# Nuclear blackmail with pathetic demands: Give in? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014 "2012-09-07T17:28:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/41 "2012-09-08T21:02:50Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > Are you trying to establish a pejoritive term for North Koreans ? It has been around for a while. [2007, at least.](http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/10/nork-deal-carro.html) Let’s change the stakes a little. What if North Korea threatened us with nukes, unless we did a _good_ thing? Like, "If you Americans don’t institute a European-style health care program – " Ok, that’s a terrible example. The button would probably be pushed before the sentence was completed. Let’s try again: “You capitalist running dogs will feel our wrath unless you provide $30 million in food aid to address the ongoing famine in Mali and Niger!” Or, “The Juche collective will stick one up your hiney unless the President’s commitment is fulfilled to provide $4 billion over the next three years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria!” Or, “If you don’t provide a dollar-for-dollar match for Kim Jong-un’s charity drive to benefit National Public Radio stations all across the United States, you better be looking for your iodine pills, you capitalist running dogs! Comrade Kim loves him some Prairie Home Companion!” Those ultimatums seem a little more difficult for me to come to a conclusion on. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/42 "2012-09-08T22:33:40Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > Time for me to weigh in I suppose. > > First of all, regarding my left or right-wing-ing-ness - well almost all left wingers would call me right wing, but on the other hand every right winger would call me left wing, and ultimately my left wing pro individual freedom principles win out over my right wing pro collective, economic, and cultural freedom principles. So I am a left winger fo the purposes of this. > > As to my views - well frankly I’m flabbergasted. I would have thought it were a no brainer to accept the blackmail and give them the pittance they want. By all means start ramping up systems to prevent anyone else ever getting nukes, ever again. By all means state that any significant increase in these demands will be followed by violence. But for me it’s so unbelievably obvious that a nuclear war in which tens or possibly hundreds of millions will die should be averted by practically any means. Hell, they can have a hundred dollars per Nork if they want. > > I thought left wingers would generally agree with me, being generally pragmatic when it comes to this kind of dilemma, while right wingers would act like the majority of posters in this thread, valuing principle over result. Although no one stated their political position as I asked, on a left leaning board for all but a couple to act as I expect right wingers to act is very peculiar for me. > > Anyway, do carry on 😉 “Once you pay Danegeld, you are never rid of the Dane.” ---
**Author:** ![Uber\_the\_Goober](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/58956e/32.png) [@Uber\_the\_Goober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uber_the_Goober)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/43 "2012-09-08T23:45:24Z")
We’d have to quickly build about two or three Tanyas, then send them in and C4 all their missiles and take out their entire army. Ha ha hahaha! (that laugh brings back memories…) C&C Red Alert ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/44 "2012-09-09T07:14:36Z")
If you give in to Blackmailers then they repeat, and up their demands. The major problem would be if China and Russia WEREN’T threatened themselves. They would no doubt by force of habit oppose any miltary, let alone nuclear activity by the West, and subtly add their threats of retaliation if “poor little N.Korea”, were attacked. China considers N.K. to be its backyard, and Russia holds a lot of hatred against the West, even though ironically it could be regarded as being a nation approaching fascism now rather then its old Cold War Communist self. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/45 "2012-09-09T11:16:07Z")
I think too much is being made of the slippery slope: agree to one set of demands, and the next set will be worse. So what? Say no to the worse set. If a child asks for a juice box, do you say no because the next step is the child asking for a cotton candy machine in his/her bedroom? ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/46 "2012-09-09T11:18:52Z")
I think your analogy may be leaving out the threat of nuclear destruction. Rarely, if ever, have I witnessed a child ask for a juice box with the accompanying threat of, “or otherwise I will nuke San Francisco”. Well, thinking back, one of the offspring may have said something like that when she was 5 and read a lot of SF. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/47 "2012-09-09T11:39:42Z")
Lots of people have said they oppose meeting NK’s demands, but no one has explained why they would oppose meeting the demands _as a delaying tactic or pretext for launching an attack._ I assume no one would actually oppose such, if it offered the best chance at a successful attack. I’ll go further, though, and say that if in exchange for meeting their demands NK agrees to whatever conditions we deem sufficient to guarantee that they will be incapable of posing a further threat to us, then I would think meeting their demands would be the correct course of action. Note that I leave open what sort of conditions we might be sufficient, but I assume there exists some set of conditions short of “let us nuke your entire country to glass” that would do. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/48 "2012-09-09T13:01:38Z")
Boom. On _them_, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/49 "2012-09-09T13:06:31Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > I assume there exists some set of conditions short of “let us nuke your entire country to glass” that would do. I’d be willing to accept the heads of everyone in their government that approved the blackmail plan, as determined by us, delivered to our commander at the Demilitarized Zone, within 24 hours of the threat being made. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/50 "2012-09-09T14:58:13Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > I think your analogy may be leaving out the threat of nuclear destruction. > Rarely, if ever, have I witnessed a child ask for a juice box with the accompanying threat of, “or otherwise I will nuke San Francisco”. Please explain further why the nuclear threat makes a certain type of miniscule demand so unacceptable. In my view, the argument that if you give in one millimeter, you are perpetually at the mercy of escalating demands a country like North Korea, is just chest-thumping prideful nonsense. The slippery slope is called a fallacy for a reason: one is perfectly capable of saying, “THAT is all that is required to successfully negotiate a peaceful end to this crisis? Pfft, that’s nothing!” and then later saying, “Your demands are insane, and THIS MEANS WAR.” Let’s frame this a different way. Let’s say Kim Jong-un asks for one penny under threat of war. It seems like many people here would think that any price demanded under a threat is reason enough for the US to launch a nuclear first strike. I think valuing one penny over the lives of millions of North Koreans is a genocidal and totally immoral position. There is no possible justification for this policy. If North Korea were to demand something huge, of course war might be a valid option. But to say that we are unable to distinguish between one penny and something big when millions of lives are at stake is a reckless, inhuman, and disturbing ethical position. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/51 "2012-09-09T15:22:17Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Let’s frame this a different way. Let’s say Kim Jong-un asks for one penny under threat of war. It seems like many people here would think that any price demanded under a threat is reason enough for the US to launch a nuclear first strike. > > I think valuing one penny over the lives of millions of North Koreans is a genocidal and totally immoral position. There is no possible justification for this policy. You’re blaming the victim. If Kim Jong-un is the sort of psychopath who would start a war and kill millions to steal a penny, he needs to be put down like a rabid dog. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/52 "2012-09-09T15:29:13Z")
Exactly. He is the one doing the extorting. Therefore, on his country falls the retribution, in this case a series of nuclear-tipped cruise missles. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/53 "2012-09-09T17:58:30Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Please explain further why the nuclear threat makes a certain type of miniscule demand so unacceptable. > > In my view, the argument that if you give in one millimeter, you are perpetually at the mercy of escalating demands a country like North Korea, is just chest-thumping prideful nonsense. The slippery slope is called a fallacy for a reason: one is perfectly capable of saying, “THAT is all that is required to successfully negotiate a peaceful end to this crisis? Pfft, that’s nothing!” and then later saying, “Your demands are insane, and THIS MEANS WAR.” > > Let’s frame this a different way. Let’s say Kim Jong-un asks for one penny under threat of war. It seems like many people here would think that any price demanded under a threat is reason enough for the US to launch a nuclear first strike. > > I think valuing one penny over the lives of millions of North Koreans is a genocidal and totally immoral position. There is no possible justification for this policy. > > If North Korea were to demand something huge, of course war might be a valid option. But to say that we are unable to distinguish between one penny and something big when millions of lives are at stake is a reckless, inhuman, and disturbing ethical position. Earlier, Skald the Rhymer quoted Kipling thus: “Once you have paid him the Dane geld, you never get rid of the Dane.” To answer this question, I would quote more of the poem: “We never pay anyone Dane-geld/No matter how trifling the cost;/For the end of that game is oppression and shame/And the nation that plays it is lost!” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/54 "2012-09-09T19:45:49Z")
Ooh, there’s the Rudyard Kipling poem about the Dane geld. Well, Kipling’s views on international relations aren’t the type that I place much credence in: if we held Kipling’s poems to be literal and unerring maxims for diplomacy, we might actually believe that the White man’s burden is a good thing. I question the reasoning of anyone who would seriously propose that North Korea is capable of subverting the United States to its will in the same ways that the Vikings terrorized disorganized villages. I mean seriously, get a grip. This reminds me of the same kind of concrete thinking which holds that the United States was obligated to attack Iran in 1979 because the invasion of the US Embassy was an _act of war_, and if there is and _act of war_, then the only proper response is to declare war, no matter what the actual situation is. This zero-tolerance policy removes human judgment and ethics and renders matters of life and death to being no more than a two line computer code that could be run on a Commodore 64: > [@](#): > > 10 If ANYNORTHKOREATHREATWHATSOEVER then goto 20 > 20 load “NUCLEARWAR”,8,1 No thank you. There is no excuse under any moral code to kill millions of people over a penny, even if you blame the whole thing on a spoiled brat of a dictator, not even if you can find some even better colonialistic poetry to back up your view. The person who would actually order the launch a nuclear war over a penny is a psychopath who deserves to rot in hell for all eternity. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/55 "2012-09-09T19:51:40Z")
As has been pointed out, we _already_ negotiate with North Korea and give them significant amounts of aid due entirely to the implicit threat of their nuclear capabilities. Do people really think we should be starting a nuclear war with them? Or is it only _explicit_ threats that require that we kill millions of innocent civilians, including those our allies in South Korea, and risk global conflict with China and Russia? How explicit does it have to be? “Boy, New York sure is a nice city. Hope nothing happens to it.” China itself has explicitly threatened repercussions if we acknowledge Taiwan as an independent nation. We don’t, even though it’s clearly a fiction. Should we be massacring Chinese civilians rather than giving in? Seriously, some of the responses here are just laughable. You don’t launch nuclear weapons to back up some idiotic principle. Nuclear weapons are and should be an absolute last resort. Attacking North Korea over a penny, when we already give them millions, WOULD start a war with both China and Russia. Launching nuclear weapons at North Korea would mean the end of humanity. But I guess when Kruschev threatened to bury us, that should have been that. Can’t allow some madman to say things like that! ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/56 "2012-09-09T20:26:40Z")
I should have stated in my last post that any\* president\* who launches a nuclear war over a penny should burn in hell. I did not mean to imply ill wishes on anyone debating this subject, but I only noticed my poor phrasing just now. I apologize for the error. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/57 "2012-09-09T23:33:39Z")
Thank you Ravenman. Yours is the view that I expected to be predominant here, it’s quite peculiar to me that it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/58 "2012-09-09T23:57:24Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > As has been pointed out, we _already_ negotiate with North Korea and give them significant amounts of aid due entirely to the implicit threat of their nuclear capabilities. Do people really think we should be starting a nuclear war with them? We should not be giving the North Korean necrocracy aid. Giving them aid only ensures that they will survive to continue persecuting the North Korean people and threatening and murdering their neighbours. > [@](#): > > Seriously, some of the responses here are just laughable. You don’t launch nuclear weapons to back up some idiotic principle. “Don’t reward people for committing armed robbery” is not an idiotic principle. North Korea has a moral obligation to not try to rob the rest of the world at nukepoint. If they refuse to fulfil that obligation, they need to be dealt with. > [@](#): > > But I guess when Kruschev threatened to bury us, that should have been that. Can’t allow some madman to say things like that! He wasn’t threatening people. The meaning was more along the lines of “We will outlast capitalism.” ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2012, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/59 "2012-09-10T01:04:51Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Exactly. He is the one doing the extorting. Therefore, on his country falls the retribution, in this case a series of nuclear-tipped cruise missles. Well, that **sounds** like a good idea. But the inevitable shitstorm that would follow against whoever turned the country into glass would **not** be fun. Tell an assassin to put some bullets in Un and the chief of military’s head, sure. Bomb the missile facilities even, but there is simply no morality, not to mention any possible good political outcome of nuking the whole country once the South Koreans start getting on news programs talking about how they’ll never again see the family they had trapped over the border. Not to mention all the talking heads lamenting all the innocent victims of the Kim regimes that had to die even though they did nothing worse than be in the wrong part of Korea during the war. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2012, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014/60 "2012-09-10T01:18:13Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Your “pragmatism” is the willing acceptance of a life of slavery under whichever sociopath is least deserving of your loyalty. As I asked above, would _you_ accept to be vaporized, along with your family and a couple millions of your neighbours in order to avoid this “life of slavery”? You really think your stance would be worth, say, 100 millions lives? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-blackmail-with-pathetic-demands-give-in/634014.md?page=4)