North Korea will launch nuclear weapons

Holy fuck, I hope you're joking.

@leebmx: I never once said anything about killing the people. But when your country launches a nuclear weapon and you're given the choice to cooperate with the UN sanctioned actions or resist, you're asking for it. Not to be an ass, but nuclear aggression cannot be allowed to continue. The casualties from taking control of North Korea would be nothing compared to the casualties from a North Korea with nuclear launch capabilities allowed to persist. A nuclear strike will almost certainly cause tens and likely hundreds of thousands of deaths. And as someone who lives in a city that is one of the top targets that North Korea would have in the states (Seattle, massive port city with a very large population), I think I'm ok with saying if they fucking attack us, that's an act of war and we need to defend ourselves. If you're okay with allowing a nuclear strike to go unpunished, by all means you do that. Me on the other hand? I'll gladly go and kick any punk's ass that thinks that the civilian casualties from the theoretical nuclear strike were deserved and is going to fight to allow that capability to persist.

I also know that with North Korea's size, we could easily go in and kick the asses that really deserve it before the rest of the country has a chance to respond.

I'd rather see some civilians killed in a battle to prevent another nuclear strike than see uncountable civilians killed from another strike. I don't care where the first nuke lands, it could be in the middle of Afghanistan and I'd still feel that the right thing to do would be to go the fuck in and kick their asses and teach that little runt in charge that we aren't fucking around.

I don't want a nuke to land anywhere in the world. I don't want to see Marines go in and get killed because they are the first response force, and a whole hell of alot of them are stationed within striking distance of Korea. I don't want to see civilians killed. But ya know what? Sometimes there are greater evils in the world than war.

So next time you want to twist my words into war mongering, you should maybe think twice. My willingness to engage in a war that is justified does not make me a murderous individual nor does it mean that I desire the deaths of innocents. Hell, part of why I want to enlist and get a chance to kick some Taliban ass is because it sickens me to think there are bullies with guns able to walk around and push around the population using violence and fear.

And I don't care who you are or how liberal or hippy dippy or conservative you are. Nuclear power is too great to allow to be used unchecked. If it comes to the point where a nuclear capable nation so much as attempts to carry out a strike with a nuclear warhead, you'd be crazy to say direct intervention is not required immediately. Would you prefer that we just go with an eye for an eye and nuke them right back with a much bigger bomb? Or would you prefer that we send our soldiers into harms way so as to avoid civilian casualties? Because that seems like an awfully nice course of action to me, but it's the way we'd probably do things.

I also made it pretty clear I never expect anything to come of this. At least not from 'this' North Korea. They are weak, they are incapable, and they have NO allies. It's not happening. Even if they launch something, we have so many systems in place to prevent a warhead from being effective.

Perhaps you've heard this before, but generally military men do not desire war. But if there's going to be one, you sure as hell better bet they want to be in on it. It's a reality of the world, war exists. I want to experience that, and I'd rather it be me going to war, someone entirely willing to make those sacrifices than some kid who got in over his head. For every guy like me that steps forward, totally willing and capable there's a reduced chance that some idiot would rush into it thinking he can hack it, and then get either himself or others killed needlessly.

Well, this thread certainly went some very predictable places... Anyways, lets just break some facts down, and come to the realization of why this won't happen.

The lynchpin of it all is of course, China, as the strength of North Korea's conventional forces documented to be obsolete while the state of its soldiers is, on a biological level, inferior to that of South Korea. North Korea has made a habit of sending its most impressive (see tallest) soldiers stand at the DMZ, face to face with their S.Korean counterparts as a means of intimidation. The size of those soldiers have been on a steady decline for decades. Its nuclear arsenal, while deadly, is also extremely limited in range. So let's set aside, for the moment, how deadly an actual North Korean attack would be for any nation other than South Korea.

The number of armchair generals spinning numbers of how quickly Chinese forces are capable of supporting a N.Korean invasion is rather unnecessary. We need to understand exactly what China's current strategic goal is, which is to create a Chinese Sphere of Influence on the main East Asian and South East Asian continents. Think of their current strategic outlook as something akin to early 1800s American behavior (See Monroe Doctrine). Now, let us all agree that the current biggest US presence on the mainland is South Korea. (Japan and Taiwan are islands off the coast.) In order to prevent further foreign buildup in the region, China desires a stable buffer in the form of N.Korea. However, the word stable is quite important, as the current (but probably temporary) inflammatory nature of N.Korea would serve as nothing less than a reason for more foreign intervention in the region.

Should a war occur in East Asia, it would not change the balance of power so as to create a world where "the US is no longer the boss." The US has ceased to be a global hegemon for many, many years now, on an economic level, well before even the economic recession of the previous decade. The irony of your wish is that should a war occur on the Korean Peninsula, the US would actually further assert itself as a military hegemon. The complete destruction or foreign occupation of N.Korea, would only see much greater American influence in the region. Further, it would lead to a great increase in Japanese and potentially Taiwanese military build up, funded largely by American dollars.

Took a few minutes of reviewing some old college notes, but let me go a bit further in explaining why I say America ceased to be an international economic hegemon many decades ago. The post-WWII Bretton Woods system created fixed exchange rates that was based on the strength of the American dollar. The US government pinned the value of the dollar to gold, at a rate...a certain amount per ounce. (I don't have the exact numbers down. Someone go look it up on wikipedia for me.) As some financially sound minds might imagine, while the US government can control the value of gold at home, it is impossible to do abroad. The value of gold fluctuates, and at points, it becomes feasible for other governments to purchase cheap gold abroad for US dollars, and trade it into the US treasury for a greater number of dollars. (This was caused by the tremendous of US dollars on the international market caused by the Marshall Plan). While obviously disadvantageous for the US, it was put into place to give countries that needed to rebuild, and needed American dollars to spend back for American industrial and commercial products.

However, the ability for that system to sustain itself met its breaking point by the late 60s, and after France made a rather large run on the US Treasury, the system was dissolved in 1971 by Richard Nixon. We might talk about American economic dominance of the 90s and maybe the aughts, but it's but a mere shadow compared to how absurdly strong and commanding it was in the 50s and 60s, a time when America quite literally made the rules disadvantageous for itself, and laughed it off.

Joking about what? How the superpowers of the world are tyrannical as well, how I could only hope that a nuke would wipe out the bullshit in this country, or the facts of the first three points?

I don't speak in jokes about very much. The whole "nuke hitting us" thing is basically my very angry way of saying "this country is fucked, and nothing short of a complete wipe of the slate is really going to get shit right." Between corrupted politicians, people that could give a shit less about anything other than the newest episode of Honey Boo Boo (or whatever fucking junk is on TV lately), people being dependent rather than IN-dependent, and a continuing push for the idea in the U.S. that "Jesus is the answer" rather than logical conversation and solutions, there's really very little hope for America to actually be worthwhile on its current trajectory.

However, a nuke wouldn't fix that. It would just turn us into an even more militaristic society with more cops PLUS military on the streets, more laws and more bills, more freedoms stripped, and more people who give a shit less because they don't think any of it pertains to them.

This is just grandstanding by a shit leader of a shit country that indoctrinates it's citizens. His father did it, his grandfather did it, and now he's doing it. All in an attempt to extort food, money, and aid from the western world. The only place at risk is Seoul and they don't need to use nuclear weapons to attack Seoul. They have every piece of artillery zeroed in on Seoul and in a matter of seconds they could kill well over 200,000 people given the population density.

The country barely has running water. They have famine because of the Barrage (Nampo Dam) that has flooded a large amount of their farm land. They have 8 lane roads with ZERO traffic because they don't have any fucking fuel. They have rolling power outages in Pyongyang of all places, which is supposed to be where the privileged live.

Might want to do some research and educate yourself on the region before making asinine sensationalistic topic headings.

Also;

Is it any wonder why they're doing this? Foreign aid to North Korea is almost zero.

Your assessment of how little chance North Korea has to actually do significant damage to the US(and even some regional powers) is accurate, but I don't know what the heck happened halfway through your comment. Seriously, Jakob, that is screwed up.

It's never alright to hope for a nuclear strike or country's collapse, as there are real people involved. And I'm not sure what nut convinced you that any of those countries are as bad as North Korea when it comes to being tyrannical. Russia and China have their problems, but they're still not North Korea. And even if you dislike some politics in the US and England, that doesn't mean they're anywhere close to like North Korea. To suggest such an absurd thing simply diminishes the sad reality of how bad things are in North Korea and insults the real people suffering under a dictatorial regime.

If you're a part of one of those countries, you should consider being a good example. Be the kind of person you wish there were more of. We don't need more misinformed and self-righteous people or nuts. We need reasonable people who don't just have to embrace hyperbole to express themselves.

If North Korea launch nuclear weapons North Korea would probably cease to exist within about a day.

and by launch nuclear weapons let's be serious, the only way they can pull that off is by whacking a bomb really hard with a tennis racket and hoping for the best.

@aiurflux: I agree about what an awful state North Korea is in, but I'm curious about your last statement regarding foreign aid. Where in particular did you get those numbers and are you suggesting that people shouldn't be surprised when they act insane because their amount of foreign aid is low? Because, as far as their country is concerned, foreign aid is actually a primary resource for maintaining a functioning country. In other words, even if foreign aid isn't extremely high, it's still a massive part of what keeps them running. And the big reason why aid has gone down so much is due to them doing things like developing nuclear weapons. Their crazy actions cause them to get less foreign aid. Their insistence on using foreign aid to fuel the military more than keeping their people alive is what causes them to get less foreign aid. They're not acting up because foreign aid is low. Their acting up is why foreign aid is low.

Heck, they've actually done enough to anger the international community that even China has recently threatened to end their foreign aid to the country, which would cripple them. Their actions are causing foreign aid to dry out, not the other way around.

Dude, this is borderline Hitman nonsense.

Hey North Korea. You want some? Come get some!!!

Nah, it's the same level of rather humorously misplaced jadedness that Handsomdead reaked of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine

Yes it's Wikipedia so it isn't exactly a 100% reliable source, but information like that is readily available outside of Wikipedia. It's just easier to view it in a graph like that. That's food aid in thousands of tons. Even China, an ally of North Korea, has pulled food aid. Escaped North Koreans have said that the food situation was deteriorating back when Kim Jong-il was still alive. You lose the food you lose the people.

I say that this is the reason why they're getting more and more aggressive because of two things, a history of using threats of violence to extort aid and simple human nature of their back being against the wall and they feel that they have to do something dramatic to get their point across. So it's a case of they're damned if they do and they feel they're damned if they don't. Of course they wouldn't be in this situation if they didn't threaten the international world with nuclear war, but this is a young leader that obviously feels that he has to grandstand to gain the respect of his generals. There's one very important thing between Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il was his fathers son. In North Korea that will matter.

Sounds worse than just jadedness. Humorously jaded would sound more like giving up, not self-righteously finding the world lacking and hoping some kind of war or genocide could shake things up. That's just creepy, even without an additional rant on Obama or chemtrails. I mean, that sounds more like an easy target for a violent extremist group than just someone who isn't particularly cheery.

Though, maybe he's just having a really off day.

I always laugh at the people who see reality television as some horrible evil.

As if a show about children's beauty pageants invalidates all the positive things about our society.

@truthtellah said:

It's probably the hyperbolic and incredibly unrealistic rant that makes it humorous. That and anytime I see a rant like that, the image of the person on the other side is an 18 year old college freshmen which adds to the humor, despite it being an incorrect image I'm sure.

Actually, no, Turambar's right. HandsomeDead's jadedness was comically misplaced, but it was that disturbing sort of darkly comical. Other times, it was just disturbing in the "how could any sane human being think this way?" sense.

Considering how much their population relies on that food aid, I'd just not say it was almost zero. It's relatively generous considering the kind of country they are. But yes, they do seem to think that acting up will get them more food aid; though, cutting off lines of communication that allow for even negotiating such deals is counter-productive to that end. It's definitely a lot of bluster to establish Kim Jong Un's status in the nation, but there are also indications that this is different from some incidents in the past. If they escalate to firing on part of South Korea again, the war of words might just get out of hand. While a lot of it is business-as-usual, it can just as easily go horribly wrong.

Well, hopefully you and @turambar are right. I've heard the same thing said before and someone went a little further than that. You never suspect it's someone you know. *shrug* I do hope it's more like the simple rantings of an angry teen or old man.

@nivash: Just for that bullshit first sentence I want to hate you, but you're right. I wish I could say that I'm safe in the EU, but a) My country is still 3 months from accession, b) we're a NATO member and c) it would be the end of the world as we know it, know it

Also,most of you seem to be forgetting that Japan couldn't use its army to do anything other than defence, and it has been like that for the past 68 years. Also, asshole correct tried to correct defence to defense. Asswipe.

@mordeaniischaos: In your original reply you said 'it would be fun to go and kick that short fucker's ass while seeing some other parts of the world,' and it was this statement that made me worry that you had a rather simplistic view of what war is, surely you can understand that? However I asked if you were being flippant because I wanted to make sure whether it was just bravado or you this was your real attitude.

I really don't think I twisted your words into war-mongering as your original statement made it sound as if you were looking forward to act of killing and fighting not the possible good outcomes that would arise from this fighting. If you want people to take your intentions seriously you need to express yourself in more grown-up language.

Your second post, however makes it much more clear what your opinions are and you make some good points.The most important thing about this whole situation to bear in mind is that N Korea firstly don't have the capability of hitting anywhere in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) and secondly, even if they did they wouldn't bother because the leadership know this would result in the destruction of their country and their loss of control (and probably death). This current situation is just childish sabre-rattling by Kim-Jong-Un to shore up his position and look tough for the generals who don't take him fully seriously yet. The fact that the joint factory on the border is still open shows how little all this current talk 'war-state' means.

As far as what should be done if a strike did happen, I would hope that any response would concentrate as much as possible on taking out the leadership rather than punishing the whole country. I can understand the reluctance of a country like the US to risk its troops just to spare civilian casualties in another, belligerent, country, but I think it is worth bearing in mind here that the biggest victims in this situation currently, are the people of N.Korea who have starved under a brutal dictatorship for 60 years. I think any war in that country would be over very quickly with minimum US casualties as the N.Koreans, once they were aware of the power they were up against, and once the regime showed signs of collapse, would not fight very hard, similar to the Iraqi forces in the last Gulf War. But I am no military expert it has to be said.

However it won't come to this. There isn't going to be a war. Hopefully the regime can be worn down from within as the people become more desperate. With even China supporting the latest round of sanctions, you never know.

@darji: Amazing picture.

@kepler: Actually the SDF has been expanding its influence a lot over the last 20 years. I believe some SDF members were deployed in Afghanistan, although I think they were in non-combat roles.

And, without further ado,

I present.... Conflict on the Korean Peninsula: A Play in Nine Parts.

I wonder if there's some sort of internal political dynamic that's forcing Kim Jong-un to do all this grandstanding. What is the situation with the ruling class anyway?

I'm in the very fortunate position where I can talk very cleverly about this without having to decide anything:

I don't think it's legit. Why would Kim Jong Un risk his wealth and power? I personally think this is just his attempt to be taken serious by the rest of the world, also South Korea at one point said, that he is more open than Kim Jong Ill which sounds good to us but probably not very good to him.

@abendlaender: exactly, NK attacking anyone would be the absolute worst thing they could do. The north korean elite and dictatorship want to remain in power and control the flow of information to the population. I'm fairly sure the NK military intelligence is smart enough to realize how far back in time their military is and how quickly they would be destroyed.

The military parades and stuff are not necessarily to intimidate the world, but to make the actual NK citizens believe the lie that they could still fight the US and have a superior military force. They have to perpetuate the ignorance within their own borders and control information that way. Also, the entire country is reliant on foreign import food from china and trade with russia and siberia. The country would not survive even a year long war.

True global economies mean that China, S Korea, Japan, and 'The West' have odd & divided interests in a war. All the countries and regions have, like it or not, close ties and linked economies. 'The West', Japan and S Korea need Chinese manufacturing, but more importantly China need jobs from and purchases from abroad. And teh US has some special interests that will really be the reason for yes or no.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is China is vulnerable because they need those jobs now. China wants to move past manufacturing into a post industrial economy and to move onto building world wide influences of the hard cash from a late stage manufacturing economy. A war now in Korea would set China back no matter what side they choose. A war gives the US and Japan a REASON to be in the Sea of Japan and the South China sea. Moreover, it gives the US a reason to sweep into the Philippians to crack down of muslim extremists. It just gives the US and excuse to turn east and whack whatever influences they do not like cropping up. (Just watch, if a war starts in Korea, in no time we will be in the Philippines somehow. The United States has had a HARD ON for the Philippines for 140 years, and a war in Korea will be our excuse...we will say we are root out islamists but we always wanted the Philippines.)

So...err who do you think has the least to lose with a war in Korea? The US and they have the most to gain too. So will a war on the Korean Peninsula happen? Yes, of course it will happen. It will be a worthwhile risk and very helpful for giving a reason to turn East.

Maybe North Korea could start a Kickstarter project to raise money for a working missile. I always feel sorry for them as they tend to mess it up during launch. :/

@darji:

What is the point of comparing death totals from two different wars in two different eras? Wouldn't the fact that the South Korean side had 178,224 deaths and the north korean side had anywhere from twice to three times as many deaths actually be a useful statistic?

Why assume this isn't just a threat when they're so well-known for being all talk and no action? There's a lot of bad shit in the world that people won't touch, but this wouldn't be one of those things, it'd be political suicide for North Korea.

@soldierg654342 said:

@darji:

No lightning on the zweihander.

You done fucked up.

A new heir surrounded by a ruling class that does not necessarily trust you, and growing unrest amongst the citizenry. Plenty of reasons to grandstand, consolidate power, and purge dissidents all at the same time.

I don't have anything to actually say, I just love making huge quote tunnels.

@example1013:

@turambar said:

@example1013:

Some duders just want to watch the world burn...

@truthtellah: I just realized, that look Jeff's got is actually probably possible in Phantasy Star Online 2.

@jakob187: You could move you know. Instead of hoping for the death of millions of people.

Make it so, numba one. And then post a picture.

I think Jong-un is just trying to set his own identity in stone. Getting out of his fathers' shadow and all that jazz by "standing up" to the evil foreign powers in order for his country to grow and prosper. It's all smoke and mirrors.

Why do people think China is going to support N Korea? If there is any nuclear activity in the Korean penusila the fallout will directly effect China, Japan, S. Korea and Russia, hence they have no reason to back N Korea if shit gets real. Do people realize how much money China and US make having an economic relationship? If shit goes down China is going to side with US and the West over N Korea, Iran or Syria; for fuck sake the only reason they are kind of backing these countries now is so they can have leverage in negotiating various economic and political terms with the U.S. CHINA DON"T CARE.

N. Korea and that idiot kid are just puffing their chest at this point, if they commit to military action they are gonna get fucked badly. Also people really don't understand how boss and prepared S.Korea's military is in case N. Korea wants to start shit. As has been said this is mostly caused so the kid dictator can solidify his power internally.

Bottom line, no super power in the world wants N. Korea to take nuclear action. N. Korea is not going to be the spark that starts WWIII, Israel and the Middle East are the much more likely start point for WWIII at this point.

Also lets all hope nothing comes out of this, we do not need more violence and war in this world.

@truthtellah: So apparently there aren't any good baseball hats. So instead I just put on two pairs of glasses and jordi eyes.

Gonna be honest, I don't think I've ever encountered a person with a bigger chip on their shoulder than you,

Honestly, you never, ever, let shit down do you?

I bet you still hate on greg kasavin cause of that gamespot contest don't you?

Don't be silly! No one in their right mind could ever hate the beautiful Greg Kasavin...

@truthtellah:

i know, right?

@red12b: Truth be told, no, I don't like Kasavin. His participation in that contest left a sour impression of him on me and I don't feel the need to be apologetic about that. But that's hardly the only reason I dislike him and I don't feel obligated in any way to go further in my explanation here because you dredging this up was unwarranted.

Wait does Greg secretly rule North Korea?