Uh … Because North Korea is run by a tyrannical egomaniacal brat, while the U.S. is an enlightened democracy?
Uh … Because North Korea is a petty country full of inequities while the U.S. is a stable and respected power?
Uh … Because the North Korean leader parades his Army every year like a spoiled little boy, while the U.S. military is wielded by adults for adult purposes?
Uh … Because the North Korean leader is a faker who cheats at golf and likes to rape every pretty pussy he can grab?
Yeah, I guess you’re right, OP — Why should North Korea be expected to denuclearize if the US won’t?
Nukes or the Chinese? They probably have had a non-zero effect (nukes I mean…the Chinese have definitely had a huge impact on the continued rein of the Kim’s) on keeping the Kim family in power, as it’s something they can point to that is tangible and they can and have used it to demonstrate they are on a war footing and that the US is in check and can’t invade them because of those nukes. But the reality is that the US was never going to invade them, and their nukes have definitely been a double edged sword, working to inspire their people with the mistaken belief that the ant-tiger wards actually keep the tigers away and draining their resources and also making them an international outcast who no one but the Chinese wants to invest in or trade with on anything but the shallowest levels. I think we can see in the different trajectory between North Korea and Vietnam how that obsession with nukes has played out for them. Vietnam is by no means a free country, nor have they thrown off the shackles of their communist party, yet they are slowly starting to prosper, despite their own outcast status from the past, and they have the hook in, so to speak, for future even greater prosperity down the road. The biggest difference is, they don’t test nuclear weapons or toss ICBMs over their neighbors to get attention. Hell, they don’t even have the close relationship to China to protect them from the supposedly ravening US, and they have the distinction of actually beating us in a war they didn’t even start, as opposed to the lost the war with the US until the Chinese saved them that is North Korea’s only distinction.
You’ve missed the point again. McDonald’s offers hamburgers for sale. Did North Korea offer nuclear disarmament of their own volition? No, they did not. This analogy fails as well.
Again: someone who wishes something from someone else gives that other person leverage. I’m shocked at your disagreement on this point, as it’s a basic bit of trade and negotiations.
And saved over a million Japanese civilian lives by doing so. At least. Estimates from works such as, e.g., Richard Frank’s book on the proposed invasion of the Japanese home islands, Downfall, suggest the real number may have exceeded 5 million dead.
As to why the North Korean’s possession of nuclear weapons is thought of differently than the US’s, the US hasn’t recently threatened to use weapons like those if its demands for food and aid weren’t met. (Admittedly, because the US can achieve its foreign policy goals without needing to do so.)
The North has.
Unfortunately, the later lives of despots who’ve abandoned their nuclear weapons programs (Muammar Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein) vs those who’ve kept their nuclear WMDs argues rather strongly for not getting rid of the things.
By inducing Japan to surrender without the need for an invasion, the atomic bombings probably prevented that many US casualties; possibly even a million US deaths.
Okinawa cost the Americans almost 50,000 casualties including over 12,000 KIA. The Japanese armed forces took close to 100 percent casualties on Okinawa. Nearly 100,000 killed.
Okinawa has less than one percent of the Japanese land mass and, maybe, one percent of its population.
The number of Japanese casualties, deaths in particular, resulting from a US invasion would have dwarfed the number due to the two atomic bombings.
Little Boy and Fat Man saved lives, American and Japanese.
First–the person (in this case North Korea) needs the power to influence or achieve their goals. And they don’t have that. If North Korea did have any leverage (which would have been extremely small to begin) they lost that leverage and bargaining power a long time ago.
Leverage requires power and influence. It’s not something that is automatic because the other person asks for something. Sure they can ask for something in return, but it’s not leverage.
No. This isn’t as clear cut as you state. It’s been widely reported that the US was contemplating attacking North Korea in the 1990s. For example, from the Atlantic in 2005
The United States has attacked many countries over the last several decades. Clearly, the us of military force by the US is a real option, so the question for the North Koreans would be if the US would attack them or not. There simply isn’t a clear answer.
It’s not irrational for them to look at cases where the US has attacked or invaded countries to cause regime changes, and believe that they needed a greater deterrence.
This is a comparison of apples and oranges. Vietnam doesn’t have external enemies. They don’t believe they need to protect themselves from other countries. Mostly importantly they don’t have a one-man dictatorship.
I’m not arguing the North Korea should be developing nukes or ICBMs. I’m just saying that analyzing the situation using game theory, from the point of view of Kim, it makes sense. He doesn’t care about the masses. He doesn’t care about how many people starve.
If dictators were really concerned about the well being of the people, then they wouldn’t steal billions and billions of dollars, yet they do. For some odd reason, empathy is not one of the traits most commonly associated with brutal dictators.
No, you are missing the point. You don’t seem to understand the disparity in negotiating position vis a vis the US and North Korea. The US wants North Korea to disarm. They don’t NEED them to disarm, however. North Korea does need the US to stop sanctions…as well as the rest of the world, including, now, China. Just because someone wants something from someone else doesn’t automatically give them the sorts of disparate leverage you and the OP seem to think automatically exists. If Jay Leno wants to buy a car from Joe Poor, what this means is that if they can agree on a price, then a car is sold. But it doesn’t give Joe Poor the leverage to say ‘Sure, Jay, I’ll sell you this car if you first sell all your cars!’. Basically, Jay is going to laugh in Joes face and walk away to find another car. Yes, this too is not a perfect analogy, but the point of all of these analogies is to underscore the disparity in bargaining position between North Korea and the US. Once again, the US wants the North to stop doing provocative shit, and to disarm. But in the end, we’ve managed to go without both of those things for, literally, decades, and we can just walk away and kick the can down the road again. We don’t need, fundamentally, them to do more than refrain from attacking the South or Japan or anyone else. Of course, if they do, then it will be bad…but it will be existential for them. Literally no one will come to their aid if they attack first, not even China. On the other side, they need some sort of deal that lifts the sanctions and, perhaps, allows some capital to flow into their system, which is dying. It IS an existential need for them. So, bargaining 101…who is in the stronger position between want and need? Or, you know, keep dwelling on my analogies, which proves…well, that I’m just bad at analogies, especially when I’m drunk, but doesn’t actually address any of the core issues I’ve laid out.
One last try. If you really think that North Korea has this sort of leverage, why doesn’t every other nuclear armed country? Why has none of them ever been able to leverage us into nuclear disarmament and denuclearization? I mean, the Soviets would have loved this sort of leverage, yet they didn’t manage to do it…why do you think that now, at this stage in history, and with reality being real, North Korea DOES have that sort of leverage? Why do you think the fact we want a deal (and our president is obviously an idiot) that this would lead us to denuclearization? Why would we even take serious such a request, that we’d get rid of 1000’s of nukes to get the North Koreas to give up 10’s? Seriously, how does this make sense to you at all??
Sorry, but it’s horseshit. Or, to put it another way…why haven’t we? Why is North Korea still a thing? I mean, we certainly could have attacked them. We still could in fact. Why haven’t we? It’s now nearly 20 years later, yet they are still a thing? They didn’t have nukes for that whole time. What was the tiger repellent for all those years?
Well, even a cursory study of how and why the US has attacked ‘many’ countries would show the factors that could lead to some theoretical one. Acting provocatively, doing things like threats and even testing nukes hasn’t been enough for us to attack North Korea, so there must be more too it. Now, you could make a case that THEY might not see it that way, but there is another factor you are seemingly not addressing…that being that North Korea was and still is in the Chinese sphere of influence, so, the reality is that even if we wanted too invade them we still wouldn’t because of that alone. And this was before China became the second most powerful single nation on the planet. Nukes aren’t what keeps the US out…the US was never going to be in, unless North Korea attacked first.
You are kidding, right? Pretty much EVERYONE was an external threat to Vietnam. They not only had 1 superpower angry at them, they actually had 2, and their shield folded in the early 90’s. True, they never had a one family rule god thingy going for them, but external threat wise, as well as direct economic embargos, no one trumps Vietnam. I can’t think of any other country attacked by more world powers with less external help (one of their superpower NEIGHBORS attacked them) than Vietnam. North Korea, on the other hand, has never been attacked by anyone. They attacked and lost one war, and since then…since before most of the posters on this board, including me…have basically been shielded by the two regional superpowers and haven’t fought shit. They don’t need nukes for protection, and they never did…they wanted them as a threat and also because it buffs the local cred of the Kim family.
Because we didn’t want to deal with the costs of an attack, and if we’re smart, we still don’t. American power is, in part, the projection of power backed up by real power. Once power is used, the projection of power is removed, and we’re dealing with whatever the reality is once combat starts, which is inevitably different from what war planners and pundits thought it would be beforehand. I mean, see Iraq and Afghanistan - why are we still there now? Shouldn’t we have finished our enemies off a long time ago?
They want them for the purposes of blackmail, yes, but that blackmail is strategic. They wouldn’t need to blackmail the US if sanctions weren’t a threat to their regime, but they are. They can be counted on to misbehave and to escalate their misbehavior until we reach a deal on sanctions, and that’s not very likely with Bolton and Pompeo sitting next to the president and goading him to take a progressively tougher stance.
Actually, I would argue that he does. Even in North Korea there are limits to the numbers of people who can suffer before people in high places begin wondering whether their house of cards might collapse. There’s always a chance someone in the military decides that a dictator’s days are numbered - even in North Korea.
The state department might use pretty words to justify the policy, but nukes could hurt an invasion if used properly and deter an aggressor from thumping you at a lower bar of justification. I think if it was only one rogue state, it would have been militarily dealt with by now, but there is a rogues gallery and you have to pick the precedent that you are going to be setting.
Samuel Colt made all men equal, Robert Oppenheimer is doing the same for nations and the rogues have learned that lesson well. Realistically we have done all we can do in NK short of Military action, but we shall have to see how the China tarriffs succeed in the next stage of NK talks.
This post contains many clarifiers and things not at all present in my posts; I’ve bolded the parts that are, IMO, problematic.
You are arguing with yourself, or at least with what you want me to have written.
Go back and re-read what I wrote. I didn’t write anything like what you’re arguing against. None of your “if you really think” things are anything I’ve ever argued.
And you were focused on the analogy and not bothering to address the actual point. So, I extrapolated what you wrote to see if you would engage with something…which you haven’t. So, not really seeing much of a discussion here. Let’s take a step back and see if we can salvage something. The OP is…‘Why should North Korea be expected to denuclearize if the US won’t?’. I’ve laid out why they shouldn’t…basically, because it’s an unrealistic and silly supposition. North Korea KNOWS, just like every other nation, that they aren’t going to get the US to denuclearize. It’s not on the table, and never will be. We might, as with Russia, agree to give up some nukes in a like manner, but North Korea’s pitiful handful of the things won’t even register on our ledger, but we wouldn’t do it anyway. So, unless North Korea doesn’t want a deal at all, they wouldn’t ask for something they know, for a fact, they could never get. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, why? And, as a follow-up, if you REALLY think the US would do this, why hasn’t anyone else tried? Why hasn’t North Korea tried? I asked this question earlier, but it got ignored, but I think it’s kind of a key question.
People can have discussions without being disrespectful, but it doesn’t seem like you can. Winning a discussion seems to be very important for you, so you win! I just don’t engage.
They probably have had a non-zero effect (nukes I mean…the Chinese have definitely had a huge impact on the continued rein of the Kim’s) on keeping the Kim family in power, as it’s something they can point to that is tangible and they can and have used it to demonstrate they are on a war footing and that the US is in check and can’t invade them because of those nukes. But the reality is that the US was never going to invade them, and their nukes have definitely been a double edged sword, working to inspire their people with the mistaken belief that the ant-tiger wards actually keep the tigers away and draining their resources and also making them an international outcast who no one but the Chinese wants to invest in or trade with on anything but the shallowest levels. I think we can see in the different trajectory between North Korea and Vietnam how that obsession with nukes has played out for them. Vietnam is by no means a free country, nor have they thrown off the shackles of their communist party, yet they are slowly starting to prosper, despite their own outcast status from the past, and they have the hook in, so to speak, for future even greater prosperity down the road. The biggest difference is, they don’t test nuclear weapons or toss ICBMs over their neighbors to get attention. Hell, they don’t even have the close relationship to China to protect them from the supposedly ravening US, and they have the distinction of actually beating us in a war they didn’t even start, as opposed to the lost the war with the US until the Chinese saved them that is North Korea’s only distinction.
Seriously, how does this make sense to you at all??