What is the purpose or goal of a major national leader? What is the “meaning of life” for him?
Most national leaders consider themselves to be stewards of their nation. A hope that the history books speak well of them fifty years in the future may be a major motive.
But what motivates Kim Jong-un? If he’s sane he must know that eventually his family will be thoroughly reviled; he knows he is a contemptible villain. Is there a danger that he might view nuclear war as a fitting, albeit suicidal, finale to his career?
He said, repeatedly, that the US is powerless in the region, that the other powers in the region know this and basically just ignore the US. Basically, he’s projecting…that’s how he feels, and he thinks that if he feels that way so does everyone else. One of his big blinders is anything to do with the US…he’s a bit like Der Tris in this way. His hatred of the US blinds him.
As for China, certainly, they are a regional power. But we’ve seen the extent that they can influence NK on this issue, and I think no one was more shocked than they were. I seriously doubt Russia will be any better off in influencing them, as can be seen by the fact that Putin has basically gone on record that it’s a waste of time. If he thought he could walk in and solve the issue he would, since it would boost his image while hurting the US. But he can’t do a damned thing so he doesn’t.
When the US moves a fleet everyone takes note, even if it’s moved at the behest of an orange haired idiot. The US is like the proverbial bull in the China shop (heh), especially under the current administration. No one…not any country out there…thinks the US is powerless and weak, no matter what the region is. The Chinese pay VERY close attention to what the US is doing and their recent record of voting on measures from the UNSC against the North Koreans clearly shows this.
What **XT **said. Plenty of nations in the world, and Northeast Asian region, may consider the US to be reckless, short-sighted, unpredictable, ill-advised or dangerous, especially with the current president. But “powerless” isn’t what they’re thinking. The USA, after all, does have the largest economy, best conventional military, most carriers, second-largest nuke arsenal, etc.
I disagree with junction’s characterization that the US is “powerless” but there are certainly limits to American power, the main one being that the United States cannot attack North Korea without paying a potentially fairly heavy price. That price now would be the potential loss of life of US military personnel, potentially substantial loss of life in countries that are major trading and political partners with the U.S. Even without a nuclear war, a war with North Korea would be a heavy price to pay, even if our mainland is relatively untouched. Consequently, past American presidents and the military have decided that the cost/benefit analysis isn’t worth having a major war as a ‘final solution’ to occasional volatility of the Kim regime.
But times have changed over the past 15 years. One reason why we didn’t attack North Korea in the past is the assumption that the regime was contained and, however barbaric it might be to its own people, the threat of a major war was limited. But as communism collapsed and support for North Korea fell this reality coupled with sanctions took a toll. Moreover, the post 9/11 reality, the assertion that the United States has the power to remove whatever head of state it wants, whether through military force or simply through a combination of economic sanctions and political isolation, is a reality that not only the Kims but other undemocratic regimes (like Russia and China) have taken more seriously.
No, the United Stats is not powerless. I’d absolutely agree that the US has the capacity to annihilate most of North Korea - no question. The question is whether we’re ready to pay that cost. My sense is that in the past, and perhaps until 15 or even 10 years ago, the answer was probably no. But there’s a greater sense of urgency on the part of Kim Jung Un to get nuclear weapons, and not just weapons but a long range nuclear threat. And if that happens, the US options then become much, much more limited. Sure, the US could still probably nuke North Korea then, but it would risk tremendous loss of American civilian life in return, and that’s a completely different dynamic. Even if the US perceives Kim is rational enough to avoid a war, Kim would feel emboldened to use nukes as a threat to lift sanctions on his country. And what’s to say that the demands stop there? Maybe he insists on US troops leaving South Korea. I think it’s this new reality that the Pentagon is weighing right at this moment. I would not doubt for a moment that there are some right now who are advocating a first strike on North Korea for these reasons. It’s not, in my view, the wise move, but as I said before, my opinion isn’t as important as those who get paid to make tehse decisions.
There are limits to all things, but a self-imposed limit is very different to being powerless. In the case of North Korea, there are very few nations that could just destroy North Korea outright with, say, nuclear weapons. China, Russia, perhaps a few of the European nations and of course the US. There are fewer that could attack the nation with conventional forces with any real hope of taking it…MAYBE China and certainly the US with its allies. The US has levels of options (military and otherwise) available to it that no other nation has. It CHOOSES not to use them, but that’s very different from not being able to do anything.
As you say, the cost to benefit just hasn’t been (and still isn’t) there. It’s easier to kick the can down the road and basically hope that when the piper needs to be paid, as he will someday, that it happens on some other dumb bastards watch.
That has been the case, yes. The continued pushing of the envelope by the regime, however, threatens to destabilize this balance, however. And it’s not just the US that is concerned. It’s one of the reasons both China and Russia voted for more sanctions, and China has actually made the motions of at least looking on the surface like they are serious about them. Consider how often all of the voting members of the UNSC are in accord on, well, anything involving a real situation.
Certainly, 9/11 was a wake-up call, especially the post 9/11 actions the US took, which pretty clearly showed the difference between having the power to do something and choosing not to use it. In the post 9/11 world, the US showed that the ‘powerless’ accusation was just an illusion, and the US could take action if it chose too. Really, the main restraint on the US wrt military action isn’t ability, it’s the will of the American people to do something, or not to do something. What we collectively chose to do was stupid, but I think it put a lot of nations on notice that the US could do really stupid shit and that by doing so it could overturn their apple carts.
The US has a number of options wrt North Korea. Nukes are probably not one we’d need to resort to. However, any action we take would have dire consequences to South Korea, not to mention the humanitarian crisis it would spawn in North Korea. It would have a large impact on Northern China as well, even if nukes weren’t ever used. That’s why I seriously doubt the US will be doing anything more than pushing Kimmy’s buttons and pushing other countries to tighten the noose around NK’s collective neck. The real issue, IMHO and FWIW are that we have an idiot for a President and I’m unsure how much his advisors really understand the various levels of the issue here. The biggest one is…how far can you push the NK government and lil’ Kimmy 3.0? I don’t mean how far can we push them before they push the button…I don’t think that’s what they would do (I actually don’t think they can…this is another difference between something you choose not to do and something you can’t, and I don’t think they have the ability to cobble together a credible nuclear weapons system at this time. YMMV). But how far can they be pushed before the regime completely collapses, and does so in a totally random, chaotic and unpredictable way? The pressures on them are mounting quickly, and they were already a house of cards. Each new pressure means seen and unseen flaws in their system are under increasing stress, and could blow out any time…or might not. My own fear is one of them lets go and the house of cards goes down and the country flies into total chaos, with half starving (or fully starving) refugees fleeing in all directions but before The World™ has the logistics in place to help them, with the NK army fragmenting and maybe fighting each other, fleeing or attacking the South and basically dogs and cats living together. Utter chaos. And all because the orange haired ape at the controls of the worlds most powerful country is just pulling levers and pushing buttons without a clue what it’s doing or what the ramifications could be.
I don’t know why so many people think US allies like South Korea, Israel, Japan, etc. would just be rolled by their enemies if it weren’t for the US.
South Korea maintains very formidable conventional forces in its own right. Even if the United States sat out a war entirely, the South would probably still soundly defeat the North on its own in almost all scenarios of full-fledged hostilities. American intervention would, however, probably shorten the conflict considerably and save many lives.
China is a considerable power in Northeast Asia, but I think virtually every observer and analyst on international affairs would agree that the US has played, and continues to play, an indispensable role to security in the region. The US is the buffer between our allies and friends and various threats, because the US presence in the region is an incredibly powerful deterrent.
To use a more familiar situation, I think you would probably acknowledge that the strength of NATO is predominately based on the US overwhelming military capabilities. While the situation in Asia is not formalized in a NATO-like alliance, the US role there is arguably even more powerful. That’s because the US plays the same deterrent role, but also serves to temper some of the interests of our allies. For example, it is the US security guarantees that has kept the Japanese Self Defense Forces generally limited in capability (though that is changing over time) and most certainly the reason why none of our friends have developed nuclear weapons.
China views itself as challenging US hegemony (the position of preeminence in a region), but also recognizes that the US has restrained Japan and South Korea, which is more or less a relief to China. There isn’t a goddamn chance that anyone in the Chinese national security apparatus sees the role of the US as powerless. They see it as too powerful… but that they are rising to change the dynamics of the region.
As far as the DPRK as a client state, that is a terrible term that doesn’t really fit the current situation. Poorly informed people like President Trump think that China can tell North Korea what to do, because DPRK depends on China. That really isn’t the case. The better analogy is the how a drug addict kid living in mom’s basement, who used to drink a little too much beer now and then but now has become a full blown meth head. Mom can’t quite bear to totally him cut off because she knows he will just end up going off the rails, murdering someone, and bringing even more problems upon the family. So mom just does the bare minimum to keep the kid from spinning out of control, and wondering how to get the kid into rehab… but she’s in no position to stage one of those interventions where they abduct the junkie and cart them off to Dr. Drew or Betty Ford or whatever.
And Russia? Even more on the outside than China. Russia’s like the mom’s boyfriend who is a trucker who crashes at the house sometimes, so he gets involved in the arguments, but is also content just to say “Fuck this, I’m getting in my big rig. See you in three weeks!”
Oh stop it for Gods sake You’e in the wrong decade and living in your USA! media bubble.
You’re supposed to think the USA still has power, how else is all that taxpayers money justified. What you’ve got is a whole bunch of huge cock waving ships.
Can’t imagine the domestic media spin that must have been put on Trump’s visit to China for Americans to still believe that stuff.
To paraphrase Luke, everything in this post is wrong. But that’s hardly surprising, considering the source and taking into account the sources obvious ignorance coupled to his obvious prejudice and, shall we say, hard on about, er, ships?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, fat stupid Americans drinking Mountain Dew Code Red can’t possibly compete with the intellect of someone who reads the Guardian every day. Blah, blah, blah.
I would also note the approximately 25,000 American troops in S. Korea and the 45,000+ in Japan. I must admit, however, that I do not know if their cocks are waving or not.
Powerless means different things in different context. The US is powerless to achieve the aim of denuclearising North Korea, without having high confidence of avoiding unacceptable damage in the process. The Taliban are powerless in Korea.
The US is not powerless in a general term, far from it.
