One more deep breath. Those headlines were from Aug. 2015. I wouldn’t yet put us as close to war as we were almost two years ago. Of course it’s a big deal in the news this time. Two years ago the American populace was mostly not paying attention. That means it’s playing out in US domestic politics not just as an issue inside the US government. When passion and fear starts playing out in the electorate it certainly affects the strategic level where decisions like “are we going to war” or more limited measures that might end up there are made. Especially when the populace’s fears include the real possibility of nuclear tipped intercontinental ranged missiles within the decade.
That’s pretty close to what I have seen in analysis. He didn’t purge as heavily when he first took power compared to his dad. The purging has continued longer though. That’s up to and including recently seeing his ex-pat brother as a threat that needed to be eliminated. He’s also been playing the traditional NK internal politics card of external brinksmanship pretty often (to include going as far as sinking a SK corvette in 2015 to prompt that summer’s drama.) Both hint at some internal difficulties that are pushing him towards continuing brinksmanship. I wouldn’t call anything I’ve seen failing. I also wouldn’t use unstable. Less stable and weaker than we’ve come to expect as the norm is certainly one real possibility that fits.
Kim knows Trump is good at bombing empty fields in Syria and talking shit, it’s all about China - the Chinese have already choked off NKs oil and have begun restricting general trade.
The more China cuts aid, the more Kim’s position is in jeopardy. Not a direct comparison but Putin/Assad kind of comes to mind.
No if you want to get technical, the war in Korea never started. It was a “police action”. Congress never declared war, nor, do I believe, were they asked to do so by Truman.
You know Tom, its fun to think that we could pull a rabbit out of a hat on this one.
*An orbital rail-gun that could put a 50-lb slug of steel through 50 feet of hardened concrete so fast that no missile could possibly stop it. But there’s no way to get one up and assembled and operational in orbit without full on global war.
An extremely high orbit lens between the earth and the sun that could focus heat and light into a beam of solar energy across/through vast defenses. But there’s no way to get one up and assembled and operational in even deep orbit without full on global war.
A gigantic solar “curtain”… thousands of miles long and wide, pulled open from a folded position by a what amounts to a deep space tug-boat ship between the earth and the sun… moving at the same rate of speed that the earth rotates the sun. It would keep ‘open’ its millions of movable square panels when the rest of the earth faced the sun, but close off them off (and subsequently heat up) when NK started to pass into the sun’s range daily. It could kill off all of their food crops and plant life in less than a month.
But there’s no way to get one up and assembled and operational in orbit without full on global war.
(also if it fails and ‘melts’ in a ‘shut position’ that deep in space while matching our orbit, blocking most light to everyone on earth for 30-40 rotations, you might just have killed the whole planet. No saving throw.)
How about some sort of orbital battlestation with a main gun that fires a plasma charge amplified by kyber crystal lenses? A star of death, if you will.
Meet Project Thor. A single launch cluster need be no larger than a KH-11 satelite, so yeah, you could get one in orbit, and maybe even keep it secret - for a while. No one’s going to be surprised if what looks like a spy satelite acts like a spy satelite and swoops over the Korean Penninsula on a regular basis…
There is a profit motive to war, that is essential to the corporate paradigm.
Wars last a long time not because they cannot be won. Rather, because the perpetual state of balanced war is good for the economy. El Salvador and Nicaragua are good examples of wars that were kept in equilibrium for years, but could have been won in days.
Please elaborate. We entered the Korean War as 1 of 21 countries as part of our UN obligations. I can’t find any mention of a separate police action, or is the UN action considered a police action. I don’t find it discussed in that manner. Still looking.
Onward and in other news: I believe the Senate Briefing is today, at the White House, and the House Briefing is today back at the Capitol (not enough room at the WH).
Also, that darned Armada that was not near North Korea last week (2 weeks ago?) is there now, conducting exercises with Japan.
I have also seen headlines about China conducting more exercises.
I don’t know if we’re ending the armistice but it does seem that North Korea is an area of active interest at the moment. I believe all parties except NK would like to see them simmer down and stop with the nukes, but he’s pushing things. Japan is rightfully concerned. Sooner or later will we have to worry about it too. There may be a sort of mass math going on right now that this is best moment to take care of a little regime change. If NK stays “communist” enough, I would guess that Russia and China will go along. If Russia can get a little more of what it wants (Crimea approval or Exxon oil), more skids will be creased.
Yep. Think it’s supposed to start in about 5.5 hours. I think the House briefing is supposed to start 2 hours after that. So, I’ll browse the news sites between those times to see if it’s anything startling.
I’ve heard some of the Chinese rhetoric has been caution-y to NK lately, but I’ve no idea how far that goes.
According to this article, a Chinese state-run newspaper said (in an editorial, and translated)
But not being familiar with their papers, I have no idea how solid a statement that is. And I think I saw another article that expanded upon that saying that while such a strike would not provoke military action, actual invasion-like behavior would, but I cannot find a source on that at this time, so don’t take that to the bank. I can’t think of the terminology used, and am not finding anything with quick searches on Google.
We spent the entire second term of GWB debating whether we were about to go to war with Iran. If I had to guess, I suspect we’re going to do the same as to the DPRK for the next four years.
