China a threat... what about N. Korea?

GekiDan · Apr 18, 2009

curious said:
I don't think it would be a world war. We'd carpet bomb North Korea if they attacked Japan, and North Korea would pretty much no longer exist.

Would it be like the bomb that would've erased Japan on World War II? Or a more powerful one?
I am hoping that it will not became a war. Peace talks are always better.

The Parakeet · Apr 18, 2009

I'm not sure. I don't think we've ever done a fuel bomb test on buildings. It wouldn't be a nuke either way. Here's an example of an MOAB (fuel bomb) test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuGrDSP0rj8

Carpet bombing is just using a whole bunch of bombs at once over an area. We've done that in Iraq and didn't have too much collateral damage.

And just to lighten the mood. The 6 reasons that North Korea is the world's funniest evil dictatorship.

http://www.cracked.com/article_17165_6-reasons-north-korea-funniest-evil-dictatorship-ever.html

deanhills · Apr 19, 2009

curious said:
No, we no longer have bases in France, we don't have bases in the UK, or Canada. We actually only have bases in a few countries. The ones I can think of offhand are Germany, Spain (a big naval base), Turkey, Japan, Korea, Bahrain (the navy again), Iraq, Afghanistan, and a couple of new ones in the former Soviet bloc. We also have a base in Cuba, which is not considered to be an ally.

Wikipedia lists the following overseas bases for the United States:

2 Overseas
2.1 Australia
2.2 Bahrain
2.3 British Indian Ocean Territory
2.4 Egypt
2.5 Cuba
2.6 Djibouti
2.7 Greece
2.8 Italy
2.9 Japan
2.10 Kuwait
2.11 Oman
2.12 Qatar
2.13 Republic of Korea
2.14 Saudi Arabia
2.15 Singapore
2.16 Spain
2.17 United Arab Emirates
2.18 United Kingdom

Perhaps the one for United Kingdom should not have been listed and the Web page needs to be updated.

GekiDan · May 25, 2009

North Korea recently launches an underground nuclear test. The people there felt an earthquake that has a strength of 4.2 magnitude.
The UN said that they will take this into action.

deanhills · May 26, 2009

GekiDan said:
North Korea recently launches an underground nuclear test. The people there felt an earthquake that has a strength of 4.2 magnitude.
The UN said that they will take this into action.

Looks like a pretty serious matter as Obama is making this a matter of priority. Wonder what punitive measures they could take however? I also wonder at the cockiness of the North Koreans as there has to be some backing for their self-confidence in going against explicit calls to not go ahead with testing, perhaps assurances of support from Iran/China/Russia?

omej · May 28, 2009

Kim Jong is quite a thread. He threatened South Korea and the United States as he declared the cease-fire no longer valid. He's basically trying to justify a conflict - and this time he has nukes.

The Parakeet · May 28, 2009

Well...if I remember correctly he's still far away from making a true nuke. He could possibly string together a dirty missile, but that would be it.

Certainly going to be interesting to see what happens. I don't think China's been too supportive in the past, so I think they're going to be on their own. This action might get the EU fully behind us, so that might turn things around.

DodgeFB · May 29, 2009

Old Kim Jong is trying to rattle young Obama's cage.

deanhills · May 31, 2009

I wonder whether this also has something to do with playing the US for benefits. Along bribery route. The harder they play the more benefits they are likely to get in loans etc?

The Parakeet · May 31, 2009

It's all for aid.

His country has no economy to speak off and generally depends on aid to keep the people quiet enough. This is probably more of a symptom of his desperation than anything.

He's trying to rattle our cages because he knows we'll just pay him to stop for a few months and then make it more secretive later.

deanhills · May 31, 2009

The Parakeet said:
It's all for aid.

His country has no economy to speak off and generally depends on aid to keep the people quiet enough. This is probably more of a symptom of his desperation than anything.

He's trying to rattle our cages because he knows we'll just pay him to stop for a few months and then make it more secretive later.

Well Obama has given a clear response to the equivalent that the cage has been rattled big time. Right off the front porch of the White House. Was that BIG speech in retaliation of the last tests really necessary?

DodgeFB · May 31, 2009

deanhills said:
I wonder whether this also has something to do with playing the US for benefits. Along bribery route. The harder they play the more benefits they are likely to get in loans etc?

Yeah, but we are broke now. We can't afford to pay "extortion" to that little troll.

The Parakeet · May 31, 2009

He actually probably won't want too much in extortion. Just enough food to prevent a coup and enough money to buy some more luxuries. He's pretty easy to read really. Just a selfish dictator with false ideas of grandeur.

GekiDan · May 31, 2009

omeythehomie said:
Kim Jong is quite a thread. He threatened South Korea and the United States as he declared the cease-fire no longer valid. He's basically trying to justify a conflict - and this time he has nukes.

Well... North Korea seem to be on the advantage since other countries do not use nuclear weapons as they are. Plus UN had already prohibited the use of these weapons.

deanhills · Jun 1, 2009

DodgeFB said:
Yeah, but we are broke now. We can't afford to pay "extortion" to that little troll.

Broke? Why can't Obama do another few trillion in debt? And ironically of course the country who owns the largest percentage of the debt is none other than China who happens to be North Korea's biggest pal!

http://www.treas.gov/tic/mfh.txt

deanhills · Jun 9, 2009

Looks as though North Korea is really taunting the US at the moment. First it sent two US citizens to 12 years in labour camps, and now has announced that it will use nuclear weapons as a "merciless offensive" if provoked. This is apparently having an affect on its relationship with South Korea. Affecting their economic ties. Wonder what is going to happen, and also wonder whether China is behind the threats?

DodgeFB · Jun 9, 2009

deanhills said:
Looks as though North Korea is really taunting the US at the moment. First it sent two US citizens to 12 years in labour camps, and now has announced that it will use nuclear weapons as a "merciless offensive" if provoked. This is apparently having an affect on its relationship with South Korea. Affecting their economic ties. Wonder what is going to happen, and also wonder whether China is behind the threats?

As I have said before. They think Obama is a all filler and no meat. Sad to say it may be true.

deanhills · Jun 9, 2009

DodgeFB said:
As I have said before. They think Obama is a all filler and no meat. Sad to say it may be true.

Right. I found a very good article on this too in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/opinion/15friedman.html?_r=1

This is the heart of what Friedman said in the article:

This is not the great age of diplomacy.

A secretary of state can broker deals only when other states or parties are ready or able to make them. In the cold war, an age of great powers, grand bargains and reasonably solid client states, there were ample opportunities for that — whether in arms control with the Soviet Union or peacemaking between our respective client states around the globe. But this is increasingly an age of pirates, failed states, nonstate actors and nation-building — the stuff of snipers, drones and generals, not diplomats.
Hence the d?j? vu all over again quality of U.S. foreign policy right now — the sense that when it comes to our major problems (Afghanistan and Pakistan and North Korea and Iran), we just go around and around, buying the same carpets from the same people, over and over, but nothing changes.

“We are dealing with states and leaders who either cannot deliver or will not deliver,” notes the Johns Hopkins University foreign policy professor Michael Mandelbaum. “The issues we have with them look less like problems that can be solved and more like conditions that we have to manage.”

The ones who can’t deliver — the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan — are the ones who promise to do all sorts of good things, and pull all sorts of levers, but at the end of the day the levers come off the wall because the governments in these countries have only limited powers. The ones who won’t deliver — Iran and North Korea — time and again tell us: “Yes, we need to talk.” But at the end of the day, their hostile relationships with America or the West are so central to the survival strategy of their regimes, so much at the core of their justifications for remaining in power, that it is not in their interest to deliver real reconciliation, but just to pretend to deliver it.

The only thing that could change this is a greater exercise of U.S. and allied power. In the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan, that power would have to be used to actually rebuild these states from the inside into modern nations. We would literally have to build the institutions — the pulleys and wheels — so that when the leaders of these states pulled a lever something actually happened, and the lever wouldn’t just break off in their hands.

And in the case of the strong states — Iran and North Korea — we would have to generate much more effective leverage from the outside to get them to change their behavior along the lines we seek. In both cases, though, success surely would require a bigger and longer U.S. investment of money and power, not to mention allies.

Instead, I fear that we are adopting a middle-ground strategy — doing just enough to avoid collapse but not enough to solve the problems. If our goal in Afghanistan and Pakistan is nation-building, so they will have self-sustaining moderate governments, we surely don’t have enough troops or resources inside devoted to either. If our goal is changing regime behavior in Iran and North Korea, we surely have not generated enough leverage from outside. North Korea’s defiant missile launch and Iran’s continued development of its nuclear capability testify to that.

So, in sum, we have four problem countries at the heart of U.S. foreign policy today that we don’t have the will or ability to ignore but seem to lack the leverage or the allies to decisively change. The big wild card — a critical mass of people who share our aspirations inside these countries, rising up and leading the fight, which is ultimately what tipped Iraq for the better — I don’t see. As such, I fear we are sliding into commitments in Afghanistan and Pakistan without a real national debate about the ends or the means or the exits. That is a recipe for trouble.

Given all that is on his plate, you cannot blame President Obama for looking for a middle ground — not wanting to abandon progressives and women in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not wanting to get in too deeply. But history teaches that the middle ground can be a perilous place. Think of Iraq before the surge — not enough to win or lose, but just enough to be stuck.

Abbott Presley · Nov 24, 2020

“Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast heaven to hell so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labours left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labours of men that as a result of the labours unfinished of Testew and Cunard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labours of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation is seen to waste and pine waste and pine and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicilline and succedanea in a word I resume and concurrently simultaneously for reasons unknown to shrink and dwindle in spite of the tennis I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell to shrink and dwindle I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labours lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labours lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and than the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull to shrink and waste and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labours abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard (mêlée, final vociferations) tennis… the stones… so calm… Cunard… unfinished…”

China a threat... what about N. Korea?

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