I feel like I’m as much of a pacifist as most people here but when will enough be enough:
Their missile and nuclear programs are escalating at a much faster rate than predicted even as late as the first of this year.
I realize that to strike at them even with conventional weapons will cause an attack on SK, Japan and others. But if they continue to improve their capabilities we here in the heartland of the US will soon become vulnerable. As will all of the world.
There just doesn’t seem to be a good solution. I understand that Kim Jong-un does a lot of saber rattling to impress his followers but these shots across Japan seem a little more provocative than that.
Something needs to be done, how much more advanced can we allow their nuclear program to become? Sadly, we have the wrong administration to deal with this.
It’s probably possible to get China to do it. You just tell them that it’s them that someone is going in there and it can either be them or us. Whichever answer they give, that’s at least one problem off the heap.
The problem, then, is convincing everyone in a thousand miles of North Korea to go on a European vacation for a month.
And they will just prevaricate. As they have been doing. Who would you tell? Xi and his faction? He isn’t going to do anything until after the congress meeting in the fall…and maybe not even then. One of the other factions? It’s not in their interest to help out in North Korea, and in fact it’s in opposition to the goals of several of the factions opposing Xi. So, what do you suggest? At this point things are balanced on a knife edge, IMHO…China probably won’t get involved if NK actually attacks either the US or a US ally. They MIGHT not get involved (directly) if we attack first, but I, personally, wouldn’t lay any bets. For now, they are playing along with the farce that is the sanctions, if by ‘they’ I mean Xi and the currently ruling faction. Other factions are, of course, ignoring it and continuing to trade, under the table, with the NKs and will continue to do so.
Or to just bite the bullet on the deaths of 100’s of thousands of our allies people, a world wide economic crisis, and gods only know how many North Korean deaths in what will almost certainly be an epic humanitarian crisis. With winter coming on. And food stocks already at scary levels in NK. And this all is if we get lucky and no nukes are actually set off.
Damned if I know the answer to this mess. At this point, all roads look bad and the only solution I see is the one we’ve been trying for decades now…kick the can down the road and hope like hell when Kimmy v3.0 and his merry band finally go down that the world can pick up the pieces and it doesn’t all go to hell.
If you want China’s attention the quickest way would be to slow down their products coming into the country. The other would be to start a homegrown boycott of their products. That may only affect a small number but that would amount to billions.
At some point the liability of NK’s leadership would force a solution.
That’s the predicament isn’t it. There just is no answer to this mess. With this guy there can be no MAD. When he has the ability to attack us with maximum damage, he will. And our retaliation will not enter into his descision making. So won’t kicking the can ultimately result in our getting bombed?
SK, Japan and the rest of Asia have been at risk of attacks (and sometimes victims of attacks) from North Korea ever since there’s been a North Korea. But now “enough’s enough” because your country might soon be in their position too?
How do you think that argument might look to a South Korean? “Yeah, we know if we rattle the madman’s cage he’s going to stab you in the neck, but you see if we don’t then we might ultimately end up in nearly as much danger as you…”
The blunt answer is that the decision about what to do should be made by those who are most at risk from retaliation. Which is not you.
As I understand it, after the bombing of Nagasaki the US was plumb out of nuclear bombs. If the Japanese hadn’t surrendered, we would have had to have backed off for many months before we would have been able to continue nuking them.
It’s quite likely that NK is currently exhausting everything they have. Given that it would take us a few months of prep work to launch an attack, and for South Korea to try and arrange an evacuation of Seoul, right now is probably the right moment to make an attack if ever. Their big weapons won’t be refilled for a year and their missiles aimed at South Korea have been mouldering and rusting for 50 years and is probably 2/3rds busted. We have developed abilities to shoot down missiles that were a fantasy just 10 years ago.
It’s relatively likely that now is about as good as it had ever been. But if you wait wait even a year then the prospects are going to start moving on a downwards trajectory pretty fast.
I don’t think Trump is going to do it, and I don’t know that I would recommend that he do it, but now is the time to do it if it is ever to be done. I have to assume that Mattis is giving it some serious thought right now, and wouldn’t be surprised if discussions on evacuation procedures were his principal topic of discussion back when he visited South Korea in February. I assume that we have given them some form of code word to signal that we’re going ahead, and a way to transmit the intended invasion date.
Nope, not “many months”:
“Two more Fat Man assemblies were readied, and scheduled to leave Kirtland Field for Tinian on August 11 and 14” - that’s after Nagasaki on Aug 9.
Let’s just tweet that the Chinese should do something about it and whine when they don’t. Oh wait, that’s been tried.
They’ve got their bombs. They aren’t going to give them up. They aren’t going to use them either since that would be assured suicide. They may shoot off some empty missiles over friendly nations which fall into the sea harmlessly. When they actually attack, hit them back. Until then, anything we do will lead to massive casualties and wreck the world economy. Doing nothing looks like the best of many bad options.
Ok, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and say, no, it is not the time to do something. It is the time to do nothing.
North Korea is not insane, not suicidal, and will not attack the U.S. directly without a good reason. They understand the consequences of starting a war, and are not going to do so deliberately (Although it is possible they may miscalculate…)
The missile launches, the nuclear tests, the rhetoric are all a form of brinkmanship designed to give them bargaining power in future negotiations with the US, the South Koreans, and the Chinese, and probably related to internal power dynamics as well. Their behavior should not be rewarded-and make no mistake, this “whatever shall we do!” hand wringing is rewarding them- it should be ignored. They are not now and never will be a serious threat to the US or our allies.
That is sort of the gist of the podcast I linked to upthread. There’s a lot more to it, and that podcast is worth listening to, but essentially we are two entities who are largely talking past each other. North Korea wants to assert its independence, and be able to say “big things” on the world stage. But they do know it would be suicidal to attack the US, and the only reason they would do so is if we were seriously considering attacking them. They are not going to give up their nuclear weapons, so the only way to do that would be all out war, which we should not be considering. Let them bluster, and maybe we can cut a deal (via the Chinese) for them to freeze their nuclear program roughly where it is now. If we insist that they eliminate their nuclear weapons, then we’re not going to get anywhere with them.
They are already a nuclear missile threat to our allies. And in a couple of years (if not already) they will be a nuclear missile threat to us.
Maybe you don’t consider nuclear missile threat “serious”. But a lot of people do. And no, I don’t think NK is rational enough not to use those weapons.
They are insane and in no way rational. The brutal way that they treat their people would be exhibit A. The way they push their ally Chinas face in shit would be exhibit B. That they are pushing Japan into being a nuclear power (if they aren’t already) would be exhibit C.
They are simply pushing forward their expiration date with nothing to gain from it. The real wildcard here is Japan. They have given hawkish Japanese the perfect excuse to regrow their military and be a dominating regional power. The Chinese and South Koreans will not like this. It in no way benefits the North Koreans.
How again is North Korean policy same and logical?