I think it would be churlish to give W anything but a ten for ten when it comes to wrongfooting…practically an “own goal”
not only does he give NK a pretty clear picture of what happens to evil axis members who DON’T have “nukes”
he also ties his dick in a knot in so doing, and thus is impotent (I’;m sorry, but I"m just enjoying this metaphor excessively, and will not curb my enthuiasm…)_to even offer punishment for NK’s presumption.
Well, I have to say that this really is the fault of the Congress and the Bush administration. Neither kept our end of the agreed framework at all. If we had, then we would have some actual reason to complain that North Korea walked away from it. Maybe they wouldn’t have violated it… As it is, we don’t have any real reason to complain that they did not honor that bargain. I do not see how the situation at this stage could be any worse. North Korea has no reason to negotiate with us now, other than they might want to. Unless we take out all of the artillery pointed at Seoul in one attack, any attack against North Korea would be probably be pyrrhic, at best.
Does anyone have any insight as to why they chose now to announce this? It was assumed that they had neuclear weapons already. They could have kept it unoffical, and kept trying to get something for the threat. Are they now advertising them for sale?
As for our millitary prowess:
GW1-Yeah, we did slaughter them as they retreated. I never really thought they could win that one. The Iraqis were outnumbered, out intelligenced, and poorly armed in relation to their opponent. Most of their casualties came when they were retreating, and were caught very badly while doing it. Their weapons were mostly the ones that the Soviets would sell them, last decade’s models. Retreat was the best that they could do, regardless of their size.
Afghanistan - We mostly provided air support, making the remainder of the Taliban an easy job for the Northern Alliance.
GW2 - The Iraqi army pretty much walked away after the march to Bagdad. Regarding that advance, see GW1. If the American millitary had seen the Iraqi army as a threat, they would not have created that long supply line, as Tamerlane pointed out. Guerilla warfare was the best thing that they had, and they weren’t particualrly good at that. They never knew when to retreat.
I dunno if any of these qualify as us “kicking ass”, not in a way that makes me confident that we could take out say, a funded, fed russian army as easily. I know no such army exists right now, but someday, someone will catch up. The current style of foriegn policy will not serve us well when this happens. That is why we should pay attention to who we make our friends, and how we make them.
I expect that part of NK’s rationale was to nudge the young Condoleezza unexpectedly, and thus prevent her from easily developing momemtum for her foreign policy visions.
Good answer, but couldn’t they have put a bee in her bonnet by just saying they weren’t going to negotiate? I guess a reason not to talk makes it more forceful, but they had no problem with overt conventional attack threats when talking to Madeline Allbright. What a way to send a message.
Any decent diplomat would convince China to step aside and let the US take on North Korea. A good diplomat would have the PLA and Marines meeting in the middle of the country for a photo opp.
Korean war was nearly 50 years. Whilst North Korea seems to have gone backward in time since then, China has changed dramatically. Trade off between selling the North Koreans down the river or popping the middle class dream in China - the leaders in Beijing would make that trade faster than a Lehman Brothers salesman trying to close an IPO.
Nuke 'em and see how they react?
I should have read more thoroughly. Rush to correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that the Korean war was still technically “on” - that only a ceasefire and never a formal peace agreement was signed.
Quick note: An important part of dismantling an army involves destroying their command and control structure. Arab armies traditionally have placed all authority in upper command chains and there are also huge cultural differences between Middle Eastern and Asian countries.
I don’t think there is any doubt that we can completely destroy the command, control and supply (if they have any) structure of Northern Korea in short order. The real question is how the armies would fight on their own. My guess is that they would be vicious.