OBAMA! IRAN! OBAMA! IRAN! IRAN CAN HIT US WITH NUKES!
Actually, they can’t, but now North Korea can.
Well done, Trump and republitards.
At this point it feels like picking on a tropical storm, but SO MUCH WINNING!
Where’s the OP?
“You’ve changed. I fell in love with Liddle’ Rocket Man, not Super-Large Rocket Man!” <weeps salty orange tears>
Well look who’s calling the shots now:
ETA: Trump sure is a great negotiator, isn’t he?
Come on, HurricaneDitka.
Time to come back and defend your post.
Well, they’re not launching rockets OVER Japan, just testing ones that can blow up Portland. So much winning!
I’m trying to figure out why this thread is still being bumped. It’s been over 2 years now since North Korea tested a nuclear weapon or fired an actual ICBM. I see Bo has brought up some man bites dog level North Korean bluster, and there has been some excitement (on this board) about NK firing some short ranged missiles and the equivalent of artillery (MPLS) systems, but the core is they STILL haven’t actually done the stuff we were originally telling them not to do. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. They must REALLY be desperate for an agreement is all I can say, especially since Trump et al are obviously distracted with his endless other foreign policy fuckups and not really paying much attention to North Korea now that they aren’t being big pains in the ass.
None of this shows Trump is a statesman, but nothing I’ve seen in this thread shows that, regardless, it’s not working. We have bought 2 years of North Korean in activity wrt testing at least for very little. I’ll say the same thing I said earlier, which is even if they start back up at this point it’s STILL worth it, as they are that much closer to crumbling. Every day North Korea gets that much more sketchy, even with China giving them all sorts of back door assistance.
In the meantime, the Norks have constructed at least a dozen new nuclear devices.
Your cite indicates they have had the ability to make 6 new nukes a year since at least 2016 so not really surprising. I do believe that 6+6 does in fact equal a dozen (assuming they made 6 in 2017 and 2018 and we just haven’t counted 2019 as done yet). Unless you believe that had we stayed the course with our old policy they would have magically not made those nukes, it seems a wash to me. There were already going to make them anyway.
At least they haven’t tested any ICBMs or nukes in the interim. Mainly, that’s symbolic or even just for show, but it does say something as they were kind of on a path of increasingly provocative ‘tests’ before…while making those 6+ nukes a year of course.
That’s because you’re completely and utterly missing the point.
If there were a pause that were to lead to a real progress, that would be one thing.
The reality, however, is that this pause is a lost opportunity. In fact, it’s worse than a lost opportunity, because not only does North Korea not trust the US to actually work toward a mutually-satisfying agreement; even worse, the United States under Trump looks incoherent, weak, ineffectual.
Fuck the pause - don’t get distracted by that. What Trump’s foreign policy represents is horrifically dangerous, because when you consider the fact that Trump is now making provocative demands of South Korea and Japan, not only is North Korea not encouraged to participate in nuclear talks; they’re, in fact, quite possibly emboldened.
p.s Still waiting for HD.
Predictably, he pussed out.
And on that note, consider this:
China signs defence agreement with South Korea as US angers Seoul with demand for $5bn troop payment
Another example of Trump playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin, which coincidentally also ends up playing into the hands of China.
Trump’s “America first” schtick is going to end up ceding major influence to China. In the process, it helps Putin because, like China, they want a smaller American footprint globally. But China’s the real winner, the real beneficiary of Trump’s bidness acumen – excuse me, scam artistry.
When the era of Trump and GOP scams is over, this will be the legacy that their party, and the rest of the country, will have to reckon with. The United States is giving away its power, not because it is running out of money (although with trillion dollar deficits, that could be argued, I suppose), but because of its corrupt and compromised leadership.
I just hope that in the coming years, everything is not just simply swept under the rug with the old "Oh, that’s ancient history, no use in going after those Republicans, yadda yadda, for the good of the country, yadda yadda, look forward, not backward…
The massive Republican corruption, the links between Russia and the NRA, the collusion of Bill Barr, McConnell et al need to be rooted out, stem, branch and twig.
I was among those who thought that prosecuting Bush and Cheney for their Iraq adventure was preposterous. But what’s happened since 2016 is on an entirely different scale. It’s important that lots of Republicans go to jail for this unforgivable corruption and selling out of the nation’s interests, and I don’t care if it divides the country; there’s no uniting it anyhow. There’s no uniting anything until we start forcing people to accept some facts, and the fact is they have sold out their countries. And there must be a price for that.
North Korea continues to posture from a position of strength: North Korea says it’s up to US to choose ‘Christmas gift’
What if the ‘gift’ is an attack on Seoul? Or Tokyo?
If the sanctions aren’t lifted, then we’ll go back to seeing a lot more provocation on their part. Trump has squandered any time and leverage it had, and the leverage is increasingly with NK.
Winning! Am I right?
If you are suggesting North Korea hasn’t tested or developed new weapons milestones, I would point out that North Korea tested an SLBM 2 months ago. . They have also been doing shorter-range tests that threaten US allies, and we’ve been ignoring them because they don’t threaten the US mainland.
If you are suggesting that Trump’s diplomacy is to thank for the absence of nuclear tests, I would remind you (as has been brought up here many times) that North Korea lacks a test site because their previous one collapsed from test damage. That situation won’t last forever; assuredly they are rebuilding.
There are no good options in North Korea, so I’m not going to be harder on Trump than I was on Obama. I believe that cowardly engaging in bullshit diplomatic exercise is better than engaging in nuclear brinksmanship. But it violates Occam’s razor in several different ways to suggest that there’s anything going on here except North Korea was at a disadvantage when their test site collapsed, and Trump’s desperation for a deal gave them the political cover they needed to regroup from that setback while simultaneously building out the second leg of a nuclear triad.
But really, the only hint we need to what’s going on is that NK now has the confidence to make public threats to squeeze Trump for more concessions. We all know what the outcome is going to be; Trump is either going to cave again, or NK will cross another line again. At that point folks will have to admit that Trump got nothing for all his abasement to a foreign dictator.
There are no great options, but there’s one option that could work and that’s a gradual reduction in sanctions in exchange for good behavior. But considering that the diplomatic canon ever since the end of WWII stipulates that America be the dominant power and that it must force nations perceived to be weaker to capitulate before we will even negotiate with them, I don’t expect much success no matter who’s president – especially when countries like Iran and North Korea now, thanks to our smashing success in Iraq, have a much better understanding of our real world tendencies to change regimes and know that the only language we speak and respect is deterrent through WMD capabilities.
The problem with our foreign policy is that we have no credibility as a force that seeks peace - this was true even before Trump arrived in Washington. A more ominous problem that has developed since the dawn of the Trump era is that we’re increasingly unpredictable, erratic, vague, and contradictory. That’s the sort of thing that invites miscalculation, and a single miscalculation with a country like North Korea can have devastating consequences - for all parties.