Taepodong-2 missile was aimed at Hawaii?

[PhredBean]

Don't count out the Japanese defence force yet. From what I see they have an excellent professional force which can stand up to some scrutiny, their defence budget alone is $45 billion. I will admit the defence force would have to bit bigger in order to back up South Korea in a fight. A remiltitarized Japan could be a good thing, enough to make China nervous.

No, the hight of Japanese military power has passed. Their constitution doesn't allow for rearmament, nor do the people want a large military. The professionalism of their troops is a marvel though. A fully rearmed Japan wouldn't be able to make modern China even blink though. Racial tensions still run a bit high, but there is no danger of a war between the two.

Both have an interest in the Korean peninsula though. Nuclear tensions and an armed NK would be a danger to both. Koreans don't much like Chinese or Japanese much and the feeling is mutual. China nor Japan would care if Korea unified except if it became a economic rival, which even if Kim died and the border was dissolved tommorow wouldn't be an issue for a long time off.

If Kim and Bush could stop huffing and flexing their miniscule dicks there might be a chance for peace there, which is one reason why we should dissolve our military bases in SK. Japan and SK can put enough pressure on NK without us and Bush's "Axis of Evil" mentality in the way to find a peaceful solution. Peace failing they should at least be able to keep things stable long enough for Kim to croak or until there is a coup. Nukes and ICBMs are a long time off for them and if NK ever has some kind of breakthrough there is nothing to stop US bombers from tearing them down to phase one out of the blue. We don't need bases there or to breath down their necks, our arm is long enough to silently watch and act from here.

 

[SuAside]

i'm wondering how far the normal NK folk (the peasant warriors & non-military personnel) will go in case of war. there is still a good part of the populace that's being spoonfed that they live in paradise thanks to their infallible leader.

while the initialconventional war might not take so long, would there be a guerillia reaction? or would it be sufficient to show people what the world really is like? arguably a good red cross-ish campaign of distributing supplies could win a lot of hearts, but how many hearts & minds would you win after decimating a great part of the populace & when facing a people that've been faced with decades of propaganda against US, SK, Japan & China?

PS: also remember the NK has a lot of safeguards that might not really damage a conventional assault, but will slow it down greatly. the concrete blocks they can drop on the road to block tank progression for one is extremely nice due to effectiveness & costefficiency. (for those unfamiliar: it's a series of large concrete pilars that can be tipped over to block road traffic in areas where other roads arent available (mountain passes, bridges,...). you cant simply push them out of the way, because they are a series dropped right after eachother. if pushed, they'd simply deadlock. stuff like this is very common in NK.) anyhow, simple but slows down an assault pretty nicely. if coupled with guerillia units, this could be an even more significant threat.

 

[Roshambo]

Russia and China stopping North Korea from going to war? Are you kidding?

Well, if it came to losing SK as a trade partner, then DUH! They have a lot invested in SK, in particular China through SK and Japan. Russia to a lesser degree, but they really hold no love for Kim either, but apparenly know how to deal with Communist dictators a little better.

If the Russians and Chinese took their hands off it would only because they calculate that saving North Korea is not in their interest. But protecting South Korea? That's nuts.

Trade partners don't mean anything? Russia and China both trade with SK, and rely on that trade for many things. The US also is the largest export consumer of China, which would hurt a lot of the country if the US stopped importing from there, and which along with SK's economic prosperity, has been helping China. For example, allowing a child to look forward to going to college instead of working at a low-wage factory, because the Chinese economy is growing.

So...I doubt China is going to distrupt their newfound prosperity through the US and SK for...NK.

And you don't think that North Korea is a test of the US resolve to protect Taiwan. If the US gets nuked protecting South Korea, how likely are we to stop China from pressing for Taipei?

Assuming that anyone CAN nuke the US at this point. See references about the laughable technology and the idiotic fear mongering in relation to it.

And if the US gets burnt in this exchange and decides to keep out of foreign affairs- hot dog! China gets easier access to Central Asian Oil!

Yeah, well maybe the US should have KEPT TO DIPLOMACY, versus Bush Idiocy, and things would have been progressing better instead of pushing Kim back into a corner.

Trusting China is foolish.

Except when they have to spend a bit to keep the Yalu River manned from refugees, and declines to spend anything from US aid to help them. That says a lot, that the Chinese don't care about NK, and NK is becoming an increasing burdon on them.

Pissing in China's backyard with nuclear fallout would be the dumb move compared to, say, having China further protect its interests with SK.

And how much is it worth (in dollars) to stop Kim from actually going through with a war.

Yeah, $5 BIL/year to the SK govt per base, when the SK army ALONE could wipe the NK forces off the map in convetional warfare.

You guys are forgetting a core element of nuclear diplomacy. Using nuclear coercion only works if the other side believes you are capable of going all the way.

Yeah, and I'd wager that Kim's dick is bigger than his capability for nuclear coercion. Of course, the threat of ONE nuke from NK is enough to make the terror puppets dance, when the Cold War and the threat of that was far more real.

(Snip more excuses as to why we should nuke first, think about diplomacy when things have become even more fucked up.)

I agree that utilzing nuclear weapons would create a lot of anti-US resentment. Actually using them would cause many thousands of unfortunate casualties.

Which would just make what...another generation hate the US, because the US wouldn't care at this point to help rebuild NK, look at the mess they re-left Afghanistan in. And the mess gets worse.

But if you think South Korea and Japan going to war with Japan through conventional means won't get you to the same place, you are foolish. That would only mean that you are slowly moving up the ladder of escalation that could lead eventually to nuclear warfare as 'war by other means" only after leading to many thousands of civilian deaths by conventional warfare.

Pfft...the ONLY feasable reason that Kim is posturing with nukes is because he knows his conventional forces are no match for even SK's active duty, not to mention the 5 MILLION IN RESERVES that can be called up within hours. Plus, most of the NK forces would be shot up in the DMZ as they try to make it through there while being shot at. As pointed out in the article, NK invading SK = suicide, same thing with the nukes, so he CAN deter from a conventional invasion with the threat of being able to hit somewhere important.

You make it clear to Kim that you are willing to go all out, that nuclear holocaust is just a touch of a button away. You make it clear that the steps are already being taken. You make it clear and certain that the US will accept the risks of war- both economic, political and diplomatic. That this is so important to the US that we are willing to do it.

So? Kim already knows this, as Bush has essentially said so. Kim already knows the whole song and dance, as do people who don't buy into the new terror bullshit. There is no possible way Kim could even hope to scratch the US, China, or even SK, conventionally. There would be many troop casualties from the DMZ, but even NK having a medium presence at the DMZ would stretch the rest of the forces extremely thin.

So that means the nukes are to deter what Kim sees as a likely future. You know, with the threat to invade Iran, Iraq's been turned into a fucking mess, and NK is also on that list. So that means Bush doesn't want to do things diplomatically, so Kim has to resort to a "if you attack, we'll make it hurt" stance.

Nuclear deterrence was also known as the Balance of Terror for good reason. Nuclear obliteration is terrorism-an awesome way to scare the shit out of your enemy. Thus Japan ends World War 2 because it has no idea how many more Hiroshimas and Nagasakis it has to look forward too.

And if Kim is already looking at a likely US invasion, what would YOU suggest that he do? Lie down and take it, or try to formulate...oh, hey, something to deter anyone from attacking conventionally. When you back a dog into a corner, don't bitch when he tries to bite.

But like terrorism, it is an act that requires projecting character and resolve- the willingness to do something unthinkably horrific. Deterrence or compellence has to be credible, or it won't work.

Pfft. I like that Saddam didn't have resolve. No, Iraq was turned into a scapegoat to take attention away from Bush's miserable failure to do anything in Afghanistan but fuck it up even more, and was invaded upon weak excuses and no evidence.

You give Kim a door out- comfortable exile vs certain death. And you make it clear that if he doesn't take the exile option, he and most of his country will be vaporized.

Excuse me? What kind of bullshit is that? Exile in another country he doesn't have anything to do with? Who the fuck would agree to that bullshit? At least the SK and many people from the US were trying to work with Kim instead of putting his back to the wall to make it a strategic requirement for a nuclear deterrance. That is, until the US stopped caring to do its end.

Rosh, you know damn well how much I think Bush is a prick and I've been plenty clear about my criticisms of the US in the past.

But this suggestion of conventional warfare as acceptable is bullshit.

Kim's only possible use of nukes would be to use them in deterring a conventional attack. So if SK invaded, Seoul glows. If Japan invaded, Tokyo glows. If the US invaded, the US military bases in SK and much of Seoul would glow.

If Kim decided to strike first with a nuclear attack, he knows the nuclear reprisal would turn NK into more of a wasteland.

Conventionally, Kim is held back. With nuclear power, Kim is held back.

Guess what this means...STALEMATE. The only route left is diplomacy, unless you'd like to try and nuke and see what China then thinks about the idea (and we'd pretty much lose a shitload of relations with SK, who ARE trying to peacefully negotiate, and who would also have to live with the fallout), or try another Iraq-style invasion and see where Kim's possible nuclear capability could light up a city or two in response.

Diplomacy has consistently failed.

Bullshit. It was getting much better under Clinton, in particular the one-on-one talks that previous Presidents and celebrities would have with Kim. It didn't make him feel like everyone was out to get him, and relations were getting much better even if Kim tried the occasional sneaky bit.

In fact, it's been the media and the military that have been overblowing the NK threat, almost to the point of inspiring Clinton to call in air strikes and to incite a war. Once that bullshit was found out, the diplomacy I spoke about began.

The only way out is to depose him, influence a regime change, or force him out of state.

Funny, and the Cold War was solved...diplomatically, and over time with each side accepting the other in measures. Kind of like the 1994 deal made in Geneva. Yet you're saying it's a good idea to nuke first over a much smaller and dubious nuclear capability.

Just...no, that's sick. Even the plan devised in Clinton's time to take out a missile along the the surrounding support is a far better idea, which just destroys the engineering of the site (which would rather crush Kim's ability, as such sites are costly).

You can't trust China's interests to play by what you wish for. Rather, play by what you can expect and a proven track record. The Chinese will fuck the US if it can. China has only self-interest to consider.

You can, however, trust China to be interested in their interests, and part of their growing economy base and restructuring involves SK. They don't give a shit about NK or Kim anymore. They DO care about SK, and to an extent the US due to much of the aid and income provided. China could honestly care less about Japan.. Only culturally, though, since they rely on trade as well.

Russia may play smarter to deter what it sees as greater US aggression.

Actually, Russia would probably protect its trade partner, since any disaster in SK would affect them rather badly, since Russia does rely on trade from that region (China, SK, and Japan), and they would feel it if the area destabilized. In fact, NK being wholly destabilized would result in a larger mess than Iraq.

"Our military will continue with missile-launch drills in the future as part of efforts to strengthen self-defense deterrent. If anyone intends to dispute or add pressure about this, we will have to take stronger physical actions in other forms," Pyongyang said.

These aren't the words of someone who is going to make the first move in a nuclear exchange.

But to get rid of Kim you must send a clear signal. You have two choices- leave or die. All this crap about US popularity abroad only suggests a lack of resolve.

No, it suggests that the US doesn't know what the fuck it's talking about or dealing with, because OMG!!! WMDS! SHIT YOUR PANTS!!!!! The neighbors of NK know it a lot better culturally and deal with NK a lot more than the US, and know that putting this kind of pressure on an Asian monarch is the LAST thing to make them cooperate. Ultimatums are met with return-threats, as Bush's implied threat that Iraq->Iran->NK was his intended route to destroy the "Axis of Evil". Again, things would likely be FAR better with diplomacy instead of international dick-swinging, and while Kim's is likely not that impressive, it would be pure IDIOCY to expect him to not swing back.

In a game of chicken- where two cars are speeding at each other in the hope of both drivers swerving to avoid the other, often both play brinksmanship that leads to a collision because both drivers are certain the other would rather swerve and suffer shame, then crash.

The way you win the game is by making sure the other driver sees you throw your steering wheel out the window.

Which is how the Bush administration operates, and doesn't bother to think about the consequences of their actions.

Playing the same game here- make sure that Kim knows that war is coming and it will be unimaginably horrible and yet the US is enthusiastic about this, that the US wants this, and then KIm will have second thoughts.
.

No, it demonstrably strengthens his resolve to build a self-defense deterrance if the US or anyone else should invade, as Bush implied that he would. NK has been facing the possibility of being invaded for years, and the last thing Kim really needed was an even better reason to accelerate his nuclear program. Bush, the bumbling idiot that he is, gave him that reason.

 

[welsh]

@ Bradylama- it's not the profits from a two week war that matter but the alternative game.

W's administration came in with a policy towards a ballistic missile defense system- a variation of Reagan's SDI/Star Wars project that was just a big lump of bullshit meant to scare the crap out of the Soviets.

Since coming to office W has continued to work on the system. Never mind that the use of such a system would basically cancel out much of the deterrence that nuclear weapons affords the great powers and, ironically, increase tensions.

However, if North Korea builds ICBMs that W has more reason to build a Ballistic Missile defense system- regardless of its destabilizing affects to more potent nuclear powers- such as China and Russia.

If Kim and Bush could stop huffing and flexing their miniscule dicks there might be a chance for peace there, which is one reason why we should dissolve our military bases in SK. Japan and SK can put enough pressure on NK without us and Bush's "Axis of Evil" mentality in the way to find a peaceful solution. Peace failing they should at least be able to keep things stable long enough for Kim to croak or until there is a coup. Nukes and ICBMs are a long time off for them and if NK ever has some kind of breakthrough there is nothing to stop US bombers from tearing them down to phase one out of the blue. We don't need bases there or to breath down their necks, our arm is long enough to silently watch and act from here.

The reason the US has maintained military forces in North Korea is to maintain a credible tripwire. During the Korean war, men had to be quickly shuffled over from Japan to oppose the North Korean forces and were run over by North Korean T-34 tanks they had gotten surplus from Russia. It was a lucky thing that the US was able to stop the North Koreans at Pusan. Had North Korea succeeded it would have accomplised an fait accompli- and it would have been very difficult for the US to reverse the North Korean success.

Since then the plan has been to make sure that if North Korea invades it confronts a force that involves US troops, thereby creating the certainty that the US will be involved.

This creates a credible deterrent to North Korea by providing the certainty of US involvement. It also maintains the US role in Northern Asia security and helps prevents Japan from arms racing against China by guaranteeing Japan that the US will be its ally in the event of hostilities from China or from North Korea.

It is, like NATO, the continuation of the US to secure its economic and strategic interests abroad by providing a security umbrella.

Should the South Koreans want the US to leave, that's up to them. Up until then, its better that the US stay. It is a tripwire. This force is not expected to stay, and if they end up being hit by a nuclear attack, that's part of the risk. Either way, the US sends a clear message to North Korean- if you start a war with the South, the US will come in on the US side.

This force is less about actually defending South Korea than sending a message- if you attack South Korea you will be attacking the US, and that will mean war. Those bases should stay as long as South Korea wants them there.

Let the South Koreans and the Japanese take care of the situation. They have enough money and military wealth to take care of themselves.

Why not just avoid the whole mess and let the Japs take care of things? They're seperated by an ocean, and the South Koreans certainly can't be blamed for JSDF planes jetting across the Sea of Japan.

Oh my god! North Korea has the bomb! Might hurt US troops if there really was a war? They might hit the US? Let's just abandon our interest in Northeast Asia, let China become the dominant hegemon and hope that the big bad North Koreans will just go away! Because they make me scared! Nuclear war is a bad thing!

Fuck that.

As much as I hate Bush and think he's an asshole, that he's fucked up Iraq and Afghanistan, despite all that- it's bullshit to give up over 50 years of a successful US foreign policy that contains North Korea because they got the bomb.

Fuck that.

I don't give a crap how bad Bush is. The US should not go all pussy because North Korea has the bomb.

You do not deter an enemy by showing fear. You show deterrence by tell them to fuck themselves with their threat, by making it clear that if they fuck with you than they will suffer more pain than they can ever possibly endure.

And fuck this policy of counting on China and Russia. For most of the last 50 years the Chinese and the Russians have backed North Korea against South Korea. What military technology North Korea has comes from China and Russia. You think they won't sell him more?

Back when Kim's dad decided to invade, it was Russia that gave the OK to start the war, and it was China that saved Kim's ass when the US was about to finish the war. It has been consistently North Korea that has threatened South Korea, that has sent soldiers into its territory, that has attempted assassination efforts against South Korean staff.

And you count on these guys, because of trade, to protect South Korea. Well fuck, then might as well give all of North Asia to China, and try to keep that smile on your face while China fucks the US in the ass.

Bullshit.

The US has been the dominant securing power in North Asia since the Korean War, and if there is any reason why North Korea never went to war with South Korea again it was because the US was there.

Oh, North Korea can't defend itself? Sure the technology is old and run down, that its running old tanks and that it has barely and airforce or a navy. But it does have the fifth largest military in the world, the largest special operations force in the world, enough artillery to obliterate Seoul, third largest arsenal in chemical and biological weapons (plus the ability to send that to its neighbors), plus 6-12 nuclear weapons.

Would it use chemical and nuclear weapons. Well, rational folks might say no.

That said, lets say there was a conventional war- that Japan or South Korea decided to launch a preemptive strike to take out North Korea's nuclear deterrent. Perhaps they might succeed- but would they have 100% chance of success? Unlikely or the North Korean ability to produce would probably have been smoked already. So North Korea sees a conventional strike against it, the army crumbles. It is unlikely that China or Russia will come to its aid this time around- so it tells the US, South Korea and Japan, if you invade me, I will destroy Tokyo and Seoul. Why not? What does Kim have to lose? In the process a conventional resolution leads to a nuclear conflagration.

During the Second World War there were three forms of warfare that were deemed abhorrent and against the laws of war-
mass bombing of civilian cities, unrestricted submarine warfare, and the use of poison gas. Submarine warfare quickly because adopted. Mass bombing of civilian cities was used as a terror technique early on (beginning in Spain, then the low countries, later against London and the cities of German and Russia until it was deemed essential to the prosecution of the war).

Poison gas was withheld. Why? For one reason the Germans felt such weapons were abhorrent and should not be used. More importantly they feared that such weapons might be used against their own people.

Would Kim, hiding beneath a mountain in North Korea, worry about what happens to his people? He hasn't cared yet. Do you think he would restrain himself if it meant a choice between his destruction and a chance for survival? Consider the case of World War 2- to Kim is nuclear war more like poison gas or mass bombing. I think mass bombing because he doesn't give a fuck about his own people.

This is one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. The division between North Korea and South Korea remains the last major split of a national state as a consequence of the origins of the Cold War and end of World War 2. It is time that the division end, that Korea unifies as a peaceful state.

Yes, W's Axis of Evil speech alienated North Korea. But did it make that big a difference? Did North Korea really change?

It wanted to build nuclear weapons for a long time. It developed nuclear energy and then there was an effort to stop them from building the bomb. They broke their word and did it. Ok. But they don't have the capacity to deliver. So they made short range missiles. Well... at least they don't have long range missiles. Oh but now they do. How much more of this bullshit do you want to put up with? Even if their technology is laughable, when will you draw the line and say, that's it. Our regional allies are already being threatened by this and our relationship with those countries is based on mutual defense. Threats to them are threats to us. Or do you just want to wait until he gets the next generation of technology and more accurate missiles?

Diplomacy- has consistently failed with North Korea. In part this is because the North Koreans insist on dealing directly with the US and the US has historically wanted to deal through South Korea. The US has counted on China to deal with North Korea. In the process we hold our policy hostage to a power that is, in may ways, a rival.

Yeah remnember Afghanistan- the US decided to let Pakistan deal with Afghanistan and the Pakistanis helped support the spread of violent Islam anti-american groups to power. And you want to repeat the same method using China, the rising regional hegemon, as our surrogate for negotiations with North Korea?

What the fuck? More hiding your head in the sand? This is not how the Cold War was won. During the Cold War the Soviets would constantly play on US diplomacy of reassurance. What worked was credible confrontation. Sorry, but I see little reason to suck off Kim's cock merely because he has a missile. Rather I see good reason to bring out a big pair of ssissors and cut him where it hurts.

China?

Oh.. yeah. The Chinese trade with South Korea..... It's not about South Korea for the Chinese, its about the danger of confronting the US and regional domination.

Frankly, I am not thrilled with the idea of an expansionist China in Asia. I don't want to see China moving into Central Asia and seizing central Asian oil? I am not quite happy that China has been able to muscle the ASEAN countries out of the South China Sea. And yeah, China trades with those folks too.

China's economy is growing, but as long as China is not competing with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the US, its economy is not a problem and trade is fine. But what happens when China does become a competitor- when Chinese cars compete with South Korean, or Chinese electronics have to fight with South Korea for market share? Or when China and South Korea compete for the limits of oil coming out of Central Asia?

China does not want a strong South Korea. China would also like to see the US out of North Asia in the long term.

A war in Korea makes it easier for China to go after Taiwan. It tried that in 1950s. YOu think it wouldn't try that again?

You are going to gamble based on your wishful thinking of what China might do? Have you ever tried doing business with these partners as they try to ass fuck you in 101 different ways?

I'm sorry but I put no faith in wishful thinking about China nor do I see a reason why we should trust the Chinese for our national security. Next thing, they'll be expecting us to blow them too. Fuck that. In this world you stand up for yourself.

North Korea-
Seriously Rosh, this isn't about North Korean deterrence. This is about North Korea remaining significant and achieving its regional ambitions. If the North Koreans were concerned about deterrence than you are right, the policy should be to reassure them that there will be no attack. But then what? Are the North Koreans going to go away and make nice?

But North Korea has maintained an aggressive policy of inevitable capture of the South. Regardless of Bush's Axis of Evil speech, historically it has not been the South and the US that needs to be deterred, but North Korea.

Ok, so this makes Kim a sad little whacko dictator. Well, fuck him. He's made plenty of people sad in his life. Who would agree to a life in exile- Taylor did until Nigeria kicked him out. Idi Amin did until he died. Marcos left the Philippines and others have as well. It is possible to let a dictator leave and thus end a problem.

Rosh you say that Kim's only possible use of nukes would be using them to deter conventional attacks. Bullshit. Are you forgetting the times Kim has used his threat of attack to blackmail his neighbors into giving him food aid or other assistance, into cash awards? How much is it worth not to have a nuclear war to Japan or South Korea- US $1 billion? $2 Billion?

When North Korea makes its demands, again, that the US and South Korea should stop military exercises because he might threaten a nuke- should the US listen?

I mean just read some of the posts above- "lets get out of Korea because North Korea has the bomb!"

Kim is held back? Really? Until when? Until he thinks he can launch a nuclear strike while he hides out under some mountain?

celebrities

Things were better using celebrities? Ahh. Kim's secret weapon is Alec Baldwin and the other members of the Film Actors Guild?

The Cold War was solved because the Soviet Union went backrupt. It did so because it realized it could no long achieve its strategic ends and trying to do so had led to economic ruin as it tried to keep is empire together. It was not solved diplomatically since the US didn't believe Gorbachev's overtures even within months of withdrawing from Afghanistan.

And diplomacy is more effective if you do so from strength than hope and wishful thinking.

This is a game of nuclear diplomacy that North Korea initiated by building nuclear weapons and ICBMs. Kim didn't have to do this, but choose to. Even Libya was able to cut a deal with the US, so nothing stopped North Korea.

Now North Korea builds ICBMs and nuclear weapons, and eventually it might either develop or steal the ability to launch accurate missiles. North Korea has entered the game of nuclear diplomacy because it wants to show the world that it can stand up. Fine. Come down hard. Nuclear diplomacy is not for pussies. If North Korea can't hack it, than it should end it while it still has the chance. End the missile system, end its nuclear project and then negotiate a quiet retirement.

Enough. I see no reason why the US should put up with this bullshit. The US has capacity to negotiate from strength. It should do so while it can and the costs of escalation are comparative low.

Seriously- Do you think the North Koreans are going to take a diplomacy based on reassurance seriously or will they just laugh at you?

Do you think the North Koreans might take things more seriously, if they had B-52 heading in their general direction?

Fucking Jesus Christ. The North Koreans are fucking with the United States. Its about time the United States shows that it still has the balls to send a clear message to North Korea- Try to fuck with us and you get a world of hurt.

And mean it.

That is deterrence.

Rosh, what you suggest is a joke.

 

[welsh]

So what is Kim really up too?

Perhaps its not deterrence but a warning or an insult-

North Korea's missiles

Rocket man
Jul 6th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Kim Jong Il is a threat to stability in Asia. He should be resisted—especially by China

THERE is no law against testing missiles, even far-flying ones intended to rattle nerves around the globe. Yet North Korea's attempted firework display, launching a Taepodong rocket (which fizzled) and half a dozen others (which worked) was calculated to blast a hole in the diplomatic effort by America, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to get Kim Jong Il's regime to give up its nuclear bomb-building. The bigger worry is that this week's pyrotechnics will incinerate wider efforts to stabilise a region full of dangerous rivalries.

Which raises two problems-

What is Kim really trying to do?
How does this asshole manage to fuck up regional diplomacy?

Of course we can blame W for everything, but really- it was Kim that fired off the rockets.

With its medieval economy and eccentric leader, the Hermit Kingdom often seems more tragi-comic than threatening. By many measures, North Korea is not even the most terrifying country in Asia; that dubious honour belongs to Pakistan.

Thanks in no small part to US Afghanistan policies in the 1980s, but that's for another post.

Evil though Mr Kim undoubtedly is, the chief dangers his regime poses to outsiders are often accidental: that one of its rockets will unintentionally hit Japan, or that North Korea's economy will collapse (something that terrifies both China and South Korea). Mr Kim claimed that his previous launch—of a Taepodong missile over Japan in 1998—put into orbit a satellite which then warbled patriotic tunes back from space. In fact, although that rocket flew farther than this week's ones, its final stage plopped into the Pacific.

Which would raise the rather odd queston- Did the missile go defective or did Kim really want to drop a missile on Japan?

If you guess "it was on purpose" than Japan looks like a pussy for doing nothing.

If it was an accident, than Japan still looks like a pussy for doing something.

And this dipshit keeps fucking around?

Mad, bad and actually rather dangerous

Yet there are still grounds for worry. Mr Kim would not be the first to claim a space programme as disguise for a weapons programme, and rockets that can lift other things into space can carry warheads too. His latest Taepodong missile, if it can be made to work, might reach parts of North America. It seems unlikely that North Korea would be able to put a nuclear warhead on such a device. But no one knows for sure—and North Korea has worked closely in missile and nuclear matters with Pakistan. A missile test may not be as frightening as the bomb test he contemplated doing last year, but this week's launch drew angry reactions from America, Russia, Japan and even South Korea, which usually glosses over Mr Kim's provocations in the hope of smoother North-South relations.

In otherwords, wishfully thinking that Kim will behave will get you little except a bad case of denial.

So what is Mr Kim up to? Miffed at America's recent crackdown on his kleptocratic regime's hard-currency take from dollar counterfeiting, drug running and the like, this week's display was partly a rocket-fuelled raspberry at George Bush. It may also partly have been intended as a technology demonstration for the few countries still in the market to buy North Korean missiles, such as Iran (if so, it did not work well). But Mr Kim's biggest target was surely the six-way talks; in particular, he wants to be treated more like Iran or, especially, India.

Oh... so he's pissed that the US crack down on counterfeiting (which was also popular in Syria) and drug running.... That's all this prick is up to.

Or he's trying to advertise his missiles to potential buyers and it blew up in his face.

The fucking guy is unstable.

North Korea was offered economic and other inducements last September, provided it gave up its claimed clutch of bombs. That puts it broadly in the same category as Iran, which is suspected of having nuclear-weapons ambitions, and is mulling over a superior list of enticements from several European countries, America, Russia and China to give them up. India built its bombs years ago outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (unlike North Korea and Iran, which both signed the NPT and then cheated). It hopes the Bush administration can persuade Congress to ratify a foolish deal that would accord it all the civilian nuclear benefits available to the NPT's nuclear-free members while enabling it to continue its bomb-building. North Korea would like the same: to be accepted by America as a nuclear power and still rewarded.

Look at me I build a nuclear bomb and threaten my neighbors. Now give me nice goodies. Not that I will stop. Rather I will make more bombs and missiles, threaten more of my neighbors because, at the end of the day, you will give me more goodies.

This is Korean diplomacy. It's not deterrence, its extortion.

And while you can get away with telling the guy "fuck off" he will want to display his own sense of importance in more meaningful and belligerent ways if you let him.

That might seem crazy, especially given the likelihood of sanctions that can only cripple further North Korea's basket case of an economy. But Mr Kim calculates differently. He has always shown scant regard for the plight of his people, caring only for the security of his regime. He still expects to get a good two-thirds or more of the oil and food he needs from China—helping to stave off a return of the famine of the 1990s—and more dollops of aid from South Korea. And that, he knows, will infuriate the Americans.

Kim's logic- if I threaten you enough, you will give me everything I need and then more, and I won't have to change a bit.

And if you deny me, well I'll just threatened you more.

And if you ignore me? Then maybe I will have to prove how important my threats are.

That is how the wider damage could now be done. Ever since North Korea was caught cheating on its NPT promises for a second time (first making plutonium, later dabbling with another potential bomb ingredient, uranium), America has insisted on the six-way format for nuclear talks. By preventing North Korea playing its neighbours off against each other and America, this has cut Mr Kim's wiggle room. But a split has opened up. America and Japan have stood firm, pressing North Korea to give up its nuclear programmes (and, in Japan's case, to release more of the Japanese citizens abducted over the years by the Kim family regime) and withholding major aid until it does. South Korea and China have lately increased both trade and aid. If their plan was to coax Mr Kim into better behaviour, it has failed.

Thus the problem of diplomacy.

Where things go from here depends largely on China. North Korea's 1998 test blew a gaping hole in China's diplomacy in the region. It pushed Japan into co-operating even more closely with America on security matters, including on missile defences that some day might be extended to cover Taiwan. The latest test will reinforce Japan's readiness to do more in its own defence, and with America. And it is also a snub to China, which has been convening the six-way effort.

Unless, of course, the Chinese were cool with this test all along. Publically they might show frustration and anger. Privately they might be tickled that the Americans got ruffled.

If China is involved, then they are fucking with us through a proxy.
If North Korea doesn't mind fucking off China and China really is pissed, than counting on China (even if it theoretically has the best intentions at heart and doesn't mean to fuck the Americans) is not going to work becuase the North Koreans don't give a shit.

Reasons to stick together

The temptation for a wounded China will be to blame all this on America and Japan. China does not want to antagonise the unpredictable Mr Kim; and it is keen to draw South Korea closer in the game of regional rivalries (both countries have rows with Japan over disputed islands). The result could be a new round of regional suspicion and rivalry—or worse.

Which is why the US cannot withdraw.

Alternatively China could shoulder some real responsibility for security in East Asia and close ranks against Mr Kim. That should start with a clear condemnation from the UN Security Council. But it should go further. Loth to apply sanctions, China props up Mr Kim's regime. Holding back some of that largesse would show him that he cannot destabilise the neighbourhood and get away with it. A lot more than the awkward Mr Kim's future depends on it.

But then again, this was China which also gave money to the Khymer Rouge, a military organization that killed 1/3 of the population of Cambodia from 1975-1979.

Wishfully thinking that China will take responsibility is like pissing in the wind and hoping you won't get all wet.

Ok, so what if the world thinks the Americans are acting like a bunch of pricks. So what.

By not doing anything real the US looks like a bunch of pussies.

For God's sakes, this is America and we're a nuclear global super power. If we act like a bunch of pussies we're going to be treated like a bunch of pussies. Fuck that. W has proven to the world that the US can act like a big prick. Sometimes, that's imappropriate, but sometimes you got to act like a prick.

Gary Johnston: We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong Il is an asshole. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!

Fuck yeah!

 

[Elissar]

It's nice to see some one articulate what I believe but fail to make clear... I am by no means a speech writer or a public speaker...

I applaud you Welsh.

 

[Roshambo]

I fully understand the feeling, but as one who grew up during something a little bit more significant than this, have been over to SK to see their troops, and know how bloated the US presence in SK really is, I can't quite share it.

I'd rather trust those who aren't subscribing to the terror game, in particular those who are a hell of a lot closer to Kim's range than the US, and who have dealt with him and live by him, and who know the cultural mindset. Given that, I can't really agree that Western dick-swinging is the way to go, because "lost in the translation" is quite an understatement, 이해하십시요? Bush declaring Kim evil and putting him on the same level as Iraq and Iran is a clear insult and unwillingness to talk, and therefore it's not surprising that Kim isn't going for diplomacy when faced with a likelihood of Bush playing cowboy again.

I also can't take The Economist entirely seriously. It's no Fox News, and many things it does get right, but other times it needs to lay down the bong. For a rag called "The Economist", they certainly are a bit clueless as to what a destabilized NK would mean for everyone in the region, including SK, and those in the region would like to continue such growing prosperity without some dumb cowboy whacking on the beehive. Those in the region already know, and feel, what happens when events occur in the region, so they were unwilling to tip the boat. Now, Japan has to deal with Bush's idiocy ramping up Kim's missile efforts.

But then again, this was China which also gave money to the Khymer Rouge, a military organization that killed 1/3 of the population of Cambodia from 1975-1979.

As opposed to the US presence in Cambodia along with Operation Breakfast. Really, the US isn't that sparkling either, if you also consider the US' involvement as well, in supporting the regime in order to combat back the Vietnamese invasion. Something about the US trading arms with just about every terrorist since the Vietnam War...Pol Pot, Iran, the Contras, Al-Quaeda, Iraq in the past, Iraq today, fuck, I could be here all night with this list, when the flag is so blood-stained with the lives of the innocent. The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea received a lot of support from the West, which included guns and money. Guess what the Khmer Rouge was part of? So...thank the US in also helping Pol Pot and Co., even if it was to help against the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.

IRONY!

China now isn't the same China it was in the 70's, much like the US isn't the same US it was in the same time or even a decade ago. Only one of those has made any effort in improving their actions and relations with the world as of recent, and only one seems to be currently interested in increasing the welfare of its people instead of driving a larger gap between the rich and the poor, or even the rich and the supposed "middle class". Or should I remark extra irony about the National Guard commercials having grunts state how proud they were to point guns into the faces of people already fucked by the Katriina disaster, by claiming that they were proud to help? Bush couldn't wait to assfuck Iraq, yet there's no support for his own people, and yet he also sends people to their deaths for his personal profit. Hell, even Bush has claimed that he is going to do things diplomatically, and a month later he whips out the dick-swinging, before the missile in question flew, and after he called NK part of an Axis of Evil. I really can't tell who is more bi-polar, Kim or President Dumbfuck. I think the best thing about the Daily Show is that they have quite an impressive video archive, and they don't even have to doctor any of it except make a witty caption at the bottom.

Maybe not as bad as Pol Pot in my books, but it's still an incredibly shitty thing to do. Maybe making money off of someone's death is better than just categorizing, then making the depositees dig their own grave to be beaten to death in it. Either way, this dipshit has been sending mixed and contrary messages, much like Bush "not wanting to go to war with Iraq", Bush's lies can't be trusted. How would you respond to that, except prepare to be invaded?

 

[welsh]

Bush declaring Kim evil and putting him on the same level as Iraq and Iran is a clear insult and unwillingness to talk, and therefore it's not surprising that Kim isn't going for diplomacy when faced with a likelihood of Bush playing cowboy again.

Are you kidding? Kim is one of the great pricks who managed to survive the 20th century and get into the 21st. Calling him evil is bad? Considering this guy's record in assassination, abduction, and now terror- leave alone extortion, drug traffic and a litany of other acts... This guy rivals Osama for being a prick in desperate need of getting whacked.

I can understand you hating Bush. I hate Bush too.

But really, Kim is a capital prick and an evil bastard.

I also can't take The Economist entirely seriously.

Which is unfortunate as it is one of the best weekly magazines published. Better than Time, Newsweek or US News.

It's no Fox News, and many things it does get right, but other times it needs to lay down the bong. For a rag called "The Economist", they certainly are a bit clueless as to what a destabilized NK would mean for everyone in the region,

Actually they are not. They have raised this issue in the past.

including SK, and those in the region would like to continue such growing prosperity without some dumb cowboy whacking on the beehive. Those in the region already know, and feel, what happens when events occur in the region, so they were unwilling to tip the boat. Now, Japan has to deal with Bush's idiocy ramping up Kim's missile efforts.

"lay down the bong?" Damn... I didn't thing the Economist editors were that cool. Seriously, you're calling one of the most conservative magazines a bunch of dope smokers on this? Why because they called Kim on his counterfeit operation and drug peddling? That maybe Kim's action is less about being belligerent than about insulting Bush for cracking down on Kim's illegal operations and in the process, trying to get some advertising for his missiles?

Dude... Are you joking?

As for North Korea as a declining economy and future failed state-

Only problems are-
(1) Kim won't leave until he gets kicked out or coerced out,
(2) the economy will only get worse while he's in power.

So the longer you delay, the worse the North Korean economy will get and the most dangerous the likelihood of state collapse.

On Cambodia-

As opposed to the US presence in Cambodia along with Operation Breakfast. Really, the US isn't that sparkling either, if you also consider the US' involvement as well, in supporting the regime in order to combat back the Vietnamese invasion. Something about the US trading arms with just about every terrorist since the Vietnam War...Pol Pot, Iran, the Contras, Al-Quaeda, Iraq in the past, Iraq today, fuck, I could be here all night with this list, when the flag is so blood-stained with the lives of the innocent. The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea received a lot of support from the West, which included guns and money. Guess what the Khmer Rouge was part of? So...thank the US in also helping Pol Pot and Co., even if it was to help against the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.

For those wanting more history- here
also-
On China and Khmer Rouge and Third Indo-China war
and not to leave out-
fo rthe Cambodia-Vietnamese War

China launched a punitive invasion of northern Vietnam. During the '80s, the U.S. gave military and humanitarian support to the republican KPNLF and royalist ANS insurgent groups. The Khmer Rouge, still led by Pol Pot and the most capable militarily of the three rebel groups, received extensive military aid from China and intelligence from the Thai military. While eastern and central Cambodia were firmly under the control of Vietnam and its Cambodian allies by 1980, the western part of the country continued to be a battlefield through the 1980s, with millions of landmines sown across the countryside.

Yeah, exactly why did Vietnam invade Cambodia? Because the Khmer Rouge was attacking Vietnam because the KH claimed all of the Mekong for its nationalist vision of Kampuchea? And guess who supported the KH then- China. Why? Because China felt threatened by Vietnam's relationship with the Soviet Union. And while the US did support both the royalist and nationalist factions of the Coalition Government, and I have little doubt that much of the aid that went to the coalition or to the Thai government went to the KH, the lion's share came from China.

Yet, Cambodia was one of the major conflicts of the 1980s and the end of the Cold War. And just like in Afghanistan, the US relied on proxies to fight its war (that time against Soviet proxies- the Vietnamese). And the End of the Cold War was a matter of strength- the Soviet Union could no longer afford to sustain those wars.

Yet, you prescription for resolving North Korea runs the same mistake- reliance on others to do the job of the US. In Afghanistan the US relied on Pakistan- which channelled CIA and Saudi money to Islamist factions. In Cambodia the US gave direct aid to its allies and Thailand (a US ally- which was actually buddying up to China) gave its aid to the Khmer Rouge. In both cases, a mess was left behind.

Now you want to rely on China to resolve the problems in North Korea? Meanwhile US allies in North Asia question US resolve?

China now isn't the same China it was in the 70's, much like the US isn't the same US it was in the same time or even a decade ago. Only one of those has made any effort in improving their actions and relations with the world as of recent, and only one seems to be currently interested in increasing the welfare of its people instead of driving a larger gap between the rich and the poor, or even the rich and the supposed "middle class"... etc.

I am not going to argue with you over the long litany of bad things the US has done the last 50 years. Nor will I argue with you over how incompetent Bush is. I have been pretty clear on both those positions here before.

Yet despite the increasing division between classes in the US, are you suggesting that those inequalities do not exist in China today or that they are rapidly increasing? Are you going to tell me that China's policies on the mischief reef or its own missiles over Taiwan are aberrations of Chinese foreign policy? China has proven itself willing to piss off regional trading partners and even threaten their security when it suits its interests. It will put security policy over trade policy.

China's security policy is regional hegemony. To achieve that it must see a withdrawal of US local hegemony and perhaps even global power.

But I find it very ironic that you would feel so comfortable trusting China which did not stop North Korea from launching its missiles nor has done anything else besides tell the rest of the world to leave poor little belligerent Kim alone while Kim manages to continue develop his nuclear weapons and ability to deliver those weapons on who he wishes to hurt.

Fuck that.

The Chinese have done shit. Why do you expect them to suddenly do something meaningful now?

And I also find it ironic that you are willing to look beyond the fact that Bush's policy to China is one of accommodation. Who benefits from that but more of Bush's base- that top 10% of the top 1% that stands to make a profit off China. It's that, US corporate interests, that have hijacked the US policy to China, and which continues to determine what US policy is to China. The reason why the US doesn't get tough on China is because corporate interests are afraid of losing a bit of profit and are willing to see US national interest fucked over so they can make a profit.

And you want more of this? Don't you see the consistency? The US goes to war to satisfy corporate interests- oil and military, and it stays away from hostility from China because that would be contrary to US corporate interest.

Seriously Rosh, you are assuming that Kim has justification for deterrence. But from what I am seeing of North Korean policy over the past 30 years is that it's not about deterrence but extortion and coercion. When has Kim not acted like a bully to its neighbors?

As for China, you are counting on them when their interest could very well be just to see a deterioration of US strategic presence in North Asia.

For the sake of trade? But trade hasn't stopped it from fucking with its neighbors before. China does a lot of trade through Taiwan but that hasn't stopped China from firing missiles over the Taipei.

From the BBC-

Can China solve N Korea crisis?
By Daniel Griffiths
BBC News, Beijing

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
Wen Jiabao called on North Korea to refrain from launching missiles

China is one of North Korea's few remaining allies - Beijing supplies the impoverished regime in Pyongyang with much needed fuel, food and energy.

So you would think that the Chinese might have some influence? Or that the North Koreans would have gotten an approval from China before it went about its launch.

Here are the alterantives. Either
(1) North Korea got the approval- and so China aims to fuck the US, or,
(2) North Korea felt it could ignore China, which means that North Korea has also told China to go fuck themselves and China is useless.

So take your pick- Either China is a useless partner or it's trying to fuck us.

Either way, counting on China is either contrary to the US interest or a waste of time.

In the past few weeks several senior Chinese officials including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, had repeatedly called on North Korea to abandon its plans for missile tests, saying they would increase regional tensions.

So these tests are a real slap in the face for China, and a sign for some that it might have less influence in North Korea than has often been suggested.

But the US says it still believes China holds the key to a solution on the Korean peninsula. Washington's representative, Christopher Hill, is due in Beijing at the end of the week.

Arms race

Mr Hill has already made his position clear: "We need China to be very, very firm with their neighbours and frankly with their long-term allies the North Koreans, on what is acceptable behaviour and what is not acceptable behaviour."

Why should China act firm when it believes the US will continue to suck its prick?

Both the US and China agree there is a problem - but they differ on the best way to solve it

There is anger in Beijing about the missile tests, especially as Chinese leaders lobbied hard for North Korea to refrain from the launches.

But for China the situation is extremely complex. There is no doubt that as such a major supplier of aid to North Korea it does have some leverage.

And it is concerned about North Korea's military and nuclear ambitions - worrying that they might start an arms race in northeast Asia.

But at the same time Beijing does not want to cut off aid to North Korea because it fears the regime in Pyongyang might collapse and create a flood of migrants, destabilising neighbouring countries including China.

So instead of trying to fix the situation China would prefer to maintain Kim in power than actually get North Korea fixed so the refugees can stop coming over. It seems to me that North Korea and Mexico have the same basic problem- their people want to eat. In both cases, those people will go elsewhere if they have to. In both cases the countries need to be fixed so that people have less reason to go over the border. ( Why have the Europeans stopped coming to US and Indians and Chinese are not coming to the US in the numbers they used too? Because they have more opportunities in their home countries and moving is a pain-in-the-ass).

And in the process the North Korean economy gets worse and the danger of state collapse only increases.

That means Beijing is opposed to any international sanctions and has already made that position clear.

Because North Korea is China's buddy. What China is basically saying is that China doesn't care how big a prick North Korea is to Japan or the US. It doesn't care. North Korea is protected.

Alternatively, China could try to force North Korea to do something. Afterall North Korea relies on China for its survival. But no, China would rather watch North Korea threaten its neighbors than do anything.

You cannot trust China.
Worse, you should not trust China to do that which you should do yourself.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill
Christopher Hill is due to visit Beijing this week

It still says diplomacy is the best way to deal with North Korea as the best way to find a solution to the impasse on the Korean peninsula. It will urge all countries to resume the stalled six-nation talks, which include the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.

But Beijing says a real breakthrough can only be achieved if the US sits down and negotiates directly with North Korea - a key demand from Pyongyang.

So North Korea launches a missile, threatens its neighbors and gets rewarded for this?
Bullshit.

Because to do this means that South Korea is not on the table. Direct talks means that North Korea drives a wedge between the US and its allies. This is what China wants.

And why is the US relying on China for this diplomatic solution- because the US corporate interests have too much to lose if they should piss off China. Yeah, the corporate interest. Remember, Bush's top 10% of the top 1% of the country. This is Bush being good to his base, again, at the cost US interests.

Up to now though, Washington has refused to do that, preferring the multinational forum of the six party talks.

And that is the reality of the situation - both the US and China agree there is a problem - but they differ on the best way to solve it.

So Mr Hill will come repeat Washington's views on the issue and Chinese officials will once again make clear their position - but finding a way ahead won't be easy.

Here's the test then. Rosh, if you are right, than the Chinese will actually do something constructive. At the moment the US is taking a hands off policy and looking to a China fix. And if China doesn't fix, than I think its safe to say China wants to fuck us.

Meanwhile, from the New York Times -

Japan and South Korea Wrangle Over Response to North’s Missiles

By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: July 12, 2006
SEOUL, South Korea, Wednesday, July 12 — South Korea angrily accused Japan of arrogant and reckless remarks on Tuesday, a day after Japanese leaders raised what South Koreans consider a chilling possibility: a pre-emptive strike on North Korea that would violate Japan’s Constitution.

Yes, because the Sunshine Policy of South Korea has worked so damn well lately...

And Japan... well we're afraid of Japan doing the whole World War 2 thing again, so because of a war that happened 50 years ago, Japan can't be allowed to protect its own national security.

Fuck that.

The problem isn't that Japan has an national security to protect. It's that the US is failing its obligations to defend Japan as has been established by its mutual defense agreement.

In otherwords, failure of the US to take prompt action to protect Japan is forcing Japan to act more unilaterally.

Maybe it's time for Seoul to reconsider it's Sunshine Policy- because acting like a pussy is just going to lead North Korea to treat you like a pussy.

As discord between Washington’s major allies in the region worsened, Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, returned to China. After landing in Beijing, he urged North Korea to return to six-party talks and stood by a draft United Nations resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea for launching seven missiles in tests last week, according to Reuters.

“We continue to be guided by the need to make a strong united statement to the North Koreans,” Reuters quoted Mr. Hill as telling reporters at his Beijing hotel before heading to a meeting with the Chinese foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing.

Attention focused on whether Beijing, North Korea’s main ally, could persuade the North to return to the table. But China said it did not expect a quick resolution, nor did it support the push by Japan and the United States for sanctions. It said such a resolution would be an “overreaction.”

Of course, over-reaction. The North Koreans fire a missile over Japan. Japan gets pissed. And that's an over-reaction.

Kind of like how Taiwan thinks its an over-reaction when China fires missiles over Taipei?

“If approved, it will aggravate contradictions and increase tension,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said at a news conference. “It will harm peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asian region, and hurt efforts to resume six-party talks, as well as lead to the U.N. Security Council splitting.”

I think Kim a good enough job of harming peace and stabiliy-

He's the one who is not coming to the six party talks.
He is the one who is who fires missiles
Who printers counterfeit money to prop up his economy
Who sells drugs
who abducts japanese.

And for all Bush's bluster of the Axis of Evil speech, what has Bush done really? Nada. Just rely on the Chinese to help negotiate a Korean solution.

And what has that accomplished really?

Diddly
Squat

Mr. Hill’s trip came hours after the Security Council delayed for a second day a vote on the Japan-sponsored resolution, which officials in China and South Korea fear could also lay the groundwork for military action against the North.

The Council delayed the vote while the Chinese deputy foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator, Wu Dawei, was talking with the North Koreans in Pyongyang, the North’s capital. Mr. Wu’s mission was critical for Washington because Japan and South Korea continued to quarrel over how to respond to North Korea’s action, a split that experts say North Korea will exploit.

“There was an important decision to postpone the vote on the resolution, because the Chinese government had an important diplomatic mission going on,” Mr. Hill told reporters in Beijing. “Obviously we are in a rather crucial period.”

Mr. Wu’s visit to Pyongyang was seen as a test of China’s increasingly doubtful influence over North Korea. Separately, Yang Hyong-sop, vice president of the North Korean Parliament, arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a trip that was scheduled to include a meeting with President Hu Jintao.

South Korea on Tuesday opened cabinet-level talks with a North Korean delegation. The talks in the South Korean port city of Pusan were expected to focus on the missile test and the North’s nuclear programs.

Since the missile tests, Washington has been trying to forge a coordinated response with China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. But a rift quickly developed in and outside the United Nations.

On Monday, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Shinzo Abe, said it was time for Japan to consider the legality of pre-emptive strikes on missile bases in North Korea, even though the Japanese military does not have the capacity for such a strike.

South Korean officials quickly denounced his remarks. On Tuesday in Seoul, Jung Tae-ho, a spokesman for President Roh Moo-hyun, called the remarks “senseless” and said they could “amplify” the crisis.

Mr. Jung said Mr. Abe’s comments “exposed Japan’s tendency to invade” other nations. China and South Korea were invaded by Japan in the first half of the 20th century.

Exposed Japan's tendency to invade? Yeah. Like Japan has done much invading for the last 50 years. Unlike North Korea that digs tunnels under the DMZ or lands sabateours on the coast?

Bullshit. Korea is playing on its Sunshine Policy which thus far has accomplished nothing. In the process Japan is expected to tolerate this behavior from North Korea.

And who benefits from this- North Korea- by seeing a wedge driven between the US's two main allies, and by China- which continues to gain prestige as being "important" (if ineffective) in resolving the North Korean problem, and at the same time undermining US interests in North Asia.

And you trust China?

At the Security Council, China, supported by Russia, on Monday submitted its own draft of a nonbinding statement to replace a far stronger Japanese resolution, which calls for sanctions. China and Russia have the power to veto any resolution.

Although South Korea and China condemn North Korea’s missile test, they also fear that if the government is pushed into a corner, it might resort to more provocations.

So give Kim an option- leave. Get out. Because under Kim, North Korea will only get worse.

If China is to act reasonably it should assist in allow Kim to leave North Korea and the government to change. When has this happened? The US allowed Ferdinand Marcos an exit allowing the downfall of his dictatorship.

If you are right, Rosh, than the Chinese need to start showing more responsibility. This is a test of China's intentions.

I'm willing to bet that China isn't going to accomplish anything.

 

[Roshambo]

Are you kidding? Kim is one of the great pricks who managed to survive the 20th century and get into the 21st. Calling him evil is bad? Considering this guy's record in assassination, abduction, and now terror- leave alone extortion, drug traffic and a litany of other acts... This guy rivals Osama for being a prick in desperate need of getting whacked.

I can understand you hating Bush. I hate Bush too.

But really, Kim is a capital prick and an evil bastard.

And Gorbachev was any different?

Or how about Pol Pot, whom the US also supported when it convenienced them?

Or how about the US, whose list of war crimes in the last 25 years alone DWARFS Kim's little rap sheet?

Calling someone "evil" isn't a bright thing to do when you've also called yourself the Mouth of God and do the EXACT same shit. Given the Christian faith...there's a usual outcome around that, and it's never pretty.

Actually they are not. They have raised this issue in the past.

And then seem to wholly ignore that in favor of "OMG!!! PANIC!!!"

"lay down the bong?" Damn... I didn't thing the Economist editors were that cool. Seriously, you're calling one of the most conservative magazines a bunch of dope smokers on this?

Sorry, I forgot that crack was the preferred drug of conservatives, my mistake.

Why because they called Kim on his counterfeit operation and drug peddling?

And this is different than the US' involvement in illegal arms trade (including Iraq), the heroin trade in Afghanistan, the opium trade in Vietnam and elsewhere in the world, and invading countries without any evidence while killing and raping civvies and tearing down the government.

Fuck, dude, I could be here forever naming the US' shit tricks, and the US WOULD WIN. I could also cite the amount of ethnic cleansing the US has done in the name of "Manifest Destiny", including the invasion of the Phillipines and other countries, leading to wholesale slaughter.

The US is hardly innocent; the only reason why these haven't been a public issue is because people like to live in denial about their own country. It's called nationalism. That article's a pretty interesting read, given that it was written by a WWII bombardier.

That maybe Kim's action is less about being belligerent than about insulting Bush for cracking down on Kim's illegal operations and in the process, trying to get some advertising for his missiles?

Dude... Are you joking?

Yeah, and the way to make the Soviet Union stop its illegal activities was to invade it, right? Nope, it took years of diplomacy, and comparatively the US hasn't tried shit for diplomacy with Kim.

As for North Korea as a declining economy and future failed state-

Only problems are-
(1) Kim won't leave until he gets kicked out or coerced out,
(2) the economy will only get worse while he's in power.

So the longer you delay, the worse the North Korean economy will get and the most dangerous the likelihood of state collapse.

Until Kim realizes, like Gorbachev, that the regime was wholly unhealthy for the people, and that he faced revolution from his own people failing to support him anymore. This was how it went with Gorby, and will likely be how it happens with Kim. There's ONLY diplomacy, because the alternative is a likely nuclear exchange. Well, if the US is THAT stupid, I'm taking an extended vacation to Europe because that will just PISS OFF China and the NK neighbors. The only proven route to getting nukes taken down is diplomacy.

But get this...the idea of diplomacy isn't to threaten people, but instead get them to come around to your side. It worked mostly for the USSR, but now people think we can repeat Iraq with Kim? or toss nukes into China, Japan, and SK's backyard?

So why the fuck is Bush insulting and then threatening Kim?

As opposed to the US presence in Cambodia along with Operation Breakfast. Really, the US isn't that sparkling either, if you also consider the US' involvement as well, in supporting the regime in order to combat back the Vietnamese invasion. Something about the US trading arms with just about every terrorist since the Vietnam War...Pol Pot, Iran, the Contras, Al-Quaeda, Iraq in the past, Iraq today, fuck, I could be here all night with this list, when the flag is so blood-stained with the lives of the innocent. The Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea received a lot of support from the West, which included guns and money. Guess what the Khmer Rouge was part of? So...thank the US in also helping Pol Pot and Co., even if it was to help against the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.

For those wanting more history of the US' shit tricks - check the links I provided above. Yet the US is supposed to act like the world's police? Fucking hilarious.

China launched a punitive invasion of northern Vietnam. During the '80s, the U.S. gave military and humanitarian support to the republican KPNLF and royalist ANS insurgent groups. The Khmer Rouge, still led by Pol Pot and the most capable militarily of the three rebel groups, received extensive military aid from China and intelligence from the Thai military. While eastern and central Cambodia were firmly under the control of Vietnam and its Cambodian allies by 1980, the western part of the country continued to be a battlefield through the 1980s, with millions of landmines sown across the countryside.

Actually, the US supported the CGDK, which included FUNCINPEC, the Khmer Rouge, and the KPNLF. The KPNLAF's forces were miniscule in number and mostly wiped out, which left...guess what? A reliance on their old foes the Khmer Rouge in the CGDK alliance as the military might.

Yeah, exactly why did Vietnam invade Cambodia? Because the Khmer Rouge was attacking Vietnam because the KH claimed all of the Mekong for its nationalist vision of Kampuchea? And guess who supported the KH then- China. Why? Because China felt threatened by Vietnam's relationship with the Soviet Union. And while the US did support both the royalist and nationalist factions of the Coalition Government, and I have little doubt that much of the aid that went to the coalition or to the Thai government went to the KH, the lion's share came from China.

Yet, Cambodia was one of the major conflicts of the 1980s and the end of the Cold War. And just like in Afghanistan, the US relied on proxies to fight its war (that time against Soviet proxies- the Vietnamese). And the End of the Cold War was a matter of strength- the Soviet Union could no longer afford to sustain those wars.

Proxies that include butcherers, which was my point. The US does what it cares to and everyone else be damned, yes.

Yet, you prescription for resolving North Korea runs the same mistake- reliance on others to do the job of the US.

Hello? Who says it's a US problem? Let the Asians take care of their own, as the article I posted earlier states. It removes the antagonism of the US, and allows NK's neighbors to deal with him, and they certainly seem to have been doing a far better job than President Dumbfuck. All the US is doing is posturing and not really helping at all.

However, South Korean leaders would be distressed about economic losses and the cost of occupying the North. They would have little incentive to overrun North Korea quickly if 450,000 free spending American GIs with billions of dollars in American military aid were on the way. Rather than quickly overrunning the North, South Korean leaders may demobilize some units to restart its economy. Hopefully, Americans will realize that something is wrong when infantrymen from Kansas are deployed to invade North Korea while infantrymen from Seoul are sent home. Perhaps they will recall the logic of President Lyndon Johnson who said in 1964 that he was “not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing themselves.” If South Koreans are unwilling to defend their nation from poverty stricken cousins from the North, why should Americans defend them? The USA imports no vital resources from Korea; the consumer items imported from South Korea are readily available elsewhere.

Think about it. The US gets into this shit BECAUSE it acts like the world's police, and the US has plenty of Rodney King videotapes of war crimes soaking Old Glory in innocent blood. The US has no noble caveat, unless you'd like to claim Providence, like how Bush was claiming God was speaking through him.

In Afghanistan the US relied on Pakistan- which channelled CIA and Saudi money to Islamist factions.

And the US also relied on their drug trade in Afghanistan to fund...the Taliban! Back in the 80's, as a way to to make a proxy, and guess what happened to that proxy like all others? It bit the US in the ass. And the US falls for a sucker ploy.

In Cambodia the US gave direct aid to its allies and Thailand (a US ally- which was actually buddying up to China) gave its aid to the Khmer Rouge. In both cases, a mess was left behind.

The US allies also included the CGDK, which also included the Khmer Rouge. And yes, a mess was left behind.

Now you want to rely on China to resolve the problems in North Korea? Meanwhile US allies in North Asia question US resolve?

Because they are counting on the US to do the spending and to fuck up, while they just sit back, collect GI money like they have for years, and get rich off of American deaths?

Again, please read the article I posted. Even SK can handle it on their own, but they don't care to because they are counting on the fat base fees of $5 BILLION a year.

I am not going to argue with you over the long litany of bad things the US has done the last 50 years.

Why? It seems like those can be conveniently ignored while the mafia tries to police the thug. That shouldn't happen, and it's no wonder many countries don't like the US for the blatant lies and dishonesty while spewing nobility from its ass.

I can also point out a litany of shit tricks the US has done within the last 5 years.

Yet despite the increasing division between classes in the US, are you suggesting that those inequalities do not exist in China today or that they are rapidly increasing? Are you going to tell me that China's policies on the mischief reef or its own missiles over Taiwan are aberrations of Chinese foreign policy? China has proven itself willing to piss off regional trading partners and even threaten their security when it suits its interests. It will put security policy over trade policy.

So then it would be an even DUMBER move to nuke NK, because China would shrug about the exports to the US in favor of using that for an excuse to make the US look foolish and suffer some penalty of sorts in return.

See how that works? Yes, I have already thought about this venue, along with many others.

But I find it very ironic that you would feel so comfortable trusting China which did not stop North Korea from launching its missiles nor has done anything else besides tell the rest of the world to leave poor little belligerent Kim alone while Kim manages to continue develop his nuclear weapons and ability to deliver those weapons on who he wishes to hurt.

And you're again assuming that Kim is going to use them as a first-strike, when that would be total suicide and prove nothing as those in the region affected (which would likely involve China as well), and China could easily crush or even nuke Kim if they wanted to, without much effort at all.

China also doesn't seem to shit itself when the subject of WMDs is tossed about, they have a history of dealing with them. China also seems to understand international law, WHICH DOES NOT STOP MISSILE TESTS. Again, it's amusing that the US can ignore international law when it please, and then be even worse off in world relations. Oh, wait...I forgot, the US has pretty much flushed its noble image (what it had) further down the shitter.

And I also find it ironic that you are willing to look beyond the fact that Bush's policy to China is one of accommodation. Who benefits from that but more of Bush's base- that top 10% of the top 1% that stands to make a profit off China. It's that, US corporate interests, that have hijacked the US policy to China, and which continues to determine what US policy is to China. The reason why the US doesn't get tough on China is because corporate interests are afraid of losing a bit of profit and are willing to see US national interest fucked over so they can make a profit.

And you want more of this? Don't you see the consistency? The US goes to war to satisfy corporate interests- oil and military, and it stays away from hostility from China because that would be contrary to US corporate interest.

So the US should nuke NK and make relations even more of a mess! LOLOLOLOL!!!

Seriously Rosh, you are assuming that Kim has justification for deterrence. But from what I am seeing of North Korean policy over the past 30 years is that it's not about deterrence but extortion and coercion. When has Kim not acted like a bully to its neighbors?

The same could be said for the USSR and other countries, and the Cold War didn't end because someone was standing on a pile of skulls.

As for China, you are counting on them when their interest could very well be just to see a deterioration of US strategic presence in North Asia.

Because it might make Kim flake out a little less? Think about it, most of Kim's aggression has been BECAUSE of US presence in the neighboring countries, including the mass of troops in SK. Kim doesn't like the US, as didn't the USSR. The issue with the USSR wasn't solved by antagonizing them, it was through patient and extended diplomacy, which Bush killed off when he got into office. All the diplomacy Clinton, Carter, and many others did was essentially ignored and destroyed in favor of dicking around until 9/11, then invade Afghanistan, then Iraq, then swing his dick at NK.

From the BBC-

Can China solve N Korea crisis?
By Daniel Griffiths
BBC News, Beijing

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
Wen Jiabao called on North Korea to refrain from launching missiles

China is one of North Korea's few remaining allies - Beijing supplies the impoverished regime in Pyongyang with much needed fuel, food and energy.

So you would think that the Chinese might have some influence? Or that the North Koreans would have gotten an approval from China before it went about its launch.

No, because China obviously understands international law a bit better than the "OMG, WMDs, shit a brick and invade them!" of the current US policy. Or your policy of "nuke them!"

Here are the alterantives. Either
(1) North Korea got the approval- and so China aims to fuck the US, or,
(2) North Korea felt it could ignore China, which means that North Korea has also told China to go fuck themselves and China is useless.

So take your pick- Either China is a useless partner or it's trying to fuck us.

Or it's just sitting back and watching while the US fucks itself with another smoking hole through the foot, and decides to do something extreme in response to the missile tests. Which are perfectly legal given international law.

Either way, counting on China is either contrary to the US interest or a waste of time.

You can count on China to protect its best interests, which includes turning back or shooting hungry refugees at the Yalu River instead of giving more support to NK. China does give a bit of support to NK, but only apparently for humanitarian aid, as Kim's military technology is laughable. If China was going to be "contrary" to the US, then modern technology would have been passed over the Yalu River or other routes to improve the situation for Kim.

Since it isn't, it honestly looks like humanitarian aid. A lot more humanitarian than "nuking NK". I guess you don't have to worry about refugees when they are part of the fallout particle cloud.

The appetite for punitive action is limited in the U.N. Security Council, which met Wednesday to discuss the issue. But even if military action against North Korea were a plausible option — and it isn't — it would required a greater provocation than a missile test that remained within the bounds of international law.

See? Even the UN is aware of international law.

And, I will admit, they do have a point on the missile tests being used to break the diplomatic stalling others were doing that made NK walk from the table in the first place. Perfectly legal, but shows that someone better try some serious attempt again at diplomacy.

But North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will certainly remember how his provoking of previous crises eventually brought diplomatic gains rather than punishment; North Korea's 1998 missile tests, for example, brought direct talks for Kim with South Korea and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Even the Bush administration, which rejected the Clinton-era approach as rewarding North Korea's bad behavior, was forced to move in the same direction by joining the six-party process in 2002, after first spurning the idea of offering Pyongyang incentives to change its ways.

While I disagree about the eventual "same direction", spurning the idea of giving incentives for NK changing its behavior is rather failing in diplomacy, when giving incentives for getting what you want is a standard trade concept and a foundation of diplomacy; even someone as stupid as Bush should have been able to put it together. Maybe he's just dumber than I originally estimated and revised five times over already.

In the past few weeks several senior Chinese officials including Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, had repeatedly called on North Korea to abandon its plans for missile tests, saying they would increase regional tensions.

Well, THAT certainly sounds "supportive". Considering that SK gave them the same message, in the same tone, I guess SK was being just as "supportive".

So these tests are a real slap in the face for China, and a sign for some that it might have less influence in North Korea than has often been suggested.

Probably because they are waiting for diplomacy to try and work, versus President Cowboy's dick-swinging.

But the US says it still believes China holds the key to a solution on the Korean peninsula. Washington's representative, Christopher Hill, is due in Beijing at the end of the week.

Arms race

Mr Hill has already made his position clear: "We need China to be very, very firm with their neighbours and frankly with their long-term allies the North Koreans, on what is acceptable behaviour and what is not acceptable behaviour."

Why should China act firm when it believes the US will continue to suck its prick?

I think a better question would be "What China would stand to gain in being "very, very firm" with Nk, except to make diplomacy break down?" They already have thousands of troops at the border to prevent refugees from leaving the country, and does have the option of cutting off their humanitarian aid. Again, it's the US' fuckery in the region that has Kim quite paranoid, and the Chinese also realise this.

Both the US and China agree there is a problem - but they differ on the best way to solve it

There is anger in Beijing about the missile tests, especially as Chinese leaders lobbied hard for North Korea to refrain from the launches.

But for China the situation is extremely complex. There is no doubt that as such a major supplier of aid to North Korea it does have some leverage.

And it is concerned about North Korea's military and nuclear ambitions - worrying that they might start an arms race in northeast Asia.

Or a few mushroom clouds sprouting up all over...

But at the same time Beijing does not want to cut off aid to North Korea because it fears the regime in Pyongyang might collapse and create a flood of migrants, destabilising neighbouring countries including China.

Indeed, the only thing keeping many of the refugees in NK is the NK army.

So instead of trying to fix the situation China would prefer to maintain Kim in power than actually get North Korea fixed so the refugees can stop coming over.

I'm curious. How the FUCK does nuking NK or invading them "fix" it? How about diplomacy to try and turn them around like the USSR and other countries in the past? Castro is still in power, I see, and the US even has land there to hold people illegally.

Also, you seemed to have failed to note the important part about the above. If NK destabilized, there's nothing to guarantee that it could be restabilized.

Really, you expect the US to send more Pop-Tarts and other crap like they dropped in Afghanistan and in some places in Iraq? You really expect that to stop people from immediately fleeing the country once the army is in disarray? How long has the US been in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and both countries are still a mess? That didn't stop people from Iraq from fleeing anyways.

It seems to me that North Korea and Mexico have the same basic problem- their people want to eat. In both cases, those people will go elsewhere if they have to. In both cases the countries need to be fixed so that people have less reason to go over the border.

Which means turning the direction of the ruling party around, as invading and ousting dictators, while providing support and helping to rebuild the country, hasn't been the US' strong suit. Nor China's. EVER.

And in the process the North Korean economy gets worse and the danger of state collapse only increases.

Hmmm, kind of like the USSR, until it was faced with the inevitability of having to change what it was doing, or else it was going to crumble from within. Then talks between Reagan and Gorbachev aided in providing both a peaceful way out of that crisis, and the war, while also making them both look good despite the shit tricks both sides pulled at the expense of millions of innocents' lives.

Antagonism isn't going to have the same effect. In fact, that's what built up the Cold War.

Because North Korea is China's buddy. What China is basically saying is that China doesn't care how big a prick North Korea is to Japan or the US. It doesn't care. North Korea is protected.

Obviously not, given the laughable state of the military forces and equipment in NK. That isn't "buddy", that's waiting for someone to turn around and start working for their country, which you can't force someone to do. Especially when they have an Asian mindset. You think Western pride is fierce?

Alternatively, China could try to force North Korea to do something. Afterall North Korea relies on China for its survival. But no, China would rather watch North Korea threaten its neighbors than do anything.

Now you're just repeating yourself. China already has told NK to cut it out, as SK, and both have been trying to perform peaceful diplomacy with NK. Hence only vital supplies and food are sent to NK. China has the further option of cutting off those supplies, but maybe China isn't so worried because it isn't China that is purposefully antagonizing Kim. It's the military presence of the US in SK and the now-shitty US "diplomacy". So why should China care that the US is shooting itself in the foot? Why should they become as hated as the US? That makes them into a target as well, which isn't too bright given how close they are.

Again, the US only feels comfortable swinging its dick when there's an ocean on either side to hide behind.

You cannot trust China.
Worse, you should not trust China to do that which you should do yourself.

Again, who appointed the US as the world's autonomous and consequenceless police?

*snips the rest*

I'm done with this topic, it's gone nowhere, and it's obvious that nuking NK civilians is the way to go, piss off China, Japan, and SK in the process, and likely fuck the fishing economy of the region rather badly as well as likely cause fallout rain in the entire region*, which is an important note since the entire region is wet. And people wonder why the US' relations with the entire fucking globe have gone down the shitter. Maybe it's the selfish, short-sighted attitude.

In case of water surface bursts, the particles tend to be rather lighter and smaller and so produce less local fallout but will extend over a greater area. The particles contain mostly sea salts with some water; these can have a cloud seeding effect causing local rainout and areas of high local fallout. Fallout from a seawater burst is unusually difficult to remove once it has soaked into porous surfaces, because the fission products are present as metallic ions which become chemically bonded to many surfaces. Water and detergent will not remove more than about 50% of this activity from concrete or steel, which will require sandblasting or acidic treatment. After the Crossroads underwater test it was found that wet fallout needs to be immediately removed from ships by continuous water washdown (such as from the fire sprinkler system on the decks).

 

[welsh]

Ok Rosh-

On Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War-
Gorbachev- inherited a bankrupt nation and his first overtures at diplomacy was ignored by the US or discounted as being a ruse, based on past Soviet behavior. Only after Thatcher gave Reagan the signal that Gorbachev was someone who could be dealt with. Yet even in Reykjavik Reagan negotiated from strength when he refused to negotiate over SDI, a project that didn’t even exist, convincing Gorbachev that SDI was serious and that the Soviets needed to concede. But by then the Soviets had already gone bankrupt.

Is Kim another Gorbachev? I doubt it.
Yet it was Gorbachev who tried to reform his country, who unilaterally withdrew from Afghanistan and wanted to keep the communist party alive by dealing with the West, not alienating it like his predecessors. Kim makes counterfeit dollars and threatens his neighbors with missile and weapons tests- in other words he saber rattles. If you want to try comparing Kim to anyone, try Stalin or perhaps Brezhnev. He is no Gorbachev.

US support for Pol Pot-
Yet the US didn’t’ support Pol Pot and actually fought against the rise of the KH. When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and Thailand felt threatened by Vietnamese attacks (perhaps to attack Cambodian refugee camps or perhaps to seize territory) the US gave aid to a coalition called the KGDK which included three groups that often fought against each other. The US gave aid to the nationalists and royalist forces and China and Thailand supporting the KH. And while you argue this is a bad thing, would things have worked out differently had the US not given aid? Would the US have lost its ally in Thailand, former member of SEATO and one of a number of countries with whom the US has a military alliance? Would China have stopped giving aid to the KH? Would it have been better for the US to let Thailand to become a Chinese client?

Ironically this is also a case of “leave the local management to the locals” because they know best that you are advocating with regard to South Korea. Is this only a good policy until the US gets its hands dirty?

Or is merely enough that the US avoid any hint of impropriety? I know you are probably going to go off about the “long list of US war crimes.” But you seem to wish the US would hide its head in the sand and wish for a peaceful happy world where nothing goes bad, where politics and war are not a messy awful business.

If so that’s a lot of wishful thinking. Not even if the US could achieve that would it even try too. There are just too many vested interests that want the US involved in the world, even if that means getting its hands dirty. And even those interests could be silenced, is isolationism you’re desired policy?

Why not let the locals sort it out for themselves and keep the US out of it?
The US withdrawing from Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrew was because the US wanted to let the Afghans “sort it out for themselves” and what happened? We got hit by the militant islamists who came to power. We decided to let someone else manage the war for us- the Pakistani ISI- and they favored militant islamists which they thought they could control, and then used the money to perpetuate a war in Kashmir. This is what happens when you let someone else run your diplomacy.

And you want China to handle North Korea. The Chinese have done such a great job that Japan is considering conventional strikes against North Korea.

And this is different than the US' involvement in illegal arms trade (including Iraq), the heroin trade in Afghanistan, the opium trade in Vietnam and elsewhere in the world, and invading countries without any evidence while killing and raping civvies and tearing down the government.

Fuck, dude, I could be here forever naming the US' shit tricks, and the US WOULD WIN. I could also cite the amount of ethnic cleansing the US has done in the name of "Manifest Destiny", including the invasion of the Phillipines and other countries, leading to wholesale slaughter.

I will not argue with you on the danger of too much Nationalism.
I am rather suspicious of the idea of nationalism- an artificial concept based on notions of “us” vs “them” that has done shit little good since it was created.

But no where have I said the US was innocent of blood on its hands. In fact many times on this board I have said that the US should be very mindful of its past behavior, of the many times that it has spilled blood for its narrow national interests or even the interests of a few well placed constituencies. I am well aware of the blood on the US’s hands.

But that’s a big difference from living with a guilt conscience that shames you into impotence. And while its unfortunate that history is steeped in misery it’s also generally true that the engine of history runs on human misery and blood.

Iran (anti-US islamist country that threatens its neighbors) goes to war with Iraq (secular Muslim country with a dictator that likes to gas his own people)- is this really a bad thing? You’ve got the two nastiest wolves in the den fighting it out and exhausting each other in the process, and in the meantime leaving their other neighbors (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia- whom the rest of the world relies on for fuel) alone. This is a bad policy?

This is bad if you want to live in an ideal world, but we don’t. Two regional bullies fight it out until each is too bruised to do much else- fine with me. Iraq started the war with Iran over territory, but it could have just as well invaded Kuwait, and then Saudi Arabia. Iran could just as easily have sought to spread its religious crusade elsewhere- as it tries to influence Afghanistan today. Perhaps Iran might have tried to bully the Arab Emirates or other Persian Gulf states. Would that have been better?

Heroin trade-

And the US also relied on their drug trade in Afghanistan to fund...the Taliban! Back in the 80's, as a way to to make a proxy, and guess what happened to that proxy like all others? It bit the US in the ass. And the US falls for a sucker ploy.

your link points out that the US supported the Taliban because they repressed the drug trade and then the Taliban took advantage of higher prices due to increased demand to make a profit. This is not exactly the US supporting the drug trade in Afghanistan but rather getting betrayed by the Taliban. Likewise heroin busts coming from the Golden Triangle have stimulated higher prices from other regions- such as Mexico. But the fuckups of the war on drugs is for another post.

Still if you are looking for more evidence on US involvement in the heroin trade, you’ll find it. As for Vietnam, the French developed the drug trade before the US took over and for similar reason- to utilize rural communities against communist insurgents and soldiers. The US also supported KMT forces in Burma against China, and these Nationalist Chinese became major operators in the Golden Triangle. Yet, if you want to go back even further you can find the Europeans were making profits out of taxes on opium long before the US ever got involved in the trade. How far back in history do you wish to go?

Killing and raping civilians- this is why war is such a damn awful and bloody business. Efforts to prevent such behavior through the laws of war have only be partially successful. And perhaps it’s a good thing that war is such a nasty business least we enjoy it too much.

Manifest Destiny, the Philippines….. How far back in US history do you want to go? If you look far enough you’ll find that most great powers have more than a little blood on their hands.

(Those interested in the Philippines see- Philippine-American War for a war few Americans, unfortunately, ever think about).

So you want the US to be impotent because it has blood on its hands?

Bullshit.

If the US withdraws from North Asia, as you seem to suggest, than you can expect Japan and South Korea to arms race and the regional to become unstable. US policy in the Northern Pacific has helped achieve a similar outcome that NATO policy did in Europe- to provide the security umbrella to let liberal democracies and stable allies prosper.

As for the Soviet Union’s downfall- it had already begun to slide un Brezhnev, Gorbachev was merely trying to keep a house of cards from falling. It wasn’t diplomacy that worked but containment. Reagan-Gorbachev negotiations were fairly late in the game and by then the Kremlin was already salvage the survival of the Communist Party’s control. The Cold War ended not for negotiations but because of bankruptcy. That bankruptcy was caused not only by the USSR’s own ineffective economic system which showed little hope of modernizing, but its willingness to engage in wars directly (in Afghanistan) or through proxy (in Cambodia) and to maintain ties elsewhere- (in Africa, Cuba, Nicaragua).

Containment was backed up by deterrence, which sometimes required the US to rely on coercive diplomacy backed up with the threat of nuclear escalation- Cuba, Berlin, and the 1973 crisis are all cases in point.

In other region the US relied on proxies, often dealing with some terrible people. One of the reasons the US relied on Islamic Afghans against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is that the Mujahideen where the most effective fighters. The Contras in Nicaragua were another group of butchers.

Should the US have ignored those parts of the world? What would the consequences have been? Yes, the US would have kept its hands clean. But would it have made a difference in Cambodia when China provided most of the military aid? Would it have stopped the war in Afghanistan? Would Nicaragua stopped supporting insurgents in other countries of Central America?

Oh and I read the article you posted. It’s pretty one sided and dovish for a military journal- which is a good thing considering how hawkish other journals are. When the Koreans want us out, than we should leave. When Carter planned to withdraw US forces during his presidency, the Korean government protested because it felt the US was withdrawing from its commitment to South Korea. It doesn’t matter if the South Koreans can take care of themselves conventionally- that’s not the reason the US is there. The reason the US maintains a deployment in Korea is because of our commitment to protecting Korea, because those forces serve as a tripwire, promising that should the North Koreans or anyone else come over the border, US forces will engage and triggering massive US response. This is virtually the same reason why the US forces were deployed in Germany during the Cold War.

If you want the US to come home, then the way to do it is not by withdrawing them, and thus signaling an abandonment of US commitment to North Asia, but ending the standoff. One ends the standoff when Korea is unified.

And while people may bitch and moan about the US presence, the truth is that the presence has worked for over 50 years. People bitched and moaned about NATO too, but that didn’t mean it was a bad policy.

I think the question is what kind of foreign policy do you want. You seem to favor an isolationist hands off policy- worry about what happens at home first and let the rest of the world take care of itself. There are lots of folks that support that. I don’t. The US is a global power and its interests are international. I believe that the US’s interests abroad- a liberal world economy, secure trade, promotion of democracy (and yes I know that during the Cold War the US supported lots of repressive dictators), and integrated economic system and general peaceful co-existence between states is better than the alternative. And you will argue “but the US hasn’t succeeded in that.” And you’re right. Partially because of the US’s own behavior, but also in part because international politics is a business driven by the rivalry of countries for regional and global power.

Would North Korea launch first? Perhaps it felt it necessary to get more attention.

Some of my points-
(1) China has done little thus far to show the level of responsibility that you are counting on.
(2) That your faith that China will protect South Korea is rather dubious if not misplaced,

Seriously, you argue that the US should turn over the protection of South Korea and Japan to China? That China would nuke Kim? This despite the fact that China is the country that keeps Kim’s North Korea alive? Sorry but expecting China to nuke Kim is absurd fantasy.

(3) That North Korea’s missile/nuclear programs have offensive use. If anything the missile tests show that if North Korea feels ignored or even if Kim feels the need to throw a hissy fit, than Kim and North Korea will start waving around its weapons to the rest of the world. And if that causes instability- too bad.

Actually the Cold War did end because of a pile of skulls- skulls taken in conventional wars in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea , all over Africa, Latin America but generally not in Europe. That pile of skulls was a consequence of a containment policy that led to conflicts as both the US and the Soviets fought over global influence.

Which is what your Time article points out-

It's too soon to tell whether North Korea overplayed its hand by launching missiles in the hope of tipping the diplomatic balance in its favor. It has certainly drawn condemnation from all quarters, and squandered some of the advantage it enjoyed when Beijing and Seoul were becoming increasingly critical of the U.S. over the failure of the talks. But North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will certainly remember how his provoking of previous crises eventually brought diplomatic gains rather than punishment; North Korea's 1998 missile tests, for example, brought direct talks for Kim with South Korea and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Even the Bush administration, which rejected the Clinton-era approach as rewarding North Korea's bad behavior, was forced to move in the same direction by joining the six-party process in 2002, after first spurning the idea of offering Pyongyang incentives to change its ways.

Even now, after weeks of warnings that North Korea would suffer harsh consequences if it went ahead with a test, the U.S. and its allies may be confronting the reality that there are precious few options to turn those warnings into punishments. The crisis — if that is what it really is — won't necessarily play out as Pyongyang desires. But it has a good chance of getting some of what it wants in a resumption of negotiations over a package of rewards for North Korea in exchanged for it changing its behavior.

So North Korea walks out of talks because it doesn’t get what it wants. Then it fires off missiles to show that it means something, gets rewarded for it if it gets a package of goodies, and then will break its word again and continue to cheat for another package of goodies.

This is diplomatic success?

Do you give a dog a biscuit because it doesn’t bite you when it snarls?

Do you reward the dog for not biting, or punish the dog for snarling?

Right now it seems that its all about rewards and no punishments, and that's probably why the diplomacy favors North Korea.

You argue that the US, South Korea and Japan should wait out North Korea while it goes eventually bankrupt, yet at the same time North Korea continues to survive because China pumps aid into it. And when North Korea is unhappy that it can’t blackmail its neighbors into more aid, it decides to threaten them.

This is not North Korean deterrence Rosh. Rather, it is extortion backed with nuclear coercion.

How is that peaceful diplomacy going?

From the BBC-

No advance in N Korea diplomacy
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis over North Korea's missile tests appear to have made little headway with two sets of talks failing to progress.

Soon after a US envoy said China-North Korea talks had not had a breakthrough, inter-Korean talks collapsed.

SO much for China and South Korean...

But key nations remain at odds on what action to take, setting the scene for a showdown in the UN Security Council.

China says it will veto a Japanese resolution on the issue and, with Russia, has circulated a rival draft.

Japan is seeking a tough resolution - backed by the US, UK and France - that could lead to sanctions against North Korea. But China and Russia have proposed a softer draft that emphasises a diplomatic solution.

The Security Council decided to delay action to allow time for key talks between China and North Korea.

Officials were hoping that China, as North Korea's closest ally, could persuade Pyongyang not to repeat last week's missile launches and return to six-party talks on its nuclear ambitions.

But US envoy Christopher Hill said on Thursday that it was clear these talks had failed.

He told the BBC from Beijing, where he has been holding discussions over the North's missile launches, that there had been no breakthroughs in Pyongyang.

Mr Hill told reporters the Chinese were "as baffled as we are".

"The Chinese sent a good delegation up to Pyongyang, showed a real interest in trying to work with the DPRK [North Korea] - but it does not appear to have been reciprocated."

South Korea, meanwhile, has also been attempting to negotiate with the North, at high-level bilateral talks in the port city of Busan.

But the talks ended in failure one day ahead of schedule, with the North Korean delegation set to return to Pyongyang.

The North blamed South Korea for the collapse, saying that Seoul had raised issues unrelated to the meeting.

"The South side will pay a price before the nation for causing the collapse of the ministerial talks," a statement from the North Korean delegation said.

More threats from North Korea?

Meanwhile Chinese delegates are due to remain in Pyongyang until Saturday, continuing their quest for progress.

But Mr Hill, who is soon to fly back to Washington, said the time left for Chinese efforts to work was "down to a number of days".

'No response'

On 5 July North Korea test-fired seven missiles - including a long-range Taepodong-2, a weapon which is believed to be capable of reaching Alaska.

The action has left the international community deeply divided over how to respond.

The UN resolution drawn up by Japan - and backed by the US, Britain, France, and five other members - calls North Korea a "threat to international peace and security" and invokes Chapter Seven of the UN charter.

Resolutions made under Chapter Seven are legally binding and can authorise sanctions or even military action.

But China, Russia and South Korea believe punitive action is not necessary, and China's ambassador to the UN, Wang Guangya, confirmed on Thursday he had been instructed to veto the resolution at the Security Council.

A rival Chinese-Russian draft instead focuses on the need to find a diplomatic solution.

The US and Japan said the resolution had serious gaps, and that they would press for a vote on their resolution.

Japan's chief spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, told reporters on Thursday that Tokyo would not wait forever for a Security Council vote.

"I will not give a deadline now, but there should be a vote early as possible," Mr Abe said.

Why should North Korea negotiate when it faces no incentives to do so?

It was North Korea that decided that it wanted to play nuclear diplomacy. Nuclear diplomacy is hard and the punishments need to be made clear.

Nuke Korea? Definitely don't keep that option off the table. Let the Koreans know that they are playing with fire and they are likely to be burnt. Make them aware of both the carrots and the sticks of diplomacy.

You want diplomacy to succeed, fine. But you can't do that by playing passive. There have to be incentives to bargaining, but also disincentives in the forms of punishments for failure to negotiate.