North Korea detonates another nuke

[rampartgator]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_2666319.html

Raising tensions in the region, North Korea apparently conducted its third and largest test of a nuclear weapon yesterday. Understandably Japan and South Korea are the most worried about this, but even China--North Korea's patron and only friend in the world--is apparently upset and facing great pressure to act.

The timing seems suspicious to me, coming as it does on the eve of Obama's State of the Union address. Is this just another yowl for attention from N.K., or a serious threat?

Given North Korea's continuing experimentation with long range missiles, I think the latter is the case. But I also think that North Korea's leadership may be seriously overplaying its hand, and not just because of China's likely dispproval.

Barack Obama is now in his second term in office and is unconstrained by what his supporters on the left might prefer him to do. I think that Obama as much as anyone would prefer a continued uneasy peace in the region to all out war, but I also don't think that he is willing to continue a status quo of intensifying threats indefinitely.

Given Obama's now proven track record of preferring targeted assasinations to the mass-scale military actions chosen by his predecessors, I would not be at all surprised if a plan for some sort of targeted strike is already in the works to effect regime change in North Korea without the bloodshed of a large scale military action; and, if North Korea's leadership continues to force the issue, it would also not surprise me if such an event were to take place with China's knowledge or even participation. They are making far too much money off the American people to allow the cowboy dictator of a pissant country like N.K. to foul it up.

[MichiGator2002]

Well, it has been called a provocative act, which is I suppose a marginally useful substitute for actually acting in any way provoked.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

New war!! Yeahhhh!!!!

[rampartgator]

24 hours after the fact and you complain that nothing has been done about it. What would it take to satisfy you, an immediate Trident submarine strike?

Originally Posted by MichiGator2002

Well, it has been called a provocative act, which is I suppose a marginally useful substitute for actually acting in any way provoked.

[rampartgator]

Not yet. ButI suspect that NK's current dictator needs to hire a reliable food taster.

Originally Posted by orangeblueorangeblue

New war!! Yeahhhh!!!!

[MichiGator2002]

Originally Posted by rampartgator

24 hours after the fact and you complain that nothing has been done about it. What would it take to satisfy you, an immediate Trident submarine strike?

Oh look, false argument by hyperbole. Y'know, there are almost infinite degrees between what he actually said and a nuclear strike. Or maybe you don't, hell. But there are. Just within the arena of words, he could be less pusillanimous and a bit more uncompromising. It isn't provocative, it has provoked. Stop treating the concept of a North Korean nuclear umbrella as thought it is tolerable to American interests, or at least have the guts to admit that he (meaning Obama) is just a bit too above it all to worry about trifles like North Korea as a nuclear player with aspirations of first strike capability. Announce some kind of new round of training exercises with our South Korean allies in response. You can rattle a saber without actually unsheathing it.

[gatorev12]

^Agreed. Plenty of different ways to handle North Korea without attacking them.

[Minister_of_Information]

It would be ironic if we followed MacArthur's advice 60 years after the fact.

[MastaG8r]

Breitbart says, remember when?

In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama promised that he would eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. His campaign manifesto, Change We Can Believe In, described Obama’s North Korea policy, and the philosophy behind it, in great detail:

Obama did not just leave such talk on the campaign trail. In his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama boasted of the success of his policy on North Korea:

He repeated the North Korea boast in his 2011 State of the Union address:

Yet today, on the day he is to give the first State of the Union address of his second term, North Korea has tested a nuclear bomb. Not only has Obama failed to eliminate the North Korean nuclear weapons program; he has also failed to discourage or deter it. So much for “tough diplomacy” from the Obama administration.

[MichiGator2002]

Thing is, South Korea eventually being cowed into submission as it realizes it stands alone under North Korea's nuclear umbrella, and China's and the Obama-led US's indifference is in and of itself a species of "peace" on the Korean peninsula. So... not a lie!

[Minister_of_Information]

Do we send IRBMs to South Korea as a counterweight?

[wargunfan]

These generals had to be about ten years old when the Korean war ended. I wonder how they earned all those medals?

Could there be a worse gangster regime in the world today? Is this what "containment" looks like under the Obama administration?

[MastaG8r]

Originally Posted by MichiGator2002

Thing is, South Korea eventually being cowed into submission as it realizes it stands alone under North Korea's nuclear umbrella, and China's and the Obama-led US's indifference is in and of itself a species of "peace" on the Korean peninsula. So... not a lie!

You're right! How silly of me to forget the new truths. War is peace! Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength! Yes we can! Forward! We are the change we're waiting for! And these are not the droids you're looking for!

[The_Graygator]

Originally Posted by rampartgator

24 hours after the fact and you complain that nothing has been done about it. What would it take to satisfy you, an immediate Trident submarine strike?

More like he wants a president who promises he's not going to allow NK to have a nuclear weapons program (Obama said this 2008), to actually to keep his campaign promises. Yet another lie by Obama.

I find it incredulous that NK is proliferating nuclear confrontation on the Pacific rim but you're attacking Republicans by suggesting they'd use nukes. There are way to have prevented this proliferation by NK besides nukes.

As usual, Obama's foreign policy collapses so it's time to blame the Republicans.

This is yet another Obama mess.

[gatorev12]

Originally Posted by The_Graygator

More like he wants a president who promises he's not going to allow NK to have a nuclear weapons program (Obama said this 2008), to actually to keep his campaign promises. Yet another lie by Obama.

I find it incredulous that NK is proliferating nuclear confrontation on the Pacific rim but you're attacking Republicans by suggesting they'd use nukes. There are way to have prevented this proliferation by NK besides nukes.

As usual, Obama's foreign policy collapses so it's time to blame the Republicans.

This is yet another Obama mess.

North Korea isn't an Obama mess--it's been a mess for the last 60+ years now. That being said, Obama's certainly guilty of over-promising at the campaign level in 2008 and being grossly naive in thinking the North Koreans will go along with what he commands.

Tough sanctions haven't deterred North Korea from doing what they want--and so long as the regime is in a position with its creature comforts, nothing will be done either. The truth of the matter is that "regime change" in North Korea most likely won't do much of anything.

Their population is ridiculously poor, completely uneducated, and used to living in feudal conditions. Expecting any type of representative government to step in the void is not going to end well. The South Koreans are the default entity most people assume would step in...except that the South Koreans themselves aren't exactly keen on the idea. Look at how expensive reunification has been for the Germans and multiply those costs x10.

[The_Graygator]

Sorry rev, but Bush wasn't cut any slack, and Obama won't be cut any slack either. heck, even I critiqued Bush about Nk on a couple of occasions.

I am not a lemming, a zombie, a blind and willing disciple to this socialist and I will not give him a pass like his mindless liberal automatons here do either.

Obama said in his 2008 campaign that he would end the NK nuclear program, and they've detonated another warhead.

Time for Obama to man-up and show he's a leader, but he won't do anything but wag his finger at NK.

[gatorev12]

I don't like Obama any more than you do--but North Korea has been a problem before he was President and will continue to be a problem for the foreseeable future--including after he's left office.

Liberals blasted Bush for everything under the sun--and a lot of it being dumb stuff that was going on long before him. There's plenty of valid reasons to criticize Obama--we don't have to strain and stretch ourselves to make him any worse than he already is. Doing that would essentially be stooping down to their level and I think you're a lot better than needing to resort to that, IMHO.

If you're wanting to make the point that this is yet another example of Obama's hype machine failing to deliver, that's a valid critique. Certainly not going to defend his gross hubris in over-promising our country in 2008...nor liberals bending over backwards to pretend like Obama wasn't full of sh*t when he said 90% of the things on the campaign trail that any reasonable/rational person could see would be impossible.

[MastaG8r]

Originally Posted by gatorev12

The South Koreans are the default entity most people assume would step in...except that the South Koreans themselves aren't exactly keen on the idea. Look at how expensive reunification has been for the Germans and multiply those costs x10.

I agree that the German experience is the best study model for predicting how a Korean reunification might go. But why do you say it would be 10x more costly?

[gatorev12]

Originally Posted by MastaG8r

I agree that the German experience is the best study model for predicting how a Korean reunification might go. But why do you say it would be 10x more costly?

The East Germans actually had an educated population and a somewhat functioning economy. Their economy and standard of living was nowhere near the same as those in West Germany or Western Europe, but still light-years ahead of where North Korea is now.

And, despite all that, reunification has cost billions of dollars in aid, subsidies, and other government spending.

North Koreans today have no functioning economy, are severely malnourished, have little to no education, and the economic costs are going to be far, far greater to catch them up to South Korean standards.

[MastaG8r]

Originally Posted by gatorev12

The East Germans actually had an educated population and a somewhat functioning economy. Their economy and standard of living was nowhere near the same as those in West Germany or Western Europe, but still light-years ahead of where North Korea is now.

And, despite all that, reunification has cost billions of dollars in aid, subsidies, and other government spending.

North Koreans today have no functioning economy, are severely malnourished, have little to no education, and the economic costs are going to be far, far greater to catch them up to South Korean standards.

Okay. Good points, hard to argue with any of that. But in the long run wouldn't it still be a better outcome than the status quo? Didn't it all work out okay for Germany in the end? There isn't a school of thought over there that reunification was a mistake, is there? I'm asking, not challenging.

Maybe I'm revealing some ethno-prejudiced ignorance but it seems to me that Asians have simpler needs and lifestyles than Europeans, and that without taking too much of a hit on their own economy, the South Koreans could elevate the quality of life in the North to something that would be marginally decent by their standards.

I wonder how Japan would feel about that. Or Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. A reunified Korea would become a major economic and political power player.