I have a friend who is in the armed forces. He tells me that north korea is more of a threat than we think… does it look like we’ll be going to war with them anytime soon??? (im sure this has been asked before, but amuse me. 
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I certainly hope not O_o
I don’t think China would be terribly keen on the idea, either. Certainly not Japan, given the fact that they are the most American thing in North Korea’s missile range, and I don’t think they are looking to continue their streak of being the only nation to be nuked.
If Bush gets elected to four more years, frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he attacks them. I don’t think he would, but I wouldn’t be floored if he announced it. I would shake my head sadly, because it means a lot of people are going to die. Of course, a lot of North Koreans have already died, so that may not matter to them, but the people in South Korea and Japan may object.
Would we be able to do it? Eh, probably, if the American people would be willing to put up with a helluva lot more casualties than Iraq and the possibility of Japan being hit. I think that the key would be getting China into the right position.
For that matter, the South Koreans haven’t been incredibly hospitable to the American presence, especially lately, and for an operation like this, they would basically become a giant US military base again.
The real question, given that we could do all of the above without pissing anyone off, is if the American people would stand for seeing hundreds of thousands of people die, much less, will we be able to afford such a military action while trying to rebuild Iraq (and Afghanistan, if we ever pay attention to it again until the next time they bite us in the ass). Also, I don’t think that the UN in general would be terribly pleased seeing a hot war for survival between nations with alleged nuclear capabilities.
I see us invading Cuba or the other “evil” nations long before North Korea.
Yeah I asked this a while ago:
North Korea has nukes. When do we go to war?
But that was when we still had most of our boys at home. Now, my answer would be: Not unless we’ve got a whole fresh batch of troops baking in the oven.
Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told us last year:
[http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040409-043322-4828r](Abizaid has requested more forces )
Unless we’re insane we need to get Iraq and Afghanistan finished up first.
… if we were sane, we would have finished up Afghanistan before moving on to Iraq. :-p
We are at war with North Korea. We’ve been in a half-century cease-fire. 
No, we won’t. There’s too much deterrence on all sides.
Besides, Iran is more conveniently situated than North Korea and makes a better scapegoat just now: Neo-Cons See Iran Behind Shiite Uprising
An American empire that stretches from the shores of the Mediterranean to the border of China makes a mighty tempting plum, and Iran’s all that’s left standing in our way.
The U.S. isn’t going to go to war against North Korea unless North Korea does something batshit crazy.
Somehow, that doesn’t give me a lot of comfort. “Dear Leader” is nuttier than a tree full of squirrels.
Considering my youngest son is in currently learning Korean, courtesy of the US Army, I sincerely hope not. At some point the conflict there will have to be resolved, but whether that can happen in a non-violent manner depends more upon North Korea than on the US, I think.
As for “bat-shit crazy and nuttier than a tree full of squirrels”, that describes the shrub’s foreign policy to a tee. If he manages to steal another election, all bets are off on doomsday.
Well, since the US has a Dear Leader of their own, Dim Son, that doesn’t give me a whole lot of comfort either.
Of course, the mere fact that NK can actually defend itself if invaded and lacks desirable natural resources is hopefully enough of a deterrent for yet another madcap neocon misadventure in pursuit of world hegemony. It would certainly take more than a couple of months for Dubya to pull his aircraft landing stunt if he decided to march into NK.
Think other nations might be taking notice? Getting a hold of nukes while Bush is in power is starting to make a whole lot of sense.
Didn’t anyone catch this article from Friday afternoon?
North Korea says standoff with US at “brink of nuclear war”
Now, granted, it sounds like so much hot air from NK, but it’s generally not a good idea to ignore threats from loonies armed with nuclear weapons.
And besides, let’s be honest – it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to imagine Bush and cheney deciding to do something as stupid as a “pre-emptive nuclear strike”…
We ignored threats from terrorists for years while saying that they had nuclear weapons… don’t see anything new about it. And that worked out just SUPER. :-p
Wait, now are the neocons going to be confused? Do they invade or not?
Anyway, it sounds like NK just rattling sabres like the attention whores that they are. I don’t think they are stupid enough to actually provoke the US.
On the otherhand, Bush IS Bush…
The U.S. isn’t going to go to war against North Korea unless North Korea does something batshit crazy.
Like starving most of the country and sticking every Christian they can find in a concentration camp isn’t batshit crazy enough.
Here is a crazy thought: How about the various nations in the region put some troops on the DMZ? Why only the US? Or how about the UN actually do something about North Korea, rather than shuffling about, saying, “Well, how about you go unilateral on their asses, old bean. We’ll be over here passing some resolutions…”
South Korea is more than plenty equipped to deal with N.Korea. Idle daydreaming aside, we will have a role, but it will be largely supporting, air support and the like. S. Korea doesn’t need our troops, and we can’t get them there fast enough anyways. (Other than some Airborne types, and that won’t be much good against even the pathetic NK mechanized forces.)
If NK tries to draw us in (launches on Hawaii or something), we may see buckets of instant sunshine dropped on Pyonyang, but I wouldn’t count on that scenario occurring. Also, I would gave grave doubts about the accuracy of N.Korean missles, making it entirely possible that they would miss Hawaii. Remember how amazingly innaccurate the Scuds (and Scud variants) were back in GWI.
If we were sane, we’d never have gone into Iraq.
Talking about invading N.Korea is pretty stupid. Bush can barely keep Iraq under control… imagine N.Korea ! Like a cook that can’t make a simple cake talking about making a banquet !
You can nuke 'em… you might even bomb 'em… but forget invading anything but small countries in the carribean.
I’d suggest some of you people need to step outside that bizarre militaristic bubble over in the US – this thread reads like a lot of very weird people with no context but who have swallowed everything their ‘leaders’ tell them.
I guess this is the way empires expand; they convince their people it just has to be done . . . so-casual, so fucked up.
Hopefully, even GWB isn’t capable of a mistake of this magnitude. The only way this could happen would be if NK does something so outrageous that even the Chinese would agree that their regime needs to be toppled. To invade them without Chinese support (or at least guarantee of neutrality) would be suicidal.
The current criteria for US military action can be summed up as follows:
GWB: Did the leader plot to kill my daddy?
Cheney: Can my company make money off of it?
For the moment, we’re safe.
Are you implying that we couldn’t take China? OF COURSE we could take China. We’re the flippin king of the WORLD! 
We would have to conjure up some troops from somewhere to go to war with NK.