North Korea Discussion Thread.

"The US affects every nation on the planet, so anyone can have a beef with them."

Nice notion, but those nations with which the US has been at war didn't have a beef with the US.

"Where can you prove the US did at no time live up to the agreement negotiated under the Clinton Adminitsration prior to last October of 2002?"

See Binary's post above.

"Yep, they're a threat to everyone."

As long as no-one gives them a reason to attack them, nothing will happen. But if the US continues to ignore N. Korea as a palpatable power in the region and doesn't respect them, theirs is the nation that will suffer.

"And it's nothing I'd put past a nation with the madness level of that place."

You're making judgements about a country that you've never visited or experienced in any way. Madness can be found in all things and all people, only the level of it varies. It's a little arrogant to claim that others are mad, and that you are sane. Who's to say that it isn't the other way around? Or that perhaps Bush isn't stable either?

"Well fine, certainly someone in the Koreas is the victim. It certainly isn't the US. But the US isn't the insitgator here either. Undoubtedly it's NK."

I think you missed the point. Korea the country has been the victim, and still is. It has been forcibly split into two, but when the North (under pressure from USSR and China I might add) invades the South, the United States stepped in because of the ideological foundation of the Cold War and it's political interests, not because they wanted to save South Korea's people. It's not that much different from the American Civil War, yet Americans refused to see it as such at the time. It didn't serve their purposes.

The thing about North Korea now is that even if US forces were removed from South Korea and Okinawa, it is doubtful whether the North would actually invade.

-South Korea's military itself is formidable (whilst N. Korea has old gear and are relatively poorly trained)
-Lack of US presence in the region doesn't mean that they won't intervene after invasion.
-North Korea does not have the allies that it had in 1950, the Soviet Union is no more and China is concentrating on its domestics problems (if anything, China will come down on N. Korea instead)

It really isn't in N. Korea's interest to invade the South. And it certainly isn't in their interests to start a war with the US.

How could a regime that tortures its own people in order to maintain power be expected to commit suicide by such an action? It's irrational logic.

I personally think that North Korea is just trying to get attention from the US, and that threatening the US is essentially an expensive bluff to try and get a better deal at the negotiation table.

 

A few more facts to shed some light on things:

1. 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea.

2. Zero foreign troops are stationed in North Korea.

3. According to official South Korean government figures, over 40,000 U.S. soldiers in South Korea between 1967 and 1998 committed "overt criminal offenses".

4. About 18,000 "registered" prostitutes service U.S. GIs in South Korea.

5. U.S. arms sales to South Korea during the Clinton administration were in excess of $10 billion.

6. The U.S. deployed about 100 tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula between 1958 and 1991.

7. Current South Korean public opinion polls indicate that the foreign country people most fear is the U.S.

 

Once again, great post redxavier! I agree that even without U.S. troops NK wouldn't invade SK. If they did invade, the South would mop the floor with them. But even if SK did fall, I don't see how that's anyone's concern besides Korea's.

 

Precisely, Binary.

"They wanted to breed Japanese people so they could take the offspring, induct them into the NK secret service and send agents into Japan."

Sounds like a good idea. I'm sure MI6 and the CIA do similar things - it's called espionage and covert operations.

"According to official South Korean government figures, over 40,000 U.S. soldiers in South Korea between 1967 and 1998 committed "overt criminal offenses"."

Not to mention also that Okinawa has the highest rape rate in the world.

 

"Where can you prove the US did at no time live up to the agreement negotiated under the Clinton Adminitsration prior to last October of 2002?"

See Binary's post above.

Ah, yes. My apologies. It is my view that Bush has fumbled the deal and put everything into disarray. However NK has incredibly overreacted to it.


As long as no-one gives them a reason to attack them, nothing will happen. But if the US continues to ignore N. Korea as a palpatable power in the region and doesn't respect them, theirs is the nation that will suffer.

This is supposition, first of all, to an incredible extent. You can't say nothing WILL happen, but nothing is LIKELY to happen. Which is also false as I see it: even if NK does not set out to create a war, it's use of diplomacy hearkens to WWI sabre-rattling diplomacy and diplomacy used before the age of super-powers. In those situations, wars are more likely to develop by accident, which is almost the usual reason many of these things start: not by design, but by accident and not the design of how things were meant to go by the leaders (WWI, Cuban Missile Crisis, WWII, Gulf War, American involvement in Kosovo, just a few examples of larger conflict taking place than was originally intended).
And starting a war out of a lack of respect seems rather petty to me, especially since the US IS respecting them. Has the US treated them like Iraq? No. In fact the US has appeased NK in the past. How's that for respect? I'm really not sure what you mean by 'disrespecting' NK, all that's been done is the US more or less telling the truth about NK that almost every nation has now acknowledged as pretty much true, from SK to Japan to Russia to yes, China. They may not be 'evil' in the Christian sense of the term but that's just namecalling that's a regular part of the diplomatic landscape, but all the accusations the US levels are 100% true. You don't see Iran kicking out UN inspectors for being labeled the axis of evil. Heck, they've done the exact opposite.


You're making judgements about a country that you've never visited or experienced in any way. Madness can be found in all things and all people, only the level of it varies. It's a little arrogant to claim that others are mad, and that you are sane. Who's to say that it isn't the other way around? Or that perhaps Bush isn't stable either?

There's a point where you have to just say the truth. If there's a boulder coming down the street at us, you can't just turn away and say "from your point of view": that boulder's going to crush you whether its from your point of view or not. This is not to say NK is going to kill us all, but to display that at some point it stops becoming a POV and starts becoming reality. No, I've never visited NK, and neither have you. And you know why? Because they'd never let us in. And if they did we'd be watched 24/7 and given a guard at all times. And who are we? Nobodys. They won't so much as literally let you take a walk down a public street by yourself. At least in China the police watching you stay out of your way. Sure, for all I know, Bush might not be stable, but guess what: that's not dictating his foreign policy. American policy might be bull-headed or bully-like, but it's never been described as irrational or crazy. There is an entire apparatus called the government that has checks and balanced to keep things like that from running out of control. In fact, let's take a President who DID suffer from mental instability: Richard Nixon. And did Nixon ever threaten publically to begin nuclear war if people refused to trade with the US? No. Did he ever kick out the UN? No. He was no hero, but it would never have been allowed to happen by those that served under him.


I think you missed the point. Korea the country has been the victim, and still is. It has been forcibly split into two, but when the North (under pressure from USSR and China I might add) invades the South, the United States stepped in because of the ideological foundation of the Cold War and it's political i

 

Gonk wrote: "If Colerado is ever invaded by its neighbors, civilians are being executed in the streets, and the only way to save it is by appealing to my hometown for military assistance, someone remind me to tell B_S that it's not my problem.

Honestly, if Colorado is ever brutally invaded as you describe, I don't want "liberators" to come "help" Colorado. The problem with liberators is that they tend to turn into occupiers. If Coloradoans were wise, they'd simply retreat into the mountains and, at their leisure, snipe at the invaders.

As Lord Byron wrote: "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow."

 

For all of the libertarian and capitalistic posturing, BS, you forget that in order for trade and capitalism to exist, people need to unite and organise collectively some measure of security and law. Obviously, the extent and implications of that organisation will differ from a libertarian to a Republican/Democrat...however, some of your posts in this thread show a basic disregard/noncomprehension for even a modicrum of this necessity.

 

I'm convinced that the only moral and efficient way to drive invaders out of one's homeland is through guerrilla warfare. Consider:

1. The guerrillas have to operate morally. They can't mistreat their own populace because they depend upon that populace for support. Without popular support, a guerrilla movement is doomed. Compare this to a conventional army that kidnaps and steals from its own populace.

2. All the non-combatants retain their positions in society. They outwardly submit to the invaders.

3. Many guerrillas, during the day, outwardly submit to the invaders. But during the night they are sniping at them. (Think of the Minutemen in the First American War of Independence.)

4. The full-time guerrillas and guerrilla chieftains depend upon the freely-given aid of the persons in 2. and 3. above.

5. The guerrilla units must be organized into small, independently-operating cells. This way a tortured guerrilla can't betray more than a handful of his fellows.

6. There can't be an overall head of the guerrillas who can make them all surrender. There must not be a rigid chain of command. Otherwise the invaders can "cut off the head of the snake". The "snake" must be Hydra; i.e., have many heads, and each time one is cut-off two more spring-up to take its place.

To tie this into Korea: In the unlikely event of an invasion of SK by the North, the Koreans should adopt the tactics I've outlined above. They would probably adopt conventional tactics instead, but would still beat the outmanned and outgunned North. In any case, they must not depend upon outside armies for their independence. They especially must not depend upon the US, which has been bad for Korea for the last 100 years.

 

"It's the SK government that has blocked thier removal."

I don't think that's entirely accurate information. I'll do a search.


"It wasn't in the interest of the Nazis to start WWII with Britain and France, though they still threatened."

No, they didn't.

"It wasn't in the interest of Germany in WWI either, but they still threatened."

No, they didn't.


North Korea WON'T invade the South. Not now, not for at least another ten to twenty years. They don't have the means.

As for why they feel threatened by the US. The rulers grew up during the Cold War, an atmosphere of borderline hostile relations between Capitalism and Communism. N. Korea is the 'one that got away', they are alone in the world (and like another poster said, justifiably paranoid in their relations with their capitalist neighbours). This situation has its roots in the Cold War's ideological struggle. But now it's about the bigger picture.

North Korea is a 'threat' to US allies and US bases in the region. Why is South Korea, and Japan, so important to the US? Because they provide for bases in the Far East that can be used against China. Hawks in the White House have long been known to advocate the attitude that the USA should be the only superpower and that no other nation should be allowed to rise to an equal level. China is perhaps the only nation capable of becoming a superpower in the next 25 to 50 years. The US will seek to curtail China's development by an means necessary. A united Korea under a US friendly capitalist government will provide a further base of support for the US in the region - especially because it shares a border with China and opens up another front, clearing also the buffer zone that surrounds China.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong about what the US is doing and wants to do, but the tragedy is when Americans believe what they're doing somehow has a higher moral purpose. US actions are motivated purely by self-interest in some form or another, like any nation/empire throughout history, but its people have been lulled into a false notion that self-interest doesn't apply to the US. Of course, the administration doesn't seek to educate the American people, because this general ignorance, along with patriotism, serves their purposes.

Why did the US do nothing to stop Argentina when it invaded the Falkland Islands? Why did it not intervene in the countless civil wars that have ravaged Africa?

They weren't interested. Even when the US does intervene on a humanitarian level, it does so because its people have been spurned on by media footage of starving children, or it attemps to stop fighting in Bosnia or Kosovo because of the gratitude it will undoubtedly get from the World Community, a gratitude that materialises in the form of support in other areas.

 

***********************************************************
"It's the SK government that has blocked thier removal."

I don't think that's entirely accurate information. I'll do a search.
************************************************************


I'll help you out.

The opinion here is pretty much divided 6:4 ~ 7:3 on that issue

The majority thinks,

"We don't NEED US troops, but it's nice of them to stick around, and asking them to leave might be a gesture of bad will towards the US. Let them stay as long as it's affordable"

But there's a VERY significant young minority that vhemently asserts, (and is constantly gaining popularity)

"We don't NEED them, so keeping foreign troops needlessly complicates SK/NK relations. And besides, having a foreign military stationed in our territory is embarrasing and dangerous."

The Governmet doesn't want to disrupt status-quo without an overwhelming reason to do so, and since US troops stationed here acts as a guarentee for immediate US action on their part, they follow the majority opinion FOR THE TIME BEING. (It's democracy)

But since it's a touchy issue, and since when it comes down to it, nobody wants a cumbersome foreign presence at home, the majority can swing rather rapidly. (And one must remember that it's always the young folk who control Internet Opinion)

Last year when that poor teenage girl was killed in a military exercise by a US tank, and the driver got a not guilty sentence in a US court martial, the ratio swung overnight to almost 1:9.
But it is foolish to make a policy decision which has repercussions in overall SK-US relations based on a single incident (no matter how often those kinds of things happen) so the Government didn't act on popular opinion.

That's what Gonk is referring to, I think.

Actually, the forces stationed here won't do much good anyway because the main worry about a war breaking out is not the possibility of losing, but the destruction of Seoul within 5 mins of initial hostilities.

The troops are, more tham anything else, a SYMBOL of SK-US mutual defense

I'd point ot numerous surveys on the web, but everything I can find is all in Korean.

 

4. About 18,000 "registered" prostitutes service U.S. GIs in South Korea.

What is the relevance of this?

 

4. About 18,000 "registered" prostitutes service U.S. GIs in South Korea.

Did you know a good many of those are Russian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese and Vietnamese? Many of them only do it hoping a young GI will eventually take them as a wife and get them out of their miserable lives where they are. They want to come to America as citizens, and the easiest way to do it is to marry a citizen (young men are easy targets for beautiful women too)

 

Ah, well, yeah, I suppose that would make sense. Seems a bit of a stretch to me, though, unless they don't realize most guys aren't going to marry a prostitute.

 

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong about what the US is doing and wants to do, but the tragedy is when Americans believe what they're doing somehow has a higher moral purpose.

If you're a European, redxavier, you might not know how lucky you are that this is true. The US has always tended towards isolationism. Until the "higher moral purpose" was presented to them, the typical American was perfectly willing to leave Europe to its fate three times in the 20th Century. That "tragedy" is the reason Europe is free today.

US actions are motivated purely by self-interest in some form or another, like any nation/empire throughout history, but its people have been lulled into a false notion that self-interest doesn't apply to the US.

Of course the US does things in its self-interest, just like any other country in the world. But the US has also done more things not in its interest than any other great power in history. I would list some but I see you've already provided yourself a logical "out" for any positive action the US (or anybody else) has ever taken. For example, if I throw myself on a grenade to save others I could simply be looking for "gratitude" and thus acting in my own self-interest "in some form or another."

Of course, the administration doesn't seek to educate the American people, because this general ignorance, along with patriotism, serves their purposes.

Yeah, we Americans are all just so ignorant it's just lucky how we just happened to end up as the world's only superpower. I'm also very sorry our anachronistic patriotism offends you; I know it must be considered passé in your advanced culture.

Why did the US do nothing to stop Argentina when it invaded the Falkland Islands?

Nothing? That would sure come as a surprise to Secretary of State Haig! He logged a lot of miles unsuccessfully trying to mediate that dispute. And BTW, Britain had a good chance of losing that war if not for US help.

Why did it not intervene in the countless civil wars that have ravaged Africa?

The poor US can't win. We intervene, we're imperialists. We don't intervene, we're heartless. Why doesn't Europe intervene, redxavier? Their past and present colonialism is a big cause of most of these wars. Oh, I forgot. Europe can't even handle the Balkans alone.

And now to get the thread back on track: US out of South Korea!

 

"the typical American was perfectly willing to leave Europe to its fate three times in the 20th Century"

I'd love to hear this third one.

"That "tragedy" is the reason Europe is free today."

You've missed the point I was making, and twisted it to paint me as the stereotypical anti-American European.

"Yeah, we Americans are all just so ignorant it's just lucky how we just happened to end up as the world's only superpower."

Luck has nothing to do with it. The US encompasses a vast continent with lots of natural resources.

"I'm also very sorry our anachronistic patriotism offends you; I know it must be considered passé in your advanced culture."

God Bless America.

"And BTW, Britain had a good chance of losing that war if not for US help."

WTF? I can't think of anything so wrong.


"The poor US can't win. We intervene, we're imperialists. We don't intervene, we're heartless."

It's not WHAT the US does. It's HOW the US goes about doing it.

"Why doesn't Europe intervene, redxavier?"

My country, Britain, does intervene. Europe doesn't because it doesn't care.

"Their past and present colonialism is a big cause of most of these wars."

Lol, and you accuse me of anti-American drivel? I suggest you do some reading on post-colonial conflicts and compare them to pre-colonial times, you'll notice that for the most part, colonialism actually kept the peace.

To all - I highly recommend watching some South Korean movies. One in particular is JSA (Joint Security Area), a drama that sheds some interesting light on North/South relations.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people now consider themselves experts on North Korea because they've seen Die Another Day.

 

Honestly, if Colorado is ever brutally invaded as you describe, I don't want "liberators" to come "help" Colorado. The problem with liberators is that they tend to turn into occupiers. If Coloradoans were wise, they'd simply retreat into the mountains and, at their leisure, snipe at the invaders.

Believe it or not, liberators do go home. How much American occupation is the in France now? How much was there as little as five years after 1945?

 

I don't think that's entirely accurate information. I'll do a search.

Go to.


"It wasn't in the interest of the Nazis to start WWII with Britain and France, though they still threatened."

No, they didn't.

I quote Hitler's draft directive on 20th May, 1938:

"It is my unalterable intention to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future."

"It wasn't in the interest of Germany in WWI either, but they still threatened."

No, they didn't.

That is completely in denail of the facts. It was not uncommon for war to be threatened over the 1880s to 1910s in Europe. War itself was something that was to be avoided, but the threat of war was often used to extract concessions. "No they didn't" is just completely 100% false.


North Korea WON'T invade the South. Not now, not for at least another ten to twenty years. They don't have the means.

They have the men and they have the equipment. NK equipment is not as good as American and falters in comparison, but its better than the crud Iraq has, and more numerous too. They do have jets. American air superiority is not immediately assured. Quote for me NK's immediate military capacity vs. the immediate capacity of her foes, and we'll see if NK's incapacity to invade is so unlikely.


As for why they feel threatened by the US. The rulers grew up during the Cold War, an atmosphere of borderline hostile relations between Capitalism and Communism. N. Korea is the 'one that got away', they are alone in the world (and like another poster said, justifiably paranoid in their relations with their capitalist neighbours). This situation has its roots in the Cold War's ideological struggle. But now it's about the bigger picture.

Give me a break. Really. This justifies nothing. Every other single nation, both post-communist and Communist is able to get along with the US. There's nothing special about NK's 'suffering' from any of these places. What makes them suffer is thier obstinate refusals and saber-rattling. America has made no move against NK in fifty years. There's been absolutely no indication the US intends one now unless NK continues along the path they themselves began in October, and even then there's been no indication America has any set plan. Again, cry me a river.



North Korea is a 'threat' to US allies and US bases in the region. Why is South Korea, and Japan, so important to the US? Because they provide for bases in the Far East that can be used against China. Hawks in the White House have long been known to advocate the attitude that the USA should be the only superpower and that no other nation should be allowed to rise to an equal level. China is perhaps the only nation capable of becoming a superpower in the next 25 to 50 years. The US will seek to curtail China's development by an means necessary. A united Korea under a US friendly capitalist government will provide a further base of support for the US in the region - especially because it shares a border with China and opens up another front, clearing also the buffer zone that surrounds China.


That's a completely silly way to look at it. Do you really think American bases near China are going to do ANYTHING? China will simply nuke the bases! Do you realistically think the US could sustain a conventional war on the Chinese mainland? It doesn't matter how many bases the US has: China has such a numerical advantage with a technology gap far smaller than what it was in the Korean War. The US would lose such a war unless it went nuclear. Any threats they would make agianst China would be empty: it would bankrupt America to perform such an undertaking, and the Chinese would know it, and so does America. America is a nation of 300 million. China is one of how many billion? No American offensive could be maintained, and that situation has been the case since the 70s. It would make Vietnam look like a spring vacation. In short, my response to the notion that America actually believes it can 'curtail' the Chinese sphere of influece

 

"It is my unalterable intention to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future."

How does this support your argument? It doesn't, German ambitions in Czechoslovakia had nothing to do with threatening war against Britain and France.

"Every other single nation, both post-communist and Communist is able to get along with the US"

lol


"China will simply nuke the bases!"

lmao

 

Here is an astonishing story from an Irish newspaper today.

Sutherland sold nuclear reactors to 'axis of evil' (password required)

FORMER Irish Attorney-General Peter Sutherland and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped sell nuclear reactors worth $200m to North Korea, the Sunday Independent can reveal.

This weekend, the Stalinist regime of North Korea claimed it was taking steps to manufacture up to eight nuclear missiles from spent nuclear fuel.

The multimillion-dollar reactor deal was struck just a year before President George W Bush branded the reclusive communist state part of an "axis of evil". American nuclear experts warned last week that radioactive components from the reactors could be used to develop powerful nuclear weapons. Now Pyongyang says this is exactly what it intends to do.

Mr Sutherland and Mr Rumsfeld, who work together on several high-level projects, were both board members of a Zurich-based energy company, ABB, which sold two light-water nuclear reactors to the communists in 2000.

The pair simultaneously stepped down from the ABB board a year later when Mr Rumsfeld was drafted into the Bush administration. But Sutherland's connection with the US hawk did not end there Both are members of the elite Bilderberg Group, which former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown was told comprises the "50 people who run the world and 20 hangers-on". Ashdown, who attended an annual meeting of the group in 1989, made it clear that Ireland's only member is not one of the hangers-on. "The show was stolen by Peter Sutherland," he wrote in his diary at the time.

The group, founded by Dutch royal Prince Bernhard, is said to be the closest thing to a transatlantic government that exists. Members include Henry Kissinger, the King and Queen of Spain, and several past and serving presidents and prime ministers.

Mr Sutherland, a failed Fine Gael election candidate, former EU commissioner and current chairman of Goldman Sachs and BP, is a prime mover in the club.

While Mr Rumsfeld has cut all links with ABB, Mr Sutherland continues to serve on the board of a Swedish industrial holding company which has a substantial stake in ABB, worth close to ?1bn.

When the Zurich energy firm sold the two 1,000 megawatt reactors to North Korea, it insisted they were "tamper-proof". Asked last week by the Sunday Independent if he really believed this to be the case, Mr Sutherland said: "I have absolutely no idea."

He refused to answer further questions about the deal except to say he had left ABB "several years ago". Mr Sutherland stepped down 25 months ago.

The head of the Non-proliferation Policy Education

Centre in Washington has warned that the reactors are not tamper-proof.

"These reactors are like all reactors; they have the potential to make weapons. So you might end up supplying the worst nuclear violator with the means to acquire the very weapons we're trying to prevent it acquiring," Henry Sokolski said.

On Friday, North Korea issued a statement saying it was in the final stages of reprocessing more than 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, marking the lowest point in a six-month diplomatic crisis.

The Sutherland/Rumsfeld reactors were fitted with monitoring cameras which provided intelligence to western powers, but the North Koreans started to remove them in December last year. It has not been possible to verify their claims about their growing nuclear capability.

Analysts say the move is designed to raise the stakes in advance of talks about Pyongyang's nuclear programmes that were due to start next week in Beijing.

The statement, issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency said: "The Iraqi war teaches a lesson that in order to prevent war and defend the security of a country and the sovereignty of a nation it is necessary to have a powerful physical deterrent force only."

North Korea is thought to already have two nuclear missiles. That could increase to 10

 

Well, that's certainly an interesting development. Now, I await the rebuttals and weak justifications...

E_S

 

You've missed the point I was making, and twisted it to paint me as the stereotypical anti-American European.

I have to defend the American there. You and several others stereotype us as "ignorant Americans" all the time, no wonder we all think Europeans or snobs.

Stereotypes get us nowhere. People should start reading history books. There are stupid people in every country, but as long as it serves a purpose, people target America.

We jsut can't win. As for the question about why the US doesn't intervene everywhere: We can't afford to be in a state of constant war. We're the only major country aside from Britain doing anything to help anyone, we can't afford to free over a hundred nations. See, that's why some of the rich European nations should try to help out some, too.

 

Wasn't the purchase and construction of a light-water reactor part of the Agreed Framework??


Hahaahahahah. The article makes no mention of that. Granted, even a light-water reactor can be used for 'evil', but it is better than the Plutonium reactors they already had (which is where they were removing cameras and plundering fuel rods for weaponisation).

I think the Irish paper is trying to pull a fast one.

 

Ok everyone! Phone up Bush and tell him to get the troops out of South Korea and tell South Korea to stand down their armys on the most heavly defended boarder in the world. RedXavier knows that the north will not attack the south. I wonder why South Korea and the United States don't have the intelligence that RedXavier does... maybe he should phone up the cia and tell them what they are missing.

 

Thanks Wolf.

I've outlined why I think North Korea won't invade the South in other posts. But here it goes again:

- The South have a strong army, better equiped and better trained, it won't be a cake-walk.

- American withdrawal from the South DOESN'T mean that they can't and won't come to the aid of the South should it be invaded. American missiles can hit any target in the world, and their stealth fighters and bombers can be launched from aircraft carriers within months and from bases in Okinawa and around the world immediately. In fact, if there are no US troops on the ground, it's more advantageous for the Americans to use tactical nuclear weapons.

- Russia doesn't care about North Korea, the Communist connection is gone.

- China is concentrating on domestic affairs, and wants peace in the region. Any involvement will likely come down ON the North Koreans.

- North Korea is too poor to sustain its forces for very long in the field (compared to the South especially), and a war against the South, the United States, possibly Britain and China, will be impossible for them to win in a shorter enough time.

- North Korea's supposed military advantage, numerical superiority and human wave attacks, can no longer work on the battlefield with automatic weapons, napalm and air-to-surface ordinance (MOAB and cluster bombs) that are available to South Korean and American forces.

- An invasion of the South would have the objective of uniting Korea. The practical considerations would be monumental, not only would most of the economic and political infrastructure of the South be destroyed in the war but the North would have to instigate police state control over the citizens in the South, alienating a group of people that are their fellow countrymen - think Reconstruction magnified.


Why would a country launch itself into a war it knows it cannot win? That is suicide, and once again, how can you say that a regime that tortures its own people to maintain power over them, will knowingly commit suicide?

 

Why would a country launch itself into a war it knows it cannot win? That is suicide, and once again, how can you say that a regime that tortures its own people to maintain power over them, will knowingly commit suicide?

*Caugh* Saddam *Caugh*

When the leader is not rational, rational arguments of why they wouldn't attack tend to go out the door.