Where we differ is when comparison to Hitler is appropriate. It’s pretty subjective and it’s more of a rhetorical device than an invitation to a serious debate. One should be able to make a case against Kim without making that reference - in fact, serious debater should be aware that making Hitler reference is just not a good strategy.
If I think it is totally inappropriate to compare Kim to Hitler then I’ll call it Godwinization as that’s just a different way of disagreeing with the premise.
Same goes for my example Obama = Hitler; for those who claim it, it’s self-evident. For others, sane people, it is a Godwinization. Invoking Hitler reference is done partly for an emotional appeal but mostly to shut the debate down; he is Hitler - what’s to debate, get on with the program.
However, invocation of Hitler comparisons has to be convincing and all-encompassing - you cannot just say he is of same height as Hitler or he manages propaganda the same way; that’s not distinctive enough.
I probably wouldn’t compare the Kims to Hitler. There are times when the comparison is apt. A good example would be Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait.
While generally, it was widely supported by the international community in the UN that we invade and push Iraq out of Kuwait there were many who argued at the time that we shouldn’t get involved over there for various reasons. One good argument against that would be, “history has shown dictators that start annexing neighbors cannot be effectively dealt with by ignoring the annexation and trying to treat with them, as evidence by experiences with Hitler in regard to Czechoslovakia which ended up just being a precursor to more outright invasions.”
The situation on the Korean peninsula is different enough from that fundamentally as to not really warrant a direct comparison except on some human rights abuses. But there is no real reason to make comparisons to other dictators on human rights abuses, human rights abuses are part of and parcel of dictatorship.
Of course this happens by ignoring history, the reference I was making was related to Hitler in his last days jumping of joy and his henchmen assuring him that indeed the death of Roosevelt was the game changer, early in the war Hitler famously was convinced that “We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten Russian edifice will come tumbling down.”
Eventually it was clear that someone had swallowed his own lying propaganda.
The lesson here is that we are dealing with an organization that has been releasing even more and more propaganda that is even more insane and the worrisome thing is that they are IMHO more willing to act on it, if the analysis that I have seen are accurate, and Kim is acting because he wants to consolidate his power, I do think that this is the worst moment to ignore that propaganda is not seen the same by leaders of a democracy than the leaders of a totalitarian regime.
Hitler had some reasons to believe that he was correct, but he in the end followed his own barely based on reality propaganda, one of the usual reasons totalitarian dictators like that eventually fall.
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde;16144069}I don’t want war with North Korea, but we also can’t allow them to keep creating crises in which we relent and give them aid and the only thing we get in return is their agreeing to end the crisis. If they aren’t willing to basically let us denuclearize them and then have a persistent inspections presence I see very little options as to what they could give us that would mean anything.[/QUOTE]
Heck, if they’d open up their society and normalize their relations with other Pacific nations, no one would even care if they kept the nukes. If North Korea wants to be a nuclear power, fine - but they MUST first give up this pattern of playing international mugger. If North Korea wants peace and prosperity, it needs to understand that repeatedly threatening their neighbors isn’t the way to obtain those things now. It’s time to resort to other tactics, like trade.
“Hand it over, or I’ll shoot!” ceased to be a viable survival strategy for North Korea as soon as they detonated their first nuclear device. The sooner they understand that, the safer everyone will be.
Thanks for the fact-filled posts above, esp by dissonance and broomstick.
The other day I heard some expert on NPR say that, while this was “NK as usual” in the sense of making threats, the recent statements were also by far the most alarming and aggressive in nature. And that was a week or so ago; evidently they’ve upped the ante even more recently (ordering missile units to be ready to strike US and SK).
I bet it’s blustering, but I’m glad I’m not the one who has to make the call on how to react!
One wonders when China will get sick of this and start to apply serious pressure from their side. I guess they’re worried about mass migration from NK into China in the event of an upheaval. (They’d be foolish not to, and as Kissinger says in “On China”, they always do their homework.)
They already have. China has agreed to participate in some very severe sanctions against North Korea. They realize that North Korea’s statements are as much about thumbing their nose at China (“You’re not the boss of us any more, 'cause WE HAVE NUKES!”) as they are about anything else.
But that’s about the limit of what China can do nonviolently. Their coercive powers over North Korea are ultimately limited, just as our own are.
You’re talking about half of a country (and a people) as if they’re separate from the other half. There are still family connections between the 2 countries. SK has no desire to wipe NK off the map.
It’s not the only thing you are ignoring. A much more relevant part of my post that you quoted is
That the US was able to take two countries that weren’t credible threats to their neighbors and make them not credible threats to their neighbors is neither surprising nor very relevant to the North Korean situation, where North Korea is a very credible threat to its neighbors.
Of course we have plans for invading North Korea. Korea has remained a hot spot since the armistice was signed. A lot of planning has gone into how to deal with a potential war there since 1953. We are still technically at war with North Korea. With our spotty track record it would not surprise me if not enough thought has gone into nation building, but completely ignoring it is utterly absurd. What do you imagine the result and end game will be after the complete and utter destruction of the North Korean state? South Korea will suddenly have to incorporate 24 million destitute North Koreans who’ve spent their entire lives indoctrinated by the Kims and the wreck that they and the recent war will have made of North Korea.
The ROK isn’t so outnumbered when reserve mobilization is factored in. The Korean People’s Army (which is all service branches combined despite the name, the Army is the Korean People’s Army Ground Force) has 1.1 million active duty personnel to the ROKs 639,000, but the regular reserve of South Korea is 2.9 million strong. The total reserve personnel strength of North Korea is claimed to be 8.2 million, but that figure isn’t so useful; it isn’t the deployable regular reserve which the ROK figure is. The North Korean figure is more theoretically every North Korean that can hold a gun; it includes the 3.5 million Worker-Peasant’s Red Guard. Who exactly is going to be tilling the fields in a country that can’t even feed itself as it is when 9.3 million of its 24 million inhabitants are called to arms isn’t spelled out. Something more useful to look at is the orbats of the two countries; when mobilized both deploy similar numbers of divisions and brigades. Notably
They ARE separate from the other half. North Korea and South Korea are in fact two separate states. There’s this zone called the DMV that lies between the two. And officially the two are still in a state of war.
No, but I doubt they’d have any objection to wiping the North Korean state off the map (as opposed to the North Korean people). Especially after Seoul has been reduced to a pile of burning rubble by said state’s artillery.
We’re taking about the resumption of the Korean War here. There’s no way that would happen without the US inflicting massive damage on North Korea. North Korea need to have no illusions about just how ugly things will get for them if they inadvertently manage to turn the current cease-fire back into a hot war.
If the topic under discussion includes totalitarian dictatorships or genocide, references or comparisons to Hitler are entirely appropriate. If the topic is underwater basket weaving or same sex marriage comparing the views of the other side to Hitler isn’t appropriate.
Wait - didn’t you just say you understood what Godwinization is?
Yeah, see, Obama isn’t a totalitarian dictator. He’s a democratically elected president. That’s what makes calling Obama Hitler Godwinization, even if you don’t like the guy and didn’t vote for him he’s not a totalitarian dictator.
Yeah, I don’t know what the Kims could have in common with Hitler, anyone bringing Hitler into the conversation must be referring to similarities in height. Oh wait, yeah I do; it’s that they’re all totalitarian dictators.
My personal opinion is that North Korea is in approximately the same position the Ottoman Empire was in a hundred years ago. The only thing keeping the regime in power is nobody else can agree who gets to take over.
I’m sure China would be happy to move in and replace the Kim regime with a nice quiet puppet regime. And the United States would be happy to help South Korea take over the North. The Kim regime basically survives by the fact that neither side wants to see the other one move in.
Eventually, however, Kim will push things too far and everyone else will agree that any change - even letting the other side take over - is better than Kim.
You doubt the US’s ability to reduce the state of North Korea into rubble, should it really desire to do so?
Battle plans, of course we have those. As you said, the Korean peninsula has been a hot spot since the 1950s. I’m referring to political plans in that statement - and no, we do not intend to invade North Korea at this point. No one really wants to restart the Korean War if it can be avoided. The question is, CAN it be avoided? The answer to that question remains to be seen, and will depend a lot on North Korea’s future conduct (which we may be able to influence, but ultimately don’t control).
Pretty much what you said: we’d be relying on South Korea (and perhaps China) to do the clean-up (although we’d be obligated to pour in massive amounts of aid to help with the process). It would be a horrific, expensive mess.
But it might be less horrific and expensive than first seeing Tokyo or Honolulu turned into a crater, to be quickly followed by Korean War version 2.0. THAT’S why North Korea needs to change its tactics now. Everyone could ignore their 1960s-style Marxist rantings and occasional bellicose posturing back when they had no ability to project force beyond their immediate borders. It’s no longer so ignorable now that they have some nuclear capability and are working hard on acquiring missile technology.
I don’t think North Korea wants to start a war: they don’t have anything to gain by it. But they need to remember that more than one war has been started inadvertently, and dial back the aggressive rhetoric before someone actually takes it seriously, and well before it becomes impossible for us to judge whether or not it’s actually meant seriously. Once they achieve a working long-range missile (and sooner or later they will achieve it), “we will attack Guam and Hawaii” is no longer a clearly dismissible statement (as it is today).
Like you said, our opinions differ. I agree that comparisons of Obama or Bush to Hitler are silly. But I feel there are substantial similarities between Kim and Hitler: they’re both totalitarian dictators with military ambitions that threaten other countries.
They’ve taken off from Guam in the past. (Though perhaps not the best cite for a successful take off…) One advantage of basing them at Guam is that Andersen is less than 2000 nm from Pyongyang, vs the over 5500 nm direct distance between Whiteman and NK. This would mean a difference of roughly 8 hours in response time, which might be important.
Or you could just keep an airborne alert up and orbiting ~200 nm or so away from NK. That might get expensive though.
I too have liked your lucid reports on the NK situation, Broomstick. Thanks.
As an aside, I’m not sure why people feel that ICBMs will be the method that NK would use for its nuclear weapons. A suicide submarine or exploding shipping container strikes me as more likely. Certainly more deniable,. Not that their use is at all likely. IMHO, the Kims will use them, if and only if they believe their probability of dying at the hands of their countrymen or the US/SK is greater than the probability of their dying after such weapons are used, and that using them will decrease the first probability. IOW, they’d have to be right against the wall and perhaps thinking that, e.g., San Francisco or Pusan or Shanghai disappearing would be so distracting to any regime change effort than it could provide the Kims some chance to re-consolidate their power. Highly unlikely, but they might think they’d have a better chance than the, e.g., Ceaucescus had after their trial. Or Khadafi on the road from Sirte. In some ways things were simpler when we let despots like Idi Amin or the Duvaliers slink into exile.
ICBMs would make a great method though against Japan, for using Magiver’s off-mentioned EMP weapon. They’d prefer a bigger yield for that purpose than what they’ve so far demonstrated, but the economic damage would still be rather large. Would the US/SK/UN respond with an invasion—and the thousands (maybe millions) of civilian casualties that would result—to an EMP attack on Japan, especially if the damage was “only” economic?
Maybe not. Maybe he’ll become confident enough in his own power that he won’t feel so much need for aggressive posturing, and will quiet down again. Maybe he’ll even eventually be bold enough to start North Korea on the path to economic modernization (although that may prove too daring a move, as it would require more openness to outsiders). We can hope.
I don’t believe Kim would nuke unless he was being invaded, which puts things in a delicate situation. My fear is the brinksmanship the North chooses to engage in could result in a dangerous scenario where Kim felt pressured do to “something” and the “something” he chose was something we’d have no choice other than to respond to militarily.
Imagine a scenario where he launches a significant missile attack (conventional, not nuclear) against Tokyo. Or worse, against Guam. Guam isn’t a state but it is part of the United States, Guamians are American citizens. I simply don’t see how we could tolerate him killing Americans with military attacks on American soil without responding militarily. If we say at that point, “well we can’t respond because he might use a nuke” we’re basically saying “any country willing to use a nuke can attack the United States with impunity” which isn’t a doctrine I see us adopting.
The Soviets always understood, if they attacked us conventionally we’d attack them conventionally, and eventually either they or us would probably use a nuke. Once one of us used a nuke, the other would use a nuke. Since neither of us wanted to be nuked we recognized we didn’t just have to avoid nuclear exchanges but any conventional direct military action against one another.
I think this is the script we’ve always seen from North Korea, but I think we’re mostly not as willing to give aid this time–because it’s shown to serve no purpose. My hope is the rhetoric simmers down and we give no aid, and North Korea continues to do whatever it is it does. But worst case scenario is somehow this rhetoric leads to the North doing something we’d be forced to respond to because they don’t understand where the line in the sand is drawn…so in part I think it very important we make it clear where that line is.
Hard question to answer (and one that I hope stays entirely theoretical) - but my strong suspicion is that we would regard such an attack as an act of war, and respond accordingly.
I’m not usually one for typo-nitpicking, but I can’t rid myself now of the hilarious image of the Koreas being separated by a room full of people waiting on line for slow, obnoxious clerks to renew their driver’s licenses.
One very significnt difference between now and the last time we were in NK is that before, China really was (according to Kissinger) worried that it was a ruse and that our real target was China. I think that despite the huge gulf still between us, they realize that today, that’s not an option. (Heck, where would we buy all our nice inexpensive stuff?)
I’m not saying they’d just roll over, but I don’t think they’d be concerned about the US going past the NK/China border. They’d be more worried about loss of hope for political control in the region, and the influx of refugees.
Frankly, I think either China or the US would be better off allowing the other to take the problem off their hands! I realize the US would have serious internal political fallout over that, though, and no doubt so would China. So, not likely to happen. A joint effort would be more likely, oddly enough, but goodness knows what that could lead to.
Well, that WOULD be a much more frightening sight than batteries of artillery, bales and bales of razor wire, and entire hillsides covered with mines. I say we implement it immediately! We’ll have North Korea suing for peace within the week!
Oboy!