG average much higher (say, 40mpg) and you don't exempt trucks/SUV's/minivans/vans from that average.

Then you start thinking longterm and begin serious development work on REAL alternative energy sources for cars - not fake feelgood crap like ethanol and hydrogen. I'm talkin' solar-cell roofs and batteries here, with a small gas engine as backup if you get 2 weeks of clouds.

Then you start thinking real conservation and increase the public transportation infrastructure. Highspeed trains, light rail, subways, etc. It's pathetic that only a few cities have rail-based public transportation, especially since at least some of those cities (Washington D.C. for instance) prove that subways really work. No one who knows any better drives in DC. They're all on the Metro.

It's even more pathetic that Amtrak is an underfunded beast who's trains, not counting Accela, go a max of 80mph for only short stretches. More people would choose to take the train if they could get to their vacation destination without wasting their whole vacation on the travel portion.

Even if we accept the premise that invading China, Russia, etc, is morally ok (bullshit), it still would, at best, delay the inevitable. We would still face an energy crisis, just much farther down the road.


And then we get to the morality part. The fact that the American people did not rise up and revolt against a government who would commit the CRIME of invading a country that wasn't attacking us, and was giving us NO real reason to invade, is disgusting. Now you're suggesting that we condone doing it again and again.

This is the United States, not Napoleonic France. Quite frankly, if this country were to become an imperialistic, land grabbing bully, I would find a new place to live.

host

shakran, before the ramp up of federal expeditures...a doubling of outlays for military and intelligence purposes since 2000, $3 trillion in new federal debt with much more to come.....a doubling in annual trade debt, and now, $74 oil...I might have been less pessimistic.

I see no time for the solutions that you propose, to come about, and achieve the benefits that you hope for. The dollar will not stay strong enough, long enough...to even support current military spending priorities, let alone adequately maintain military infrastructure and readiness for the ramp up in competition for resources and a new "cold war" with China and Russia.

If our children survive, won't they question why, with overwhelming non-conventional and conventional force superiority, in 2006, and weakening dollar fundamentals, the U.S. did not fully exert it's military capabilities against China, with it's fewer than 25 ICBMs, and Russia, in it's pre-revamp of it's strategic nuclear arsenal phase. There will not be a better opportunity than now to demand that both these countries surrender their nuclear arsenals to the U.S.

....and, just as importantly, I don't believe that the "America" that you described, ever existed. Americans are human....no better than any other civilization that has come before it: