North Korea appears to have gone ahead and done it...

[Rolex]

Originally posted by Neubob
I'm pretty certain that the North Koreans, at least those who have a say in it, want war. There's nothing worse than a totalitarian government that runs every aspect of the affairs of a well-armed, yet poor nation. They have a big army, they have nothing to lose, and societies like theirs would thrive off the pride generated from a national campaign.

They want to get into it with somebody. They're betting we don't have the resolve to hit them with any lasting effect. They're pretty certain that they'll get a few good licks in before things come to a stop. At this point, it's just a matter of provoking the other guy into starting it, thus legitimizing their righteousness.

Well, Neubob, I'm pretty certain that they don't. What they want seems not to be part of this discussion.

I think it would be a good exercise for someone here to assume their role for debate purposes.  I nominate you, since an aspiring lawyer needs to be able to take either side. You game to try it?

By the way, what continent do you live on? Just curious.

[lukster]

Based on the rhetoric and recent rally it looks to me like they are planning for war or at least want us to believe they are.

[Suave]

Kimchi's make champion soldiers, but they fill the ranks of lackluster armies.

An 18D of 1st Group once said to a young suave that if war ever broke out on that penninsula he would "put his gun to the pilot's head and tell him to turn around", He was a soft spoken introverted type not prone to hyperbole, and his green beanie comrades tacitly communicated agreement with his statement.

If we ever go to war with DPRK, lets hope they run out of koreans fast like they did in the 1st match.

[Neubob]

Originally posted by Rolex
Well, Neubob, I'm pretty certain that they don't. What they want seems not to be part of this discussion.

I think it would be a good exercise for someone here to assume their role for debate purposes.  I nominate you, since an aspiring lawyer needs to be able to take either side. You game to try it?

By the way, what continent do you live on? Just curious.

Sure, I'm game. In response to your question: I live in North America.

what I think the North Koreans want?

Well, and this may go with my previous statement, albeit in a broader sense, I think that they want the world to respect their sovereignty, they want freedom from the threat of foreign incursion, and they want attention. They may also want foreign aid, much in the way that Israel receives, and may be using their recent most technological developements as a fulcrum over which to leverage the richer nations. What they do not want, or, I should say, what they will not accept, is an ultimatum. Acceptance of an ultimatum is tantamount to waving the white flag.

I do not think that they seek active membership in this alleged international community that the rest of the civilized world is supposedly nurturing. They simply want to be able to remain on the sidelines, live as they've lived, and do so without the threat of "liberation" (I use quotes because this has become a euphemism) at the hands of certain superpowers.

Not too much to ask for a soveriegn nation, I don't think.

Now, this is what I believe NK wants,--if North Korea's future is in the hands of a single person. It is hard to say what the masses there want.

If this is not the format in which you envisioned my response, I'll change it for next time.

[Suave]

One further note. We were closer to war back then because Kim's father was in power. Despite Kim's childhood, or perhaps because of it, Kim is more sane than his father.

Kim likes booze, tall, fair women, pop cinema.

His father killed and risked his life for ideology.

I can't speak for everyone but I know which behavior is more consisent with my idea of sanity.

The world is lucky that the living god of the dprk is no longer the Fatherly Leader.

I say living because Kim's dad is still officially the president.

[Suave]

Originally posted by Neubob
Sure, I'm game. In response to your question: I live in North America.

what I think the North Koreans want?

Well, and this may go with my previous statement, albeit in a broader sense, I think that they want the world to respect their sovereignty, they want freedom from the threat of foreign incursion, and they want attention.

Yeah that's pretty much how I see it. The Kim regime wants acceptance and legitimization much more than it wants "reunification" which is what Kim's dad wanted.

Hell, when I played the PC game Civilization, the first thing I did was set my tech-tree goal to "nuke".

[Rolex]

I think that's a good synposis, Neubob. I think you'll agree that the final part about the future of the leadership or the view of the masses isn't part of the equation, since the current leadership is whom those who feel they have to do something about NK have to deal with.

Okay, so now the question is what changed the uneasy, but contained 50-year relationship.

How did their attempt to open up a little and engage the world a few years ago get turned around?

1. How does isolation frame the fears and thinking of leaders when there is no direct communication with the perceived adversary?

2. Why do they perceive they are threatened? What specific actions were the catalysts for them developing and testing a nuclear device?

3. I trust you know that Korean cultural pride is stronger and more dedicated than perhaps any other in the world. How does that fit into finding a solution or miscalculation by those who do not understand it?

4. Will you violently confront any attempt to board and search any of your vessels in international waters?

After this, we can look at both sides' position and actions and see where, or if, any solution not requiring people to die is out there.

[Neubob]

I think that one major thing that has changed is that Korea now sees the US as a superpower without a much needed super-advesary to check and balance its ambitions. Back in the good old days of duck and cover, the US and Russia were so afraid of one another that they went to war in secondary arenas, and did so without ever confronting each other directly. Yeah, the Chinese had some Soviet Mig pilots. The Vietnamese had their advisors, not to mention equipment, but the big show never came to fruition, and thankfully so...

Now that the super adversary is effectively gone, the ambitions of this empire of ours are unchecked. The result? A deposed Saddam... An America whose nationalistic fever is rising by the day... An egocentric superpower, still armed to the teeth, that now has no ideological foe as it did with the Soviets. Yes, the Muslims are starting to fill that role, but their religion, technical backwardness and fanatical practices make them more of a frightening joke than the nuclear-tipped evil empire that was the USSR. I'm sure they'll get less funny and more frightening soon enough, but, for now, I think the sentiment is that if push comes to shove, we'll bury them. There was never such a chance with the Soviets. It was either we live together, or we die together. And it could all happen in less than an hour, totally and completely.

Kim saw what happened to Saddam. He knows that the US's hunger for this sort of prey may not have been quenched in Iraq. He's been building up his forces, his readiness, doing all he could, despite the poverty, to have that one ace--a weapon against which nobody, not even a superpower, will wager.  And, as you said, his pride, the Koreans' collective pride, will not allow this thing to continue. Respect, stature, and, perhaps most importantly, an image before his people are all things that are worth fighting for. Perhaps he's also sick and tired of these bloated, ignorant, gun-weilding cowboys hopping around the globe with no care for international boaders, UN resolutions, or public opinion. He may want to be the one to make the American Empire finally blink. It would a legacy to be proud of, and I bet he doesn't have a stable of 1000 luxury cars to taint the image of a leader of men--like Saddam did through his idiot older son. You ask about communication? I think that the actions of the US of the past several years speak more than any direct dialog between leaders ever will. Actions, not words, and there have been plenty of the former.

Is he wrong in all this? No. It's not hard to imagine exactly what place in people's hearts is occupied by modern America. Hell, I've grimaced before at some of the very audible commentary erupting from the mouths of my countrymen in international airports abroad. 'God, this country sucks!!'--London Heathrow, out of a 13 year old brat a couple years back. That's a spitball in the face. I cannot imagine what a soveriegn leader must feel getting told what and how from a nation on the other side of the globe.

Is he wrong in the way he handles his country? You know, I've lived in the US since age 4, and now, a quarter century later, I'm willing to say that it's just not our whoopeeed business. I still believe that every nation, be it the US or Lebanon or Korea, every nation deserves the leadership they have. If they don't like it, it's their duty to change it. Not ours. Will this risk another holocaust? Perhaps. If we continue on our current course, however, I'm afraid that we're gauranteeing another holocaust--our own. What do we do with Kim, now? I have no answers. What I would like to see, however, is some other powerful nation take the lead in this initiative, and the US take an unheard of backseat.

Maybe Kim doesn't want a war, per se. I do believe that he will fight one, though. There's a great chance that he's got the one thing that the US hasn't had in decades--resolve. Resolve to fight the enemy to the death, not to some state of GOP-defined enlightenment or Americanization. I think that Kim is ready to leave his enemy in smoking ruins. We are not. That lack of resolve is our greatest weakness. The credit for exposing that weakness goes to the planners and executors of 9/11.

It's a lesson that neither Kim, nor anyone like him will soon forget.

Sorry for the long, diggressive response, but it seems that these issues all gradually blend into one indistinguishable cluster****.

[ByeBye]

The Clinton administration took the approach of dealing with NK by treating them with respect and trust. NK decieved the US and continued their nuke program.

Nobody was a threat to NK.

[ByeBye]

Originally posted by Rolex
I think that's a good synposis, Neubob. I think you'll agree that the final part about the future of the leadership or the view of the masses isn't part of the equation, since the current leadership is whom those who feel they have to do something about NK have to deal with.

Okay, so now the question is what changed the uneasy, but contained 50-year relationship.

How did their attempt to open up a little and engage the world a few years ago get turned around?

1. How does isolation frame the fears and thinking of leaders when there is no direct communication with the perceived adversary?

2. Why do they perceive they are threatened? What specific actions were the catalysts for them developing and testing a nuclear device?

3. I trust you know that Korean cultural pride is stronger and more dedicated than perhaps any other in the world. How does that fit into finding a solution or miscalculation by those who do not understand it?

4. Will you violently confront any attempt to board and search any of your vessels in international waters?

After this, we can look at both sides' position and actions and see where, or if, any solution not requiring people to die is out there.

Take everything you just typed and reverse it.

[RedTop]

Good Post Neubob.

Tho some of it i kind of see different...I think that was well put.

[Neubob]

Originally posted by ByeBye
The Clinton administration took the approach of dealing with NK by treating them with respect and trust. NK decieved the US and continued their nuke program.

Nobody was a threat to NK.

I think the point of the exercise is to deduce exactly what business the US has, specifically, in limiting the technological advancement of any sovereign nation.

If we say that the US has interests so all-encompassing that any such activity is threatening enough to warrant intervention, be it diplomatic or military, then we've just laid claim to this whole planet as our jurisdiction.

Not fun.

[lukster]

It could have something to do with the fact that the North and South are still technically at war and we are committed to defending the South in the event of further aggression.

[ByeBye]

Originally posted by Neubob
I think the point of the exercise is to deduce exactly what business the US has, specifically, in limiting the technological advancement of any sovereign nation.

If we say that the US has interests so all-encompassing that any such activity is threatening enough to warrant intervention, be it diplomatic or military, then we've just laid claim to this whole planet as our jurisdiction.

Not fun.

I can understand why countries like Iran and NK would want nukes. That's not the issue.

The fact is that military might and the use of force is the law of man and has been since we have existed.

The US has just as valid a reason/reasons for preventing a nation from gaining a such a weapon as any other nation has a reason of aquiring such a weapon.

The US is doing EXACTLY what any nation in our position would do. Same goes for NK. Unfortunatley for NK, they are not a super power.

[Neubob]

Originally posted by lukster
It could have something to do with the fact that the North and South are still technically at war and we are committed to defending the South in the event of further aggression.

I think that this technical state of war, at this point, is nothing but a loophole. There is no practical state of war, at least yet. If it breaks out between north and south, the war on paper will grandfather us into a shooting war. Do we want this? I think some very important people in the States just might.

As to ByeBye's post, I have to agree with you, the US has a vested interest, as does the rest of the world, in limiting the spread of nuclear armament. Yes, we are playing the role, and so is NK.

My main problem with this whole thing, and I'm nowhere near a personal concensus as to what should be done, is that I seriously doubt Kim's plans to actually use the weapon. In fact, his nuclear program's most potent aspect may just be the defiance with which he tests and demonstrates his power. After the shock of that developement has passed, our collective fear of his possessing this power will settle into a stable uneasiness--just as it did when the Soviets first got theirs, not to mention, more recently, Pakistan and India. It's the testing, the thumbing of the nose, if you will, that is the strongest messege he is likely to send. We can sit back and take it, thus allowing peace to continue but setting a dangerous precedent (or, I should say, re-setting it), or we can smush him and risk a real nuclear exchange.