OT: A Nuclear North Korea

[Thermodyne]

AMF said:
Unfortunately, getting 'the bomb' is a perfectly rational response for most nations in today's world. Living in a world where the only remaining superpower calls you part of the axis of evil and pre-emptively invades another nation, while simultaneously ignoring those nations that have developed nukes, then the message is clear: the only way to protect yourself against the aggressive superpower is to develop nukes. So, Iran and the DPRK develop nukes. And no one is surprised. Except perhaps Bush.

But, golly gee, maybe if Bush hadn't refused to talk to them at all for the past six years, we wouldn't be here today. Sputing off about an "axis of evil" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is what happens when you put a dum@ss cowboy into a man's job. Bush is clearly the worst president in then history of the US.

He is not the best president we ever had, but then he is not the worst either. What the heck, lets take a look at all this.

He failed to win the war on terror and invaded Iraq for no reason. Well he has failed to win the war, but he did move the front lines out of the US. And he did invade Iraq with little cause. Nothing more than countless cease fire violations, an attempt on the life of a past US president, the violation of a UN aid package agreement. And some faulty intelligence on the state of military developments in Iraq. But then Iraq is the key to the region. And it was a soft target and we knew it. And we had to do it with a rather small force, but then I guess we have to place that at the feet of the previous administration. They were the ones who said that there was no need for a large standing army in a post Soviet world.

As to the only remaining super power, just exactly why is that? Do you have an explanation? Or did you just pluck that from an article in Screw magazine. I guess that’s were you got your rules of diplomatic engagement from too. You seem to have forgotten that we are at war with one of them, and that the other committed an out right act of war against America. Sure they had some bad advice from the French but they did it anyway.

But in getting back to your post, I have to agree that Bush is not made of the same stuff as some other presidents. But then I also have to than god that he isn’t made of the same stuff as his predecessor. By the way, how many Americans has the bush administration killed with the paramilitary forces of the FBI and ATF since taking office? Same question for the Clinton administration? What happened to those thousands of domestic terrorists that the Clinton administration was after? Oh, never mind, I forgot, they turned out to just be NRA members.

In closing, I have to agree, he is not a great president. But he is in no way the worst. Not even if we only look at the last two. I realize that the popular press, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post, Screw, Penthouse, Rolling Stone, and The Enquirer might say otherwise, but then they were all for Gore weren’t they!

[dogscoff]

Sometimes I have to just shake my head and wonder about the state of the world.

1st, any nuclear deterrence gets its strength from the creditable ability to follow through if required. The actual use of the weapons would be a failure. The idea is that should the bad guys create a situation where the only option was nuclear weapons, then they would be used. This deters the bad guys from crossing the line. This has been the case in Korea since the 50’s. It’s just not talked about much and people have forgotten.

I agree with what you say. I was just trying to pre-empt all the gung ho eejits who will jump in with cries of "Why don't we jes' nuke all them pesky Ko-reens off the daymn map?"

[dogscoff]

Should it come to war and in such a way as to allow the US to move ground forces into the region, then North Korea becomes a footnote of history in less than thirty days after the start of hostilities. While the north’s army is large and has big numbers on paper, they are not combat effective. They would do little more than create a target rich environment on a modern battle field. It would be a standard battle. AA suppression, followed with decapitation of the command and control. Then what remained of the air force would be eliminated. After that we would probably hold them in place with arty and air strikes until evidence of starvation among the ranks became visible.

I'm not denying anything you've said in theory, but you seem to be assuming the US would be bringing their full military might to bear. In practise, given the current US political climate, I can readily imagine the generals complaining bitterly about being sent in with only the minimum forces to do the job, which would surely result in a less straightforward victory.

Then there's the whole policing/ peacekeeping/ reconstruction/ insurgency quagmire currently giving the US such a headache in Iraq.

The real reason we don’t go to war is the cost to the US tax payer. There is very little to gain, and it’s not really in our backyard.

There, now you've put your finger on it.

If the US/the west does go into NK, I sincerely hope they learn from Iraq and make preparations for the peace as they do for the war. I think they would though, they have nothing to gain from anarchy in NK like they did in Iraq. That said, I don't think they'll go in. Either China will bully some kind of compliance out of Kim, or the world will simply lay siege to him.