Korean Brinksmanship

[Gob]

[Lord Jim]

Oh now you've done it Strop...

If the GenX Leader see that, he'll declare as the last straw for imperialist provocations, and the shells will start to fly...

[dales]

Oz is well within range of DPRK missiles.

Careful there, mate.

[Crackpot]

Don't worry about rising tensions in North Korea. The US has sent over the B52s

They'll soon surrender once they've had to listen to ' Love Shack' a few times.

If that doesn't work we're conscripting REM back together.

Do you know what that will mean?

The end of the world as we know it?

Look up REM+B-52's

[Rick]

The thing that bothers me the most is that he might just be stupid enough to think he can pull it off...

[dgs49]

When the other party acts in a way that appears irrational, there is no alternative but to open up a direct line of communication from top to top.

If this is not in process, then Our Beloved President is even more worthless than I previously imagined.

[Scooter]

And if Obama had gotten on the phone to Pyongyang, you would have vilified him for giving credibility to a madman. Do you not realize how fucking transparent you are?

[Lord Jim]

When the other party acts in a way that appears irrational, there is no alternative but to open up a direct line of communication from top to top.

In this case, I don't agree with that at all, for a number of reasons...

First of all, we don't have good enough intel about this guy to know what could be said that would get him to climb down, versus what could be said to set him off;

Second, giving him that sort of ego gratification, (a direct call from the POTUS) even if he stood down this time would only encourage him to manufacture more crises in the future.

Direct contact like that when things are getting out of hand, is what you want when you believe the leader on the other side to be rational, (like Nikita Khrushchev in The Cuban Missile Crisis) not irrational (as in this case).

Here's the latest escalation:

North Korea Warns Embassies to Evacuate Before April 10

North Korea advised the Russian and British embassies in Pyongyang today evacuate their staff, saying their safety could be at risk "in the event of conflict from April 10."

"The proposal was made to all the embassies in Pyongyang, and we are now trying to shed light on the situation," Sergei Lavrov told journalists in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office in Britain confirmed the request in a statement. "The British Embassy in Pyongyang received a communication from the North Korean government this morning,"

The news was the latest escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula, spurred by near daily bellicose threats North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made, since the U.S. and South Korea began large scale military exercises last month.

On Thursday, U.S. officials confirmed that two medium-range missiles had been moved to North Korea's eastern coast, fueling speculation that North Korea was planning a missile strike.

In response, South Korea sent two Aegis destroyers equipped with advanced radar systems to both its coasts. The untested North Korean Musudan missile is estimated to have a range of between 1,800 and 2,500 miles, potentially putting U.S. military bases in Okinawa and Guam within its range.

The call to evacuate foreign embassies appeared to be the latest tactic by North Korea to dial up the rhetoric and win concessions from the U.S. and South Korea. Pyongyang has already threatened a nuclear strike against the U.S., declared it has scrapped the Korean War armistice, vowed to restart a plutonium reactor, and blocked South Koreans from entering the jointly run industrial complex in Kaesong.

"If Pyongyang were getting ready for an armed conflict in earnest, it would hardly have asked the foreign missions to leave the country," said Alexander Zhebin, head of the Korean Studies Center of Russian Academy of Science, in an interview with Interfax. "Moreover, the North Koreans would in that case have used foreign diplomatic missions as a shield, because strikes against Pyongyang, which would have affected embassies as well, would naturally have been condemned and rejected unanimously by Russia, China and other countries."

In North Korea today, thousands took part in rallies against the U.S. and South Korea. Broadcaster KRT aired images of students donning military uniforms, practicing their shooting while speaking against "the warmongers in the White House and Pentagon," according to the Associated Press. State television also showed workers from the Pyongyang 326 Cable Factory supporting their country's nuclear program.

"I cannot stand it anymore. We're scared of nothing," said one marching student.

While Kim has yet to act on his threats, the mere prospect of conflict on the peninsula, has rattled investors' confidence in South Korea. The Yonhap News Agency reported foreigners were rushing to unload South Korean shares and bonds, with investors offloading $667 million in the stock market Wednesday and Thursday as they looked to safer investment destinations.

GM CEO Dan Akerson said he would consider shifting production away from the Korean Peninsula if the situation deteriorated.

"If there were something to happen in Korea, it's going to affect our entire industry, not just General Motors," Akerson said, in an interview with CNBC.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/nor ... V8H5ze591E

[Gob]

[Crackpot]

I have a feeling that calling for the embassies to be evacuated is a publicity stunt if they go they're pawns of the evil empire if they stay they're showing solidarity

[rubato]

When the other party acts in a way that appears irrational, there is no alternative but to open up a direct line of communication from top to top.

If this is not in process, then Our Beloved President is even more worthless than I previously imagined.

You don't actually read the newspapers, do you?

the Un-Dictator has cut off the hotline w. South Korea.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/world/asi ... ea-threats

And we never had a direct one between Washington and N. Korea.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

A situation like this is a delicate, and complicated balancing act....

On the one hand, we can't ignore what is said...

Especially when what's being said is, "a state of war exists between us, and we're preparing to launch nuclear weapons at you" (coming from a country that we know has The Bomb, even though they can't possibly deliver one on a warhead...presumably they could place one in the DMZ, and kill hundreds of thousands of their own soldiers and hundreds of thousands of South Korean troops as well)

But what is far more important in a situation like this, isn't what is "said", but what is "done"....

It's their actions we need to be watching far more than their rhetoric....

From that standpoint , by canceling The Armistice, and now cutting off all relations and contact with South Korea, (including shutting down South Korean access to the Kaesong Industrial Complex)

The North Koreans have laid all the diplomatic and practical groundwork for an attack...

But in another sense, even "actions" of those sorts can be interpreted as rhetoric....(though unprecedented rhetoric)

We have to look at changes on the ground, (and presumably we have the technical means to do this) that indicate that the North Koreans are truly preparing to use the capabilities they do in fact possess, (like the ability to launch their withering artillery potential against Seoul) and take appropriate counter measures....

Which we appear to be doing...

I think it's telling, that unlike in previous North Korean sabre rattling episodes, the Chinese have issued no public condemnations of the US for bringing more forces into the region...

As I pointed out before, it's not at all in the interest of the PRC to have this rogue semi-client state of theirs launch an attack that would completely up-end the Asian economic system, (and of course, by extension, the global economic system)...they're too deeply vested in that system to want that to happen...

The one we need to keep the "hotline" open with is President Xi....

I suspect that the Chinese leadership is acting in pretty much good faith, (since it's in their own best interest) to do everything they can to prevent the regime of the GenX leader from initiating a shooting war on the Korean Peninsula...

But as I've pointed out before, the history of the relations between these two countries indicates that as dependent as they seem to be, the North Korean leadership is perfectly capable of acting with disregard towards the Chinese when they choose to...

The Chinese have put up with their insolent and ungrateful behavior, both because they calculated that the series of "Leaders" were more a thorn to the West, and because they didn't want to have millions of starving North Koreans pouring across their border...(which would be one of the inevitable results of the toppling of this regime)

However, it may be that they're finally seeing a different calculus....

I continue to believe, that the most likely denouement of this current drama remains that at the end of our annual joint military exercises with South Korea at the end of this month, The GenX Leader will declare "victory" by having stopped the "invasion" that was never going to happen...

But we can't count on that...

And even if that happens, we have to remain mindful of the fact that he has raised the bar by canceling The Armisitice...

Something his Hennessy Cognac swilling, South Korean actress kidnapping, platform shoe wearing father never did...

[Lord Jim]

If the current crisis passes, the one thing we must absolutely insist upon as a pre-condition for any negociations or agreements for any further discussions, is an unconditional re-acceptance of The Armistice....

This can not be tied to anything else; it must be done first, and without any concessions...

I believe we could even get a unanimous vote from the UN Security Council on that one....

The GenX leader seems to need a history lesson...

[Joe Guy]

I believe North Korea's latest saber rattling is not good for Korea or any of the rest of the world. China doesn't want to see an immature inexperienced warmonger stirring up things that would force China to consider to act militarily on Korea's behalf.

In fact, Kim Jong Un may be doing more to help U.S. & China relations. The Chinese may be now realizing what a complete nutcase Kim Jong Un is and that he has turned out to be a liability.

The Korean strategy is going to backfire on Kim Jong if he continues on his current path.

Someone like Lord Jim might ask, "WWRD??

(What would Reagan do?)

It has become a Mad Mad Mad Mad world...

Of course the answer to WWRD is, "Mr Kim Jong Un, tear down this wall!!

Or we will be forced to turn North Korea into a land of scrambled radioactive rice patties."

[Lord Jim]

Of course the answer to WWRD is, "Mr Kim Jong Un, tear down this wall!!

Not at all Joe....A poor analogy...

Mr. Gorbachev was a rational person...

He knew when the jig was up, and he was beat....

Mr. Un seems to need a lesson in "How Do I Avoid Having My Country Destroyed, 101"...

[Andrew D]

Of course the answer to WWRD is, "Mr Kim Jong Un, tear down this wall!!

Not at all, Joe.

Issuing a rhetorically pleasing admonition and then waiting more than four years for the North Korean dictatorship to collapse from within is definitely the wrong strategy.

We need to do something that will actually make a difference, not just something that will merely feed a particular ideological bent in our own domestic politics.

[Lord Jim]

trolling me about it, (as I see you've already done in another thread)

I stand corrected...

Make that two threads....

[Andrew D]

Ah, blessed be the Urban Dictionary:

Reverse Trolling
When someone of little or no intelligence on the internet gets into a discussion, debate, or argument that they cannot keep up with because of their inability to think and process information outside of their closed little mind, and respond by calling the other person more intelligent than them (A TROLL)!

[rubato]

The real underlying problem is not for us but for the people of N. Korea to solve. When they have the self-worth to demand a more democratic government and the courage to fight for it they might have it.

Compare Libya to Iraq. We were stupid to go into Iraq because the Iraqi people did not want their own emancipation enough to fight for it themselves. What has been left behind is ruin and chaos as the strongest gather power to themselves to cement a new totalitarian government in place to replace the old. Obama was right to support the independence movement in Libya because the people there had already showed by their actions that they were ready to fight for it.

Until that happens our role is to contain and minimize the harm.

yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

The real underlying problem is not for us but for the people of N. Korea to solve. When they have the self-worth to demand a more democratic government and the courage to fight for it they might have it.
....
Compare Libya to Iraq. We were stupid to go into Iraq because the Iraqi people did not want their own emancipation enough to fight for it themselves.

Except that NK has nukes and can deelever them to countries around them. Yes, we can wiat (forever) for the NK citizens to rise up and take down the leaders, but in the mean time the leader can inflict much damage on neighboring countries.