# North Korea...how will it end? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2011, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232 "2011-06-29T04:51:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Oldeb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea666f/32.png) [@Oldeb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oldeb)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/81 "2011-07-01T00:54:09Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > By applying the same principles the North (assuming a collapse date of say 2020) can be reintegrated into the Korean people by the end of the century. 80 years and several trillion dollars _is_ what places it firmly in the realm of impossible. That’s 20 presidential elections. 40 different congresses. You think the US can focus on a project that long? Even if you ignore the (massive) monetary costs the time required dooms any project. For comparison we spent only 12 years rebuilding our own country following the Civil War. We spent 7 years rebuilding Japan after we nuked them. There is no way any reconstruction project is going to make it to 80. As far as **Commisar** goes, there’s no point to debating him. He’s already claimed that no Communist country has ever existed, or could possibly exist as more than a noble ideal. He maintains there’s an explicit difference between a Marxist-Lenist Socialist State and Communism. I’m mildly suprised he hasn’t brought up the Juche Ideal of Eternal President Kim Il-sung as proof that North Korea isn’t Communist. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/82 "2011-07-01T01:09:53Z")
kinda halfway and let’s move on now, shall we? That’s what I described. In postwar Germany, the Nazi Party and state were dismantled, but it was not necessarily the case that having been a Party member was a career-ender. I mean, everybody joined to move up, and so on. Just like the Communist Party in the USSR, the fall of which involved no general purge of Communists from public life. But, unlike the Nazi Party, and like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Korean Workers’ Party can reasonably expected to survive its fall from power, in some form. [/QUOTE] Unlike the DPRK, the USSR was not starving when it fell and in some respects conditions grew worse. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/83 "2011-07-01T02:44:24Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Unlike the DPRK, the USSR was not starving when it fell and in some respects conditions grew worse. What’s your point? Do you have a point? I interpret your reference to “We will de-Communize North Korea the same way the US de-Nazified Germany,” as urging the invasion of North Korea by the United States. Am I wrong? If I am not wrong, and leaving entirely aside the arguments about the justification and diplomatic repurcussions of such an invasion, I would strongly suggest that you study, compare, and contrast the post-conquest de-Nazification of Germany and the post-conquest de-Baathistification of Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/84 "2011-07-01T02:55:54Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > compare, and contrast the post-conquest de-Nazification of Germany and the post-conquest de-Baathistification of Iraq. Well, obviously we were able to so easily de-bathify Iraq because once we rubbled their infrastructure water was very hard to come by and so of course few households had extra to spare for bathing and… …what? ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/85 "2011-07-01T03:06:59Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > What’s your point? Do you have a point? > > I interpret your reference to “We will de-Communize North Korea the same way the US de-Nazified Germany,” as urging the invasion of North Korea by the United States. Am I wrong? > > If I am not wrong, and leaving entirely aside the arguments about the justification and diplomatic repurcussions of such an invasion, I would strongly suggest that you study, compare, and contrast the post-conquest de-Nazification of Germany and the post-conquest de-Baathistification of Iraq. I’m saying the situation of the Communists in the DPRK is more comparable to that of the post-war Nazis that to post-collapse USSR\> ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/86 "2011-07-01T03:19:54Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I’m saying the situation of the Communists in the DPRK is more comparable to that of the post-war Nazis that to post-collapse USSR\> That the Party won’t exist anymore? Nonsense. There will certainly be North Koreans who remain Communist. Or whatever they’re calling it these days. A reunified Korea needs to accept that, or it won’t be a democracy. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/87 "2011-07-01T03:40:12Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > That’s a nice bit of misdirection, but I’m going to have to call you out on it. You’re so cute. Let’s take a quick look at the side effects of the USSR and China’s rapid industrialization accomplished with little more than “determination and socialism.” [Glorious comrade Stalin:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Industrialization) > [@](#): > > In spite of early breakdowns and failures, the first two Five-Year Plans achieved rapid industrialization from a very low economic base. While it is generally agreed that the Soviet Union achieved significant levels of economic growth under Stalin, the precise rate of growth is disputed. It is not disputed, however, that these gains were accomplished at the cost of millions of lives. [Champion of the people Mao:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Consequences) > [@](#): > > As inflated statistics reached planning authorities, orders were given to divert human resources into industry rather than agriculture. The official toll of excess deaths recorded in China for the years of the Great Leap Forward is 14 million, but as of 1987, scholars had estimated the number of victims to be between 20 and 43 million. > [@](#): > > So, yeah, take care not to strike your own glass houses when flinging your stones our way, friend. What’s with the “our” nonsense. What have you ever done in the name of socialism aside from living in the very bastion of imperialism and capitalism? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/88 "2011-07-01T03:49:15Z")
Ahem. I think you meant “Glorious champion of the Glorious people of the Glorious People’s Republic of China, Mao. You Empire Empire Empire Empire Empire Amerikkans! … Empire, Glorious!” ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/89 "2011-07-01T03:56:50Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > That the Party won’t exist anymore? Nonsense. There will certainly be North Koreans who remain Communist. Or whatever they’re calling it these days. A reunified Korea needs to accept that, or it won’t be a democracy. And there were Germans who remained Nazis. Like Himmler’s daughter ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/90 "2011-07-01T07:12:01Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > Take my own nation, the USSR. Our glorious revolutionaries inherited a backward, underdeveloped, feudal swamp that had been decimated by centuries of corrupt czarist rule. Then things got even worse, as the resulting civil war destroyed pretty much everything that had managed to outlast the monarchy. Yes, we were poor, we were hungry, and we were uneducated. All we had was the power of socialism; that was enough. **Two decades later, we single-handedly saved the world from the most powerful and sadistic military force that it had ever known. In twenty years, we went from rural hicks to global saviors.** Not bad, eh? (Bolding and underlining added by me for emphasis) I would love to see something resembling a cite to support the claim bolded and underlined in the above quoted post. The Nazis were defeated single-handedly by the Soviets? Huh. Who knew? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/91 "2011-07-01T09:54:39Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > The Nazis were defeated single-handedly by the Soviets? > Huh. Who knew? Well, after signing a secret non-aggression pact with the Nazis to divide Poland between them, and to have a free hand to take Karelia from Finland, Bessarabia from Rumania, and make Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia disappear completely. Oh, and provide huge amounts of oil and strategic materials to the Nazis while they were at it. No cite will be forthcoming as it is, of course, patently untrue. It’s just a falsehood based on exaggeration that friend Commissar [likes to throw about](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13241842&postcount=173). The substantial majority of German casualties happened on the Eastern Front, but of course being single handedly defeated by the USSR is entirely untrue, and conveniently ignores their cozying up to the Nazis right up to until being invaded by them. Notice again the repeated uses of “we” and the USSR being “my own nation” coming from a man who has spent his entire adult life in the United States of America. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/92 "2011-07-01T14:04:19Z")
Well, it’s not like he can go back to the good old USSR, after all. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![brewha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/93 "2011-07-01T14:20:04Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > Take my own nation, the USSR. Now, while I’m reading every one of your post, I hear Peter Stormare’s crazy Russian character from Armageddon. At least there’s some entertainment in that. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/94 "2011-07-01T14:49:55Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Well, after signing a secret non-aggression pact with the Nazis to divide Poland between them, and to have a free hand to take Karelia from Finland, Bessarabia from Rumania, and make Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia disappear completely. Oh, and provide huge amounts of oil and strategic materials to the Nazis while they were at it. > > No cite will be forthcoming as it is, of course, patently untrue. It’s just a falsehood based on exaggeration that friend Commissar [likes to throw about](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13241842&postcount=173). The substantial majority of German casualties happened on the Eastern Front, but of course being single handedly defeated by the USSR is entirely untrue, and conveniently ignores their cozying up to the Nazis right up to until being invaded by them. > > Notice again the repeated uses of “we” and the USSR being “my own nation” coming from a man who has spent his entire adult life in the United States of America. Even if there was never a single soldier of the Western Front, the USSR would have collapsed without massive shipments of war materiel from the Allies, especially the United States. Not to mention the fact that we had quite a bit of work to do in the Pacific Theater, a war the Soviet Union didn’t join until the atomic bombs were falling. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/95 "2011-07-01T15:24:45Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Notice again the repeated uses of “we” and the USSR being “my own nation” coming from a man who has spent his entire adult life in the United States of America. And is a United States citizen who voted for Obama. Maybe that should be Glorious Empire Obamaski? ---
**Author:** ![Sablicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Sablicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sablicious)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/96 "2011-07-01T15:38:37Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > China hasn’t been communist in any meaningful way for several decades. The Láogǎi concentration camp denizens and their Gulag bowling buddies would like to have a word with you. ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/97 "2011-07-01T16:16:33Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > You’re so cute. Let’s take a quick look at the side effects of the USSR and China’s rapid industrialization accomplished with little more than “determination and socialism.” [Glorious comrade Stalin:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Industrialization) > [Champion of the people Mao:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Consequences) > What’s with the “our” nonsense. While I am sure that Wikipedia is an unassailable bastion of truth in no way, shape, or form vulnerable to manipulation for political and propaganda means, I’m going to have to dispute those “undisputed” death number for Stalinist USSR. I’ve looked at the claims, and have yet to find them backed by anything approaching a credible source of any kind. Most of the time, these wild-ass claims simply lead back to Solzhenitsin and his Imperial buddies - hardly an unbiased source. Of course, this has not stopped gullible Imperials from repeating the unsubstantiated claims like a pack of brain-dead parrots. > [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#): > > (Bolding and underlining added by me for emphasis) > > I would love to see something resembling a cite to support the claim bolded and underlined in the above quoted post. > > The Nazis were defeated single-handedly by the Soviets? > Huh. Who knew? And are you disputing this in good faith? You really believe that either the Empire of Western Europe had anything to do with trampling the NAZI beast? Even while the prior hid in the shadows until the war was effectively over and the latter spent the war’s duration choking under the heel of said beast? You cannot be serious… > [@Dissonance](#): > > Notice again the repeated uses of “we” and the USSR being “my own nation” coming from a man who has spent his entire adult life in the United States of America. 😕 You assume facts too freely, my friend. Pray tell where you’re getting your information from; I think you may want to replace your sources. > [@Mr.Moto](#): > > Not to mention the fact that we had quite a bit of work to do in the Pacific Theater, a war the Soviet Union didn’t join until the atomic bombs were falling. Well, that’s certainly news to me. Especially given that our military conflict with the Japanese began on July 29, 1938: > **[Battle of Lake Khasan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Khasan)** > >  Japan > The Battle of Lake Khasan (Russian: Хасанские бои), also known as the Changkufeng Incident (Chinese and Japanese: 張鼓峰事件; Chinese pinyin: Zhānggǔfēng Shìjiàn; Japanese romaji: Chōkohō Jiken), was an attempted military incursion by Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state, into territory claimed and controlled by the Soviet Union. The incursion, which occurred from 29 July to 11 August 1938, was founded in the Japanese belief that the Soviet Union had misinterpreted the demarcation of the bound... You may or may not be aware that this preceded the Pearl Harbor shenanigans by MORE THAN THREE YEARS: > **[Attack on Pearl Harbor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor)** > > Japanese victory > 1941 > 1942 So, yeah. Way to mangle your history there. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/98 "2011-07-01T16:23:55Z")
**Commissar** , disparaging Wikipedia and then using it in the same post makes it more or less impossible to believe you mean what you are posting. In any case your assertions have almost completely derailed the discussion, and it’s time for that to end. _This thread is about North Korea._ I can’t declare the subjects of China and the USSR entirely off limits because they can be relevant as historical comparisons, but the debate about Communism vs. capitalism and China and the USSR vs. the world needs to end. Take it to another thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/99 "2011-07-01T16:25:15Z")
> [@Sablicious](#): > > The Láogǎi concentration camp denizens and their Gulag bowling buddies would like to have a word with you. Governments can be totalitarian without being Communist. The Iranian government is also pretty brutal to it’s citizens, but it’s not Communist. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232/100 "2011-07-01T16:30:15Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > And is a United States citizen who voted for Obama. > Maybe that should be Glorious Empire Obamaski? I prefer to think of it as the [USSA.](http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=newmbackin)🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korea-how-will-it-end/587232.md?page=6)