Korean Peninsula: Likelihood of conflict?

how quaint, lindy.
you revert to a comparison to stalinism in order to rationalize the national-security state in the united states.
what are you going to do next?
send me to some 1930s russia?

you want to play?
go ahead and try.
it would amuse me if you did.

 

The build-up in rhetoric continues.

Source: BBC News - North Korea 'readies rocket force' after US stealth flights

 

I don't know why the US is provoking the North Koreans, and why the NK'ers are doing all of the nuclear stuff.

All I know is that I could figure out how to fix North Korea's problems and make it into a good country with very few problems. I don't know how you can fix the problems the US faces and the attitudes of a lot of the right wing crazies.

 

With all due respect, I sincerely doubt that anyone here is even remotely qualified to even begin to diagnose any country's problem, let alone fix them. Add to that North Korea's almost entirely insular society, and I think that you (and the rest of us) are even less qualified to diagnose the problems.

 

Umm guys, didn't this happen last year? I was too busy in grad school to enlist, but shit. The threat is real.

My favorite thing about war is that it often comes with the wholesale destruction of the civil liberties of everyone involved. Plus, it's a totally romantic way for poor people to die with dignity in the service of more powerful people (who are too important to die in the service of anyone but themselves).

 

I hope so. We've got to keep the defense industry well fed, and with Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, we need new justifications for throwing money at the military industrial complex.

 

So Sergei Lavrov has joined the rhetoric fest between NK and SK/US, and here's an analysis of the possible motivations by NK to escalate the current situation into an actual conflict.


I wouldn't be surprised, if NK has been orchestrated over the past years to become the next Iraq, though one has to admit that NK provides more than enough political excuses for a pre-emptive strike if it comes down to it.

One BBC comment may possibly present a summary on the current mood in the US government:

I have the bad feeling that his sudden fame and god-like idolization by the NK establishment has gotten to Kim Jong-un's head and he may soon (if he hasn't already) delude himself to be the new Xerxes. Someone I know, who's been to NK recently, witnessed the complete submission and obedience that harsh indoctrination has manifested in the NK population. Knowing very little about the outside world, they reach levels of fanaticism rivaling that of the Nazi SS brigade.

I'm afraid any potential conflict will have its size, length and destruction dictated by the insanity of Kim Jong-un.

 

We're doing our annual military exercises to remind them "Don't even fucking think about it" and they're doing the nuclear stuff to make themselves relevant to international politics. Kim Jong Un needs to looks strong, so he's cranking the rhetoric to 11 so that he isn't seen as weak and can point to the end of the US-SK joint exercises and tell everyone that his show of force got us to stand down.

There's no really good solution. What's likely to be allowed to happen in the event of the Kim government collapsing is that China reinforces the borders, installs a puppet, and gains 20 million pairs of hands to add to their manufacturing sector at the cost of providing a few meals a day and electricity. The alternative is UN-sanctioned action that wipes out their military and leadership capabilities overnight and hopefully follows with worldwide contributions of food and medical aid.

You're kind of contradicting yourself there.

 

not sure how many of you have been looking at Reddit these past few days (call me a convert to reddit, but the reason i don't get on here much anymore is because it's blocked at school, reddit isn't) but r/military brought up a good point with joe 6-pack's chest thumping saying "i dare DPRK to come at us. we'll beat their asses"

who the fuck is "we" exactly? i'm not saying that the US wouldn't be able to put foot to ass if that came to be the case, but it seems a little bloodthirsty to be welcoming war just so the American ego can stroke itself until it gets another hot creamy wad of yellow ribbon magnets all over again, but this time with a sequestered military. great idea right?

 

North Korea is represented in popular culture as a monolithic entity and the North Korean people are dehumanized rather than sympathized with. After the mismanagement of the war in Afghanistan and the blunder that was Iraq, people want a war they think they can feel good about to restore our national pride. It's our old buddies jingoism and nationalism reading their ugly heads.

 

China is North Korea's "BFF" only in that they fight to maintain the status quo because any alternative would be disadvantageous to them. If they didn't feel that this latest round of posturing and rhetoric threatened the status quo, they would keep on turning a blind eye to it.

 

cynthetiq beat me to the punch on the latest news regarding North/South relations. We now have:

- all official communication lines (both formal and informal) between the North and South have been cut

- Kaesong Industrial complex, a major indicator of how serious the situation is, has finally been shut down, after much speculation by Western media in recent weeks on why it remained open

- the US is moving an interceptor module to Guam

- two Aegis anti-missile destroyers have been moved by the US to South Korea's coast

- North Korea has declared it will restart its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon

- South Korean newspaper JoongAng Daily claims that Kim Jong-un gave a secret order to his troops not to fire the first shot, in order to not provide South Korea / US an excuse to retaliate



Now, Plan9 obviously posted the military analysis of North Korean ground-based firepower and mobility to move its armed forces. However, I have discussed the Korean issue with my SO and several Asian friends in the US, Australia and Taiwan, and they all claim that the Western people are severely underestimating the situation on the peninsula.

The DPRK may have had a long history of sabre-rattling in order to extort concessions and aid out of the international community, but Kim Jong-un just having taken the reigns of the nation, him being extremely young/immature and there being the widely-held impression that his uncle and aunt are manipulating/controlling him on a day-to-day basis; the unanimous fear is that Kim Jong-un will be highly tempted to show that he is his own man who does not need to be babied anymore, and to build his own "face".

If the above-mentioned report by JoongAng Daily is true, then the journalists seriously need to be jailed for their immense stupidity. As most Asians are extremely familiar to the concept of "face", the report now provides Kim Jong-un with a need to save face, disperse any notion of possible hesitation/weakness and make his public declarations true by initiating some sort of military conflict in the very near future. It may be limited, but internal circumstances may just as likely make it a drawn-out and messy war.

Asian dictators have risked their lives, governments and subjects for much less.

Just a take on this from the other side of the culture gap.

 

Source: BBC News - Yongbyon restart: North Korea ramps up nuclear tension