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North Korea Says War With South Would Go Nuclear
A reader writes "According to reports from the Uriminzokkiri, the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a war with South Korea would involve nuclear weapons, and '[will] not be limited to the Korean peninsula.' The article goes on, 'The Korean peninsula remains a region fraught with the greatest danger of war in the world. This is entirely attributable to the US pursuance of the policy of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea).'"
My hope is the ratcheting up of the posturing levels to new ridiculous heights during the handover could be to allow Kim Jong-Un to adopt a more moderate policy without completely collapsing his power base. A event-free handover followed by "Welp, guess we should stop our unsustainable policy of isolationism and get with the international program" would probably result in the generals ousting Un, whereas "Oh shit, Glorious Father went a little too far, better do something to avert invasion, right guys?", even if the outcome is the same, may go down better.
Or I could be talking complete nonsense and am simple unaware of the magnitude of NK's regular levels of crazy.
You do realize that only ~1k out of ~250k have been released right? That is less than one percent.
I for one would prefer for DPRK to know it won't have allies if push comes to shove. Generally speaking, when little guys realize their big brother won't help them in a fight, they act less aggressively. But of course posturing plays an important role in negotiating a better deal.
There is the risk that information might destabilize their control and lead to violence. There is also the risk that the US and China plotting in secret to overthrow a nuclear power would lead to violence as well. Which situation is more dangerous, who can say?
All of this always makes me think of an article that ran a few years back (not on slashdot) that was interviewing several people who had managed to defect/escape from NK into China and other places. These were average citizens...
One of them told how her job was to collect the pamphlets that were dropped by US planes, and how she feels so incredibly foolish now, because she and all of her coworkers had to use sharpened sticks to pick them up. They did this because they had been told that the US pamphlets which espoused democracy and freedom were covered in some kind of an acidic solution that would eat away their skin if they touched them.
She acknowledged how (in the light of having escaped and seen the world around her for the first time in a more impartial manner) very silly it was to believe such a thing, but reiterated that everyone who worked with her truly believed this to be true.
This sort of thing makes me very nervous about the idea of invading North Korea. The people are so incredibly ignorant of the world around them and we know so little about them besides the fact that they're not well educated and starving, that it seems dangerously possible that going to war with them would mean going to war with an entire country of zealots...this does not seem like a good option.
When was it demonstrated that North Korea actually had nukes? I only remember a failed test and a lot of posturing. Googling turns up nothing, although I may not be looking correctly. What am I missing?