It seems to me there is a very high probability that NK & SK will go to war over the sinking of the SK ship. After all, there is not much difference between sinking one ship and sinking two ships. After that, things can escalate quite rapidly.
What do you think are the odds that a full-scale shooting war will erupt?
And what do you think the USA can and should do? Should we sit it out? Given that we have many thousands of troops stationed in SK, can we sit it out?
What about the possibility of the US and Russia coming to some agreement over the resources in NK and dividing them somehow? After all, the leader of NK is pretty clearly insane and if Russia were to back him, there would be a lot of problems for Russia. Instead, if Russia were to sieze whatever resources the country has and smack Kim Jong-Il (hereafter referred to as KJ) out of power, why not let Russia oversee some transfer of leadership to some puppet Korean regime. After all, could it be any worse than the current leadership?
I realize that these suggestions would be outrageous and out of the question in most any other country. But, consider this is NK and is ruled by a madman. It can’t be worse to let Russia have control considering that NK may well possess nuclear weapons in a few years while Russia has had them for 60 years. So, why not let Russia have control of NK and let them take over their nuke program? Surely that would be safer for the world than allowing KJ to control them or - even worse - dealing with the transitional state of affairs when he dies.
Apparently, he wants to install his son as the new leader. There may well be a power struggle when he does die. The result could be most anything. Why not let the outcome be something we know? Doesn’t the old expression apply here? Isn’t the devil you know better than the devil you don’t know?
Finally, consider that these events are happening largely because the power in NK is based on a dictator. When that man dies, or when his successor dies, we will have to deal with this same crap over and over - unless or until some kind of stable system can be installed in NK.
I think there’s another thread about this further down the page.
But, long story short: the US foreign policy was bastardized by GWB, and is not the typical response. Obviously, GWB didn’t care about terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, unstable politics, etc. etc. etc. Those were all just excuses to invade Iraq and steal their oil. Therefore, even though NK does fit all of GWB’s criteria for invading Iraq, it’s painfully obvious to everyone except GWB that invading a sovereign nation and toppling their government is a “bad thing.”
I think there’s zero chance at all that South Korea will go into a shooting war against North Korea. There realy is too much at stake to pursue that option. What the current government here in South Korea is doing is waging a war of words on the international scene. North Korea, let’s face it, isn’t very skillful at diplomacy.
There is virtually no chance of a war. Perhaps a minor skirmish or the odd cross border shooting or something small.
North Korea is nearly 100% dependent on China. China likes things just as they are. China has a history of human rights abuses. And if the world is so busy with North Korea, they are hardly likely to have other countries speaking out against them when they are needed to keep North Korea in tow
The only way North Korea can engage in any kind of military action is with China’s OK, which they won’t get.
What if North Korea, went ahead with a major invasion? China would step in and in a few minutes they regime would be gone.
North Korean leaders aren’t stable but they aren’t suicdal and they know where there bread is buttered
Gee Superhal, Bush stick up your ass much? The guy is gone for God’s sake. If you want to rant about him, start a thread.
To answer the OP, I don’t think there will be a war. None of the four parties concerned, NK, SK, US or China want one, and I think there is a lot of discussion on what the right response will be. And that response is one that will send a signal, but not start a war.
If SK/US wanted one, (even under, you know, GWB) there would have been one by now. NK certainly gives enough pretext for one.
I generally don’t comment on mod notes, but that was totally uncalled for. Spifflog’s response was exceedingly mild, contained no personal attacks, and used at worst mildly inappropriate language to comment on the poster’s nigh-irrelevant comment.
I generally don’t comment on comments on mod notes, but if Spiff had left off the “stick up your ass” part, it might be as “exceedingly mild” as you claim.
I generally don’t comment on comments on comments about mod notes, but… (oh screw it)
As I said in the other thread, this is an incident about North Korea sinking a South Korean ship in South Korean waters. It isn’t about the USA. We, as allies (not Overlords) should at this time be taking a back seat and allowing South Korea to lead on this matter. We should offer our assistance, and our diplomacy with the Chinese and other UN powers. But in all othre matters, this is a KOREAN affair and we should leave it to their hands.
If it does come to actual war, then I’m absolutely certain that within the first five minutes, we’d be launching a whole lot of missiles at a whole lot of artillery emplacements just north of the DMZ. It won’t be fast enough to save Seoul from a Hell of a pounding, but we’ll do the best we can to mitigate it. Then we’d have some serious talks with China about the best way to proceed, with the most likely outcome being that China issues North Korea a very strict ultimatum, North Korea rejecting it (because otherwise they wouldn’t have committed to starting the war in the first place), and China accordingly officially standing back and letting us (the US and SK both, but mostly the US) drop the hammer of God on NK.
It’d all be over very quickly, and unfortunately, very bloodily.