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North Korea Announces 3rd Nuclear Test, Anti-US Aims

As reported by Reuters, The New York Times, and Fox News, among others, North Korea's nuclear saber-rattling has reached a new peak. North Korean officials have made clear their intent to conduct a third nuclear test (earlier tests were in 2006 and 2009), as well as further rocket launches specifically designed to demonstrate missile reach extending to the U.S. From Reuters' story: "North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea. 'We are not disguising the fact that the various satellites and long-range rockets that we will fire and the high-level nuclear test we will carry out are targeted at the United States,' North Korea's National Defence Commission said, according to state news agency KCNA."

597 comments

  1. A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I understand the monetary interest North Korea has in appearing to be a credible threat to peace. But someone over there needs to look at the end of this game.

    If they launched something no more damaging than a dishwasher at San Francisco, their great defenders, the Chinese, would tell them "you're on your own." They have to know they wouldn't last 3 weeks against a U.S. military onslaught. Hundreds of thousands of good people on both sides would be dead, for nothing. No one in the US wants any resources North Korea has. There isn't even the weak excuse of fighting over oil (sorry, "energy security").

    It's just so tragically pointless.

    1. Re:A strange game.... by kheldan · · Score: 3

      All I could think reading this news was "Do they want to get smashed flat?". If I were China, I'd already be backing away from them.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    2. Re:A strange game.... by Antipater · · Score: 5, Informative

      If I were China, I'd already be backing away from them.

      They already are. All this hubbub is in response to a UN vote censuring them for the December rocket launch. The vote was unanimous - China did not back them up or even abstain.

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    3. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the long run, they have three options:
      1) cave to foreign pressure, which eventually means the end of the regime
      2) rattle their sabers enough that they continue to be a threat worth placating/negotiating with, which keeps food coming in and the regime in place
      3) overplay their hand, and end up absolutely leveled by superior forces.

      They've done pretty well with (2) so far, but the trouble is that they actually have to keep hobbling themselves to make it work. If they're not seen as a genuine threat, they don't have a position to negotiate from. If they become an immediate threat, they will be destroyed. They have to occupy a medium position, where they are perpetually a few years away from being a major threat, but also constantly held back by the concessions they make in exchange for aid and trade.

      It's the aid and trade they want to keep the regime going. If the U.S. stops negotiating, they have to either put up or shut up, which either ends the regime with a bang or a wimper.

    4. Re:A strange game.... by butchersong · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have little confidence that the current US administration would do much of anything about a demostration of ability to strike North America. An actual strike sure they'd respond but dealing effectively with a posturing insecure little bully like N Korea? That isn't in their playbook.

    5. Re:A strange game.... by somersault · · Score: 0

      Hundreds of thousands of good people on both sides would be dead,

      Why would the US even need to send in ground troops? They could send a pretty clear message by just bombing the hell out of them.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    6. Re:A strange game.... by MyLongNickName · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is that? Right now, North Korea is a nice bargaining chip for China. The US doesn't want a direct conflict with China so cannot directly attack North Korea. When the time is right, China will reign in North Korea (for a time) in exchange for some concessions from the US. It is a poker game with an element of risk, but North Korea is a high face card in China's hand.

      --
      See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    7. Re:A strange game.... by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There could be many motives behind that, and it does not necessarily mean that China is upset about the launch.

      There could, for example, be value in privately encouraging an aggressive stance towards the US while publicly declaring a more neutral stance. For one, it doesnt burn all your bridges at once.

    8. Re:A strange game.... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would the US even need to send in ground troops?

      US ground troops are already there. Bombing would almost certainly escalate into a ground war, with an NK offensive through the DMZ towards Seoul, which is only 35 miles to the south.

    9. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be FAR LESS than hundreds of thousands dead on the US side.You should read up on total US casualties in wars.

    10. Re:A strange game.... by h4rr4r · · Score: 0

      So the guy who had Osama killed is not going to do anything about the latest Kim to rule NK if he steps over the line?

      I seriously doubt that.

    11. Re:A strange game.... by realityimpaired · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why is that? Right now, North Korea is a nice bargaining chip for China. The US doesn't want a direct conflict with China so cannot directly attack North Korea. When the time is right, China will reign in North Korea (for a time) in exchange for some concessions from the US. It is a poker game with an element of risk, but North Korea is a high face card in China's hand.

      China tried reining them in 2 months ago, when they were getting ready to do the missile launch test. They still fired the missile, which is why China voted in favour of the current round of sanctions.

      NK knows that China doesn't want US military presence on their borders, and that the US will not leave SK as long as NK is still a threat to the south. Thus, it's in NK's interest to be just annoying enough that SK still considers them a threat, but not annoying enough to trigger an attack. And yes, they are a credible threat to the south, with the amount of artillery they have embedded in the hills. They don't need nuclear weapons to do a lot of damage to the South, and are doing this for the attention.

      As long as they don't do anything that would cause China to attack them, they're safe. (personally, I think that's how it's going to play out in the long run, btw... they'll piss China off enough that China attacks them, possibly with UN support, and then the US leaves SK). That means that they can ignore China's warnings and chidings all they want, as long as they don't actually do anything that directly affects China. Sadly, their current administration appears to be aware of this.

      Interestingly enough, I was listening to a discussion on the radio this morning about Munchhausen syndrome, and can't help but wonder if NK's behaviour is a form of it.

    12. Re:A strange game.... by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Losing China makes me all the more nervous of the nature of the DPRK's behavior in the future. While in some ways frustrating, the fact that China was playing big brother with North Korea served the purpose of making them more comfortable. All on their own they're far more likely to switch from a temper tantruming baby, to an animal backed into a corner. Any military action on North Korea's part will result in grave consequences for South Korea.

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    13. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      North Korea knows that if the US strikes then North Korea gets to level Seoul with their artillery emplacements. Neither the US nor South Korea want that.

      China wants North Korea to sit as a buffer between them and South Korea and as a puppet state they can use to influence the region indirectly.

      The US can't just let North Korea do whatever they want because they want to protect South Korea and Japan, which, if we allowed to fall in power, would leave China as the only major power in East Asia.

      So pretty much the net result is that the status quo is good for everyone except the North Korean people, but the status quo requires the North Korean state to keep baiting the US.

      It's really all fucked up.

    14. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so cannot directly attack North Korea

      No. the Us can not attack N-K -period-

    15. Re:A strange game.... by khallow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So the guy who had Osama killed is not going to do anything about the latest Kim to rule NK if he steps over the line?

      I seriously doubt that.

      With bin Laden, Obama just had to approve the plan. No real risks would be taken since bin Laden is just a thug in hiding with little power. Here, if Kim Jong-un steps "over the line", any world leader has to consider what consequences would come, such as a bloody attack on South Korea or some sort of nuclear strike.

      Obama just doesn't strike me as the sort of politician who likes to take such risks.

    16. Re:A strange game.... by schwit1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Look what he did after the Benghazi terrorist attack. I expect no more than a finger wag with the "and next time we mean it" rhetoric.

    17. Re:A strange game.... by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Obama carried out a black-ops strike in a supposedly "friendly" country without informing them at all. That was incredibly brazen. He regularly conducts drone attacks, though it appears always with approval of the countries involved. Nevertheless, it is a fairly aggressive posture. He wasted very little time at all going into Libya.

      He might not talk like Bush, but he acts a lot like Bush. The main difference seems to be European acceptance. I don't see anything to make me doubt that he'd respond appropriately.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    18. Re:A strange game.... by cayenne8 · · Score: 0

      Why don't we in the US, drop a little 'demonstration' ourselves....maybe have about 4 or 5 'empty' of payload polaris missles drop near the shores of NK, just to show them WE CAN already do this..?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    19. Re:A strange game.... by jythie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thing is, if they were actually going to attack the US, using an ICBM isn't the best method anyway. They could just put a nuke on a fishing trawler and wander into any number of coastal ports.

      Neither side wants a war there, NK has a pretty good memory of how the civil war went.. so NK, SK, China, Japan, US... all are quite aware that actual hostilities would be a bad idea. Symbolic gestures on the other hand have value... not on the international scale, but on the local one.

      The military in NK is very powerful.. while people like to talk about the place like it is a simple dictatorship, the political reality is the Leader needs the backing of the generals, otherwise his power-base dissolves. One way to do that is build up the internal public image of military streght and show that he is willing to snub the world in favor of the generals. In essence, it is the Leader demonstrating his allegiance to his military and reasserting their primacy within the country.

    20. Re:A strange game.... by Trepidity · · Score: 1

      I agree, although I'm not sure any U.S. president would. It'd certainly be a tough decision: attacking North Korea is very likely to result in retaliation against Seoul, which has millions of people living within artillery range of North Korea.

    21. Re:A strange game.... by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You speak like it would be so neat and simple to wipe them from the map. Have you forgotten about China, or the very strong chance they'd shell Seoul--home of some 24 million people--into rubble? As a red blooded American I suppose that doesn't fit your "bring it on", "put a boot in their *ss", "and to hell with the consequences" philosophy. Who cares about a few "slant eyes" right?

      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
    22. Re:A strange game.... by jythie · · Score: 2

      It isnt in the playbook of any administration. NK is a nuclear nation, you don't back them into a corner just to show your public how strong you are since, unlike the places we have attacked, they can actually hurt us.

    23. Re:A strange game.... by jythie · · Score: 2

      Which is a good thing. Risks like that make great TV but the reality of them is pretty horrible. Risking a restart of the Korean war? NK would have to pose a very immediate and credible threat to do such a thing.

    24. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anytime you come across this thought, that you very well laid out, you should also consider what would make such anger possible? Aside from whatever we feel about the country, or person running the country, there could be legitimate issues that they're having and no one is helping them. Obviously it's not North Korea's first idea on how to deal with whatever the issue is.

      Also, why do I only hear so much about all that hate my country, but I never get to hear a clear, understandable reason for it, other than "They hate our freedom". And if that's actually it, wouldn't this free nation just be made even free-er by blowing up all of the rest of the world (who's to stop us) that "hate our freedom"?

      It's silly from both sides to me. Dunno. If someone threatened to burn down my house, and empty my bank account, I'd be more interested in resolving the actual matter than preparing my house and bank account, as the problem will just fester. Or I guess I could pay people to sit outside my house with guns, while I nervously try to live out the rest of my life, wondering how long I have left.

    25. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apologies for the imprecision. Correction: Hundreds of thousands dead, mostly North Korean, many South Korean, some U.S. All equally valuable.

    26. Re:A strange game.... by rastilin · · Score: 5, Funny

      I was thinking why not use the stealth bombers to drop a little cloud of leaflets with the american flag on one side and the word "boom" on the other over their major city?

      --
      How do you kill that which has no life?
    27. Re:A strange game.... by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      The only reason the US went into Libya was because Gaddafi wanted to create a new currency based on gold to be used in the oil trade.

      Or - and I don't mean to dismiss the conspiracy sites here - it might be possible that the Europeans were about to drag us in to the conflict one way or another, creating a big fat mess unless we got involved immediately and in a big way. The UK sent an almost undefended "warship", for goodness sakes.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    28. Re:A strange game.... by polar+red · · Score: 1

      UK EU.

      --
      Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
    29. Re:A strange game.... by jythie · · Score: 1

      Well, looking at the earlier Korean war (with lower population densities) we get 178,698 dead on 'our' side, 367,283-750,282 dead on 'their' side, and 2.5 million civilians killed or wounded. Hard to say how many we would loose today, but hundreds of thousands of good people dieing is not really an underestimate.

    30. Re:A strange game.... by h4rr4r · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      You know how I know all you watch is Fox News?

      Go read some other papers about it.

    31. Re:A strange game.... by gtall · · Score: 1

      Nah, a better thing would be use their missile launches as testing for our anti-missile technology.

    32. Re:A strange game.... by gtall · · Score: 1

      Well, more to the point, they could hurt S. Korea. They haven't a prayer of hurting the U.S. just yet.

    33. Re:A strange game.... by gtall · · Score: 1

      It isn't NK's behavior, it is the behavior of the latest of the little sawed off runts that run/ran the joint.

    34. Re:A strange game.... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 2, Informative

      It would be FAR LESS than hundreds of thousands dead on the US side

      Sigh. It's not just about American deaths - It's hundreds-of-thousands of dead in South Korea - Our ally. It's not always just about you 'muricans.

    35. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you seen their leader...? Realistic expectations aside, he doesn't look like he'd fit in a soldier's uniform, much less know anything about war.

    36. Re:A strange game.... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They surely know that we can.

      If a kid with down's syndrome comes up and punches you in the face, you don't beat the shit out of him in response. You gain nothing by such a hollow victory, and you cause more trouble for yourself than you solved.

    37. Re:A strange game.... by fche · · Score: 2

      > FTFY

      FTFY

    38. Re:A strange game.... by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      If they wanted to, I wouldn't be surprised if they seized the nuke and told north korea to go sit in time-out.

    39. Re:A strange game.... by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      At the end of the day it isn't because Beijing are big fans the NK regime. They likely hate the Kims as much as anyone. What wakes up the Chinese leadership in cold sweats late at night is the idea of a regime collapse (whether internal or external factors) and millions of North Korean refugees flooding over the border.

      The Chinese may be more willing to use open lines of communication to voice their disapproval of the regime's conduct than in the past, but until someone can come up with a credible plan to wind the regime down with as little violence and upheaval as possible, they will continue to back it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    40. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How dare they!
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY

    41. Re:A strange game.... by sosume · · Score: 1

      How about a giant inflatable 'nuke' delivered to Kim's door step ..

    42. Re:A strange game.... by Maudib · · Score: 2

      Three weeks?

      If they ever actually launched something at the continental US it would be be a matter of minutes before all of NK was a glowing wasteland. There would be no build up/airstrikes/conventional assault, one of the dozen SLBM armed Ohio's would wipe NK out in 20 minutes.

    43. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China tried reining them in 2 months ago, when they were getting ready to do the missile launch test.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_cop/bad_cop

    44. Re:A strange game.... by assertation · · Score: 1

      I agree with you that the United States has incredible air superiority over North Korea. However, I have read that North Korea has an incredible amount of ground defense. Highly motivated troops, traps and even factories underground that could keep operating during a bombing. That is one reason why there still is a North Korea.

    45. Re:A strange game.... by sosume · · Score: 1

      A first strike would then be needed to disable the artillery position in a shock and awe campaign, right? And if the proverbial shit really hits the fan I wouldn't be surprised to see most of the NK army defect in a whim.

    46. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their public stance is in no way neutral They voted FOR the UN resolution. They're off the fence on this one. DPRK has gone too far this time.

    47. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if the kid has a nuclear missile...

    48. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have no idea what you're talking about. There was plenty of risk there... perhaps you should stop watching Glen Beck, pull your head our of your ass and get a fscking clue.

    49. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How slow are you that a kids with down's syndrome was able to punch you in the face?!?! After that, I'd surely question your ability to defend yourself.

    50. Re:A strange game.... by swb · · Score: 1

      It's a nice bargaining chip, but China also faces a lot of risk from a massive refugee crisis and all the destabilization that would occur should North Korea end up in a shooting situation with the US or South Korea.

      NK works well as a foil for the US, but the risk they run is that should a shooting situation occur, the Chinese will have a few million North Koreans crossing the Yellow River creating utter chaos.

    51. Re:A strange game.... by Jmc23 · · Score: 0

      umm, I think they're doing this precisely because everybody already knows how much of a bully the US is. But hey, whip out your penis if you want.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    52. Re:A strange game.... by ub3r+n3u7r4l1st · · Score: 1

      He will probably, but via covert means. There is no reason to commit official U.S. troops ( Navy SEALs or the marines, either way). A cheap CIA operation, couple with some private effort can easily take over the country. No need for "you break it, you own it" B.S.

      I wrote how it can be done with a private military:

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3395133&cid=42643921

    53. Re:A strange game.... by kaiser423 · · Score: 1

      Well, if that's you're going in point, then for NK all he has to do is approve a plan also. The military already has their preferred scenarios planned out, Obama would just have to approve that one.

      I mean, let's compare apples to apples here. There were significant potential for consequences in the Osama attack, and we've felt some with cooling of Pakistani relations, other small-time allies worried about us doing the same thing to them, etc. Furthermore, it could have been 1,000x worse had the operation gone horribly wrong (reference Jimmy Carter here).

    54. Re:A strange game.... by Jmc23 · · Score: 4, Funny

      To be fair, Koreans really don't have slanty eyes.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    55. Re:A strange game.... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They see (2) more as Mutually Assured Destruction, i.e. protection from US invasion. Just like the US was willing to spend untold trillions on protecting itself from the USSR, because after all if you have no country nothing else matters, North Korea is willing to disadvantage itself to create a viable defence system.

      The threat to them is real. The US on their doorstep and declared them to be part of an "axis of evil". Afghanistan and Iraq have already been invaded, Iran is being actively attacked with cyber-weapons and trying to build up its nuclear deterrent as quickly as possible. It doesn't help that even the wider international community applies the double standard of congratulating most countries on their space programmes while condemning NK. Why would India be allowed such a programme when NK isn't? Why should the US for that matter? It just makes them more determined to succeed.

      That's the problem with this game. You can't choose to not play. The only reasonable move is to develop the capability to nuke the US, and MAD keeps the peace. Then the US starts talking about an ICBM shield again and you suddenly need a few hundred instead of just a few, and the game escalates...

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    56. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No country was going to treat Osama bin Laden's death as an act of war - not even Pakistan, whose national sovereignty was violated in the process. Assassinating an actual head of state in a country with a legitimate (if despotic) uncontested government is another story entirely. That would start a war which could only end with a complete defeat of the NK military and a decades-long occupation. It'd be another Iraq.

    57. Re:A strange game.... by markass530 · · Score: 1

      tell that to everyone in south korea

    58. Re:A strange game.... by Dainsanefh · · Score: 0

      Yes, arresting someone who are exercising the first amendment right to criticize a certain religion by making an obscure youtube video that nobody talks or cares about until Mr. Hussein Obama blames on it. Nice Application of Streisand effect.

      --
      Twitter: @dainsanefh
    59. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      At the end of the day it isn't because Beijing are big fans the NK regime. They likely hate the Kims as much as anyone. What wakes up the Chinese leadership in cold sweats late at night is the idea of a regime collapse (whether internal or external factors) and millions of North Korean refugees flooding over the border.

      >

      As a percent of population, 2 million North Koreans flooding into China per year would be the same order of magnitude as illegal immigration into the US.

    60. Re:A strange game.... by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They voted for the resolution, and a few years ago when NK was rattling sabers they actually cut off their oil supply.

      China is all for NK being a general pain to the US. They're not really all that eager to have a nuclear war break out on their border. I think both the US and China have given up on the whole expansion-of-communism vs containment thing - neither country really wants to have tens of thousands of people dying and billions of dollars spent because some kid wants to be a big shot in his third world nation. They'll fight over oil, but not pride.

    61. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like the ones dropped on Japan in 1945.

    62. Re:A strange game.... by Rich0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't really see the point in that. Everybody already knows the US can do this. The only thing a demonstration might show is that our targeting isn't as good as everybody thinks.

    63. Re:A strange game.... by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      That is not what I was talking about at all.

      I was talking about the reaction after the terrorist attack.

    64. Re:A strange game.... by jonadab · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > If they launched something... at San Francisco, ...
      > the Chinese, would tell them "you're on your own."

      Very likely, yes.

      If they launched a *Nuke* at San Francisco, China would actively participate in dismantling the DPRK.

      > They have to know they wouldn't last 3 weeks
      > against a U.S. military onslaught.

      I'm not sure exactly what the Kim family knows. If they had even a basic grasp of macroeconomics, for instance, they wouldn't be running the country the way they are. And economic differences are the main reason why they wouldn't have a prayer, militarily speaking, against a first-world power.

      Isolationism always leads to economic stagnation, and people who grow up under it usually are not fully aware of the extent to which the world is passing them by. When we think of the development of nuclear weapons, we think of the WWII era, which for us in the first world seems like a very long time ago, technologically; but that's because we've lived all our lives around modern technology. living in isolation, you don't necessarily *notice* all the changes taking place in the rest of the world. Time slows down, and the WWII era doesn't seem so different from today. Yes, the Kim family knows about some advances that have been made. They know about the internet, for example, and they have at least a passing awareness that cell phones exist; but those are just specific examples of a much larger trend, a trend they very well might not be aware of at all. Like I said, if they did understand this stuff, it's unlikely that they would be running the country the way they are. I would lay odds ten to one that Kim does *not* realize that low-income six-year-olds around with hand-me-down cellphones over here, and even if he did find out this fact, he would not understand its socioeconomic significance.

      Bring it around to warfare, we're so far beyond Hiroshima that we consider that kind of weapon primitive, and I would bet money that Kim doesn't understand this. Even as nukes go it was primitive (we developed H-bombs just a few years later, then submarine-launched nukes, and so on and so forth), and even the most advanced nuclear weapons have been thoroughly obsolete (as an indicator of real military power) for about a quarter of a century now. If we actually thought North Korea was considering launching a nuke at us, we would not respond with nukes of our own, because that would be clumsy and ineffective and old-fashioned and politically unpopular and have unnecessary civilian casualties, among other things. No, we would respond with much more precise and effective methods of warfare that have been developed in the intervening decades. We wouldn't do Shock and Awe the way we did in Iraq, obviously, because that was ten years ago, and limiting yourself to ten-year-old military technology isn't how you get to be the most powerful military on the planet. To you as a first-world citizen this is so obvious it probably wouldn't have occurred to you to even mention it; but to think that way you have to have a feel for how fast technology can develop, and you don't really get a feel for that when you live as a hermit, never leave your house, and barely ever receive any visitors.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    65. Re:A strange game.... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      I suspect that if the US attacked NK it would be as a joint operation with China. Obviously we're not quite at the point where anybody actually wants to do that.

      The whole shelling of Seoul thing is the real problem. That, and NK so far has been a threat that was far enough out that everybody just hopes that somebody else will have to deal with it.

    66. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      No one in the US wants any resources North Korea has.

      Oh, there are plenty of Americans that want the North Korean traffic control system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDHhW5_RxKc

    67. Re:A strange game.... by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Take the biggest bully on the planet and make yourself look like someone they should pull out their big machine gun for.

      You need to dial down the insanity as much as the North Koreans do.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    68. Re:A strange game.... by circletimessquare · · Score: 1, Insightful

      this is correct

      china may opt for regime change with its involvement (or spearheaded by it), but not unification

      china will never allow korean unification. the only reason that happened in germany is because the USSR fell. china is not falling, it's rising

      so as long as china continues to rise in power, the dream of korean unification is impossible

      china will not freely accept a united korea allied with the USA on its border

      the geopolitical status will be preserved

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    69. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      All I could think reading this news was "Do they want to get smashed flat?".

      MAD kept the nuclear peace since 1945. If it was good enough for the US and the USSR, why isn't it good enough for North Korea?

      (I'm voicing their possible perspective, not my own.)

    70. Re:A strange game.... by Jaysyn · · Score: 1

      No, but you do restrain them. I actually had to help a teacher do that back in high school. Watch out, those guys are a handful when they are pissed.

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    71. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I don't know. If a kid with Down's syndrome is far enough gone to lash out in violence it may be that physical discipline is the only response that he/she may understand. It would be wonderful if everything in the world responded to a well phrased and lovingly delivered argument or explanation but that just don't always work. Sometimes you just have to hit back and call it tough love.

    72. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A US made nuke, good! A NK made nuke, evil! Got it!

    73. Re:A strange game.... by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      You're nuts. Bombing them would do nothing of the sort. This sort of insanity is the problem here. The nut bags in the North have a grossly inflated view of their importance.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    74. Re:A strange game.... by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Any American response to whatever NK manages to do would have to also immediately destroy their ability to retaliate against the South.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    75. Re:A strange game.... by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The main difference seems to be European acceptance.

      you can do absolutely anything you want in the world as long as your allies agree. because the will of the world is the will of the world. nothing has been violated if a thug like osama bin laden is taken out, no one serious on the world stage stands with this thug. pakistan can go fuck itself, because pakistan had elements of its government protecting bin laden

      and the reason north korea is so advanced nuclear wise is because of a pakistani scientist who copied dutch technology when he was in the netherlands, then sold it to north korea, iran, libya, and other regimes. this scientist is seen as a hero in pakistan. so fuck you again, pakistan

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

      "thanks" pakistan

      why are we allied with this country?

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    76. Re:A strange game.... by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > Losing China makes me all the more nervous of
      > the nature of the DPRK's behavior in the future.

      If the point comes where there is an imminent danger that a nuclear weapon is about to be lobbed into a populated area and detonated, the US will stop playing politics and take preemptive military action.

      > likely to switch from a temper tantruming baby,
      > to an animal backed into a corner.

      It's possible to handle an animal that's backed into a corner without sustaining injury, if you have the right equipment and know what you are doing.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    77. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not always just about you 'muricans.

      The only reason the U.S. has not attacked is because of South Korea, but I can understand your petty generalization of 'muricans, since you are of course a beady eyed canadian and envious of our awesome military power.

    78. Re:A strange game.... by butchersong · · Score: 1

      Nothing is neat or simple when it comes to killing people. It always amounts to butchery and it's always ugly. The problem comes when your enemies feel confident that they can predict your response and that that response will lack teeth. Being reasonable is admirable. Being seen as reasonable isn't aways a good thing because it means you aren't feared. I'm not sure what else can expect North Korea to respond to but fear of retribution.

    79. Re:A strange game.... by ewibble · · Score: 1

      The point isn't to attack the US, I agree that would just be ridiculous, North Korea would smoldering pile of ash long before the first nuke even got half way to hitting the US. Look at the response to 9/11, it was a couple of buildings destroyed, by a few people.

      It is make the US think twice about imposing sanctions or invading them first (The US has proven they are willing to do that).

      So unless Kim Jong-un is insane, which I am sure the opposing countries would like you to believe, this hole thing is about protecting North Korea from outside interference. There is will be no plan to attack the US.

    80. Re:A strange game.... by butchersong · · Score: 1

      It seems to me the only way that the N Korea is a credible threat is if it is allowed to fester and grow in capability. They can barely get a missle off the ground at the moment. Other that smuggling in a nuke via ship to the coast I don't think they pose much of a credible threat today. Inaction would seem to be the only way to guarantee they continue to be a threat. This stance of wait and appease them is what allowed them to become (however slight right now) the nuclear threat that they are today. I'm not sure I would counsel more of the same.

    81. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Idiocy !!

      Spend thousands of US lives to attack North Korea ???

      One demo mini- nuc shot of some kind would suffice,be good practice, and reinforce peaceful deterrence for decades.

    82. Re:A strange game.... by crazyjj · · Score: 1

      Their goal isn't to launch an attack. Their goal (the same as Iran's) is to make sure that their leg of the "axis of evil", unlike Iraq's, can never be invaded. Competing directly with the U.S. military, with its insane budget, is pretty much impossible. So about the only way a country can ensure that the U.S. can never treat them like a bitch is to have nukes. It's no accident that both Iran and North Korea stepped up their nuke programs shortly after GW's ill-advised "You're part of an axis of evil and watch us invade one of you" speech.

      --
      What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
    83. Re:A strange game.... by Amouth · · Score: 1

      You should learn to grapple, if they can't move they can't continue to hit you.. hold them there long enough and they will calm down and see reason..

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    84. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Why don't we in the US, drop a little 'demonstration' ourselves....maybe have about 4 or 5 'empty' of payload polaris missles drop near the shores of NK, just to show them WE CAN already do this..?

      1) Because the UN would (or at least should) condemn it.

      2) Because all you'll succeed in doing is redoubling NK's efforts to create ICBM nukes to defend themselves.

    85. Re:A strange game.... by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      China, a country with a vast land mass, a vast economy, and 1.5 BILLION people, are worried about being able to absorb a few million NK refugees? I'm not buying that one.

    86. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not just shoot down any rocket that lifts off, after flying 5 miles. Technical Childs play, but it would send a message and litter their shores with whatever they think is worth heaving at anyone else.

    87. Re:A strange game.... by jez9999 · · Score: 0

      Surely Seoul could be evacuated quickly, and rebuilt once NK was defeated and there was a united Korea. It sucks, but South Korea has done a great job of developing quickly over the last 50 years and I'm sure they could do it again even more quickly.

    88. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like straight lines.

    89. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, but are you going to risk detonation of their warheads? They may not be small enough to fir in an ICBM, but they still can detonate and cause a lot of damage.

    90. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You mean the guy who said OK after hundreds of other people did the hard work.

      What incense do you burn in your Obama altar?

      And, yeah, some asshat cowering in a house is DIRECTLY EQUIVALENT to the entire nation of North Korea.

      Your logic fail is the equivalent of Krakatoa erupting, or the Tunguska event.

    91. Re:A strange game.... by Ghjnut · · Score: 2

      Because one person doesn't represent an entire country?

      --
      MouseClass extends ScrollClass, which extends TabClass, which extends SidebarClass, which extends PowerClass, w
    92. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dropping pr0n instead would certainly make them change their minds about the US.

    93. Re:A strange game.... by tattood · · Score: 1

      Why don't we in the US, drop a little 'demonstration' ourselves....maybe have about 4 or 5 'empty' of payload polaris missles drop near the shores of NK, just to show them WE CAN already do this..?

      How about a nice game of chess?

      --
      WTB [sig], PST!!!
    94. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      The NK military is rather stronger than you imagine. One of the reasons the people are so poor is because they spend so much on their military.

    95. Re:A strange game.... by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      No, but if a kid with Down's Syndrom is waving a knife or other weapon around and having a tantrum you move away or take it from them (depending, of course).

      We're all stuck on this rock, so we can't move away from the DPRK. The only thing we can do is let it play out and try not to get stabbed, yank it out of their grip with dexterity, or wait for an opening and tackle them down.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    96. Re:A strange game.... by s.petry · · Score: 2

      Do you re-write history, or just ignore history much? Did you forget already that there were no WMDs in Iraq? Hell, that's an easy target to pursue if you want to look. It's in their playbook if it fits their agenda. People took great joy in severely beating the shit out of the Iraq military, which was (yes, passed tense) the same technology as NK currently has (and yes, that is current tense). Let us not try and fool people. NK is a puppet, plain and simple. A puppet used by both the East and West.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    97. Re:A strange game.... by X0563511 · · Score: 2

      To complete the picture, give the kid a hand grenade while you're at it - because they are a threat to everyone in throwing distance including themselves. You certainly don't want them to keep it, but you can't just rush it either.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    98. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The main difference seems to be European acceptance.

      He only has that because he is too smart to ask for assistence. If he would, he'd get just the comments (including a loud "no") just as Bush did.

    99. Re:A strange game.... by Minwee · · Score: 4, Funny

      Dropping pr0n instead would certainly make them change their minds about the US.

      "These poor, capitalist women cannot even afford clothes! Glorious Leader would never allow this to happen here!"

    100. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The stateless Al Queda managed to hurt the US just by hi-jacking a few planes. Most certainly NK could hurt the US. Just not necessarily with an ICBM.

    101. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At the end of the day it isn't because Beijing are big fans the NK regime. They likely hate the Kims as much as anyone. What wakes up the Chinese leadership in cold sweats late at night is the idea of a regime collapse (whether internal or external factors) and millions of North Korean refugees flooding over the border.

      Actually I would bet that worries less than half as much as having a US base on their border would - they may not support the current regime or their actions, but they definitely won't sit by peacefully while the country is conquered and put to use by such a threat.

    102. Re:A strange game.... by Jetra · · Score: 1

      So this cold war is getting a little warm. I can't say that I blame them for thinking the US as an Axis of Evil member because we are, at this point in the Afghan War, are invading those poor countries who we recklessly bombed to get at one man and a rag-tag group of extremists. That's like killing a fly with a flame thrower.

    103. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Other that smuggling in a nuke via ship to the coast I don't think they pose much of a credible threat today.

      So if that's the exception, why wouldn't they do exactly that. Small organised crime outfits can smuggle tons of drugs into the USA. Smuggling in a nuke isn't that hard if a nuclear capable country wanted to do it.

    104. Re:A strange game.... by Rumtis · · Score: 1

      First we got the bomb, and that was good,
      'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
      Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
      'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
      Who's next?

      France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
      'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
      China got the bomb, but have no fears,
      They can't wipe us out for at least five years.
      Who's next?

      Then Indonesia claimed that they
      Were gonna get one any day.
      South Africa wants two, that's right:
      One for the black and one for the white.
      Who's next?

      Egypt's gonna get one too,
      Just to use on you know who.
      So Israel's getting tense.
      Wants one in self defense.
      "The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
      But just in case, we better get a bomb.
      Who's next?

      Luxembourg is next to go,
      And (who knows?) maybe Monaco.
      We'll try to stay serene and calm
      When Alabama gets the bomb.
      Who's next?
      Who's next?
      Who's next?
      Who's next?

      "Who's Next" by Tom Lehrer (That Was the Year That Was - 1965)

    105. Re:A strange game.... by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      Neither side would last more then 24 hours. No one gives a damn if your subs and a few international bases are alive when all your big cities are smoldering craters. MAD is very much in effect.

      That is also why if NK actually shot first, China would indeed walk away. But that is also why NK would never actually shoot first. US on the other hand would very much love to shoot first and the only thing stopping them is China.

      Which is a scary thing for NK leadership, as it means that as the old Chinese leaders who have history with them keep retiring, they need a different deterrent as they likely won't be able to rely on China to protect them for much longer. Their artillery/short range missile deterrent on Soul is unlikely to survive long enough to matter in case of solid US/SK opener, hence rush to develop a nuclear deterrent and means of global delivery of their own.

      Welcome to realpolitik beyond bullshit propaganda that you keep getting fed.

    106. Re:A strange game.... by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      They have to know they wouldn't last 3 weeks against a U.S. military onslaught.

      Their leaders know this. These announcements are meant for their own people. Also consider; the moment its widely known that the US is only a threat to N. Korea (Europeans; NO ONE HERE GIVES N. KOREA A SECOND THOUGHT, NOT EVEN AS AN EXCERSISE IN CAPITOLISM, BARELY AS A PREMISE OF A SECOND-RATE FILM) becuase their leaders say so, thier grip on the country is shot. The driving force behind any totalitarian regime is the threat of external force. Read your Orwell. Classic "War is Peace" ism in effect there.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    107. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think about where Osama was hiding. He was practically within shouting distance of a major Pakistani military base. Do you really think that's a coincidence? Is it really plausible that he could hide there without *some* officials knowing about it? Seems rather unlikely. Obama made the right choice. Had the Pakistanis been notified, the strike team would have most likely found an empty house.

    108. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      And there are people upset with that in the US.

    109. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      You're wrong. Iraq was not a nuclear state, though it had aspirations to be one. NK is a nuclear state, and it's nuclear tests have been confirmed.

      And no, NK is not a puppet of anyone. Their independence is their most important political belief. NK has proven to be the least easily manipulated state in the world.

    110. Re:A strange game.... by AliasBackslash · · Score: 1

      They already are eating babies over there. Actually, a lot of Eastern countries are. Remember the baby flesh pills that were seized in S. Korea last year?

    111. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think the regime is more than smart enough to realize option (2) is not mutually assured. They are an inferior force, and possessing a nuke doesn't put them on even footing with the U.S. Rather, it just makes them the threat that has to be addressed immediately. I also don't believe the "axis of evil" comment suddenly made them realize they were in the crosshairs. You can call the comment undiplomatic, but it was not a surprise to anyone.

      Even if they had the bomb -- which, as I said, only encourages a conflict, and which the regime doesn't really want -- the U.S. would bomb any facility that could be used to make bombs or launch rockets, and any facility capable of storing them. The fact that Pyongyang is kept surprisingly empty except for party members means that we would have relatively few qualms about bombing it (as opposed to say, Baghdad, which we _still_bombed). There would be little reason to send in ground troops to North Korea immediately, though it would probably stage a large number in Japan and South Korea. (The logic being: if you're as good as dead anyway, why _not_ try to take Seoul, which right across the border and is probably less likely to be bombed than anywhere in NK? For that matter, why _not_ bomb Japan? A regime in its death throes needs no restraint.)

      The risk of a massive sudden invasion of South Korea is the dominant factor that keeps the situation from heating up. It's what maintains the status quo. It makes for a much more real, immediate threat than the nuclear weapons program. In the event the area does heat up, it will be the only way the U.S. could in any way be said to "lose" the conflict.

      NK sticks to item (2) above because their regime cannot survive in isolation. They need trade, and foreign aid, which they can only get by rattling their sabers. They don't need propaganda or national prestige: they effectively control all communication within their borders, there is already omnipresent propaganda presenting NK as the sole paradise in an otherwise backwards and bombed out world, and there is no significant resistance to the regime.

      The only internal threat is between camps of generals. Some of those may have Kim's favor, or all may be vying for his favor. Or none of them may care about Kim's favor so long as he doesn't anger them too much, and Kim is in a camp of his own, trying to assert his power as more than just a figurehead. We just don't know. Even when a general falls out of favor in Pyongyang, we're not sure if that means that Kim is strong or weak, if the general just belonged to a weak camp, or if some other camp is so strong that it could win such a political DESPITE the patronage of Kim and support other generals. That's how infuriatingly opaque North Korean politics are. At any rate, I only mention it because it's _possible_ that a nuclear bomb could be making hay for one of those unknown-but-possible factions. Leadership change always opens up the possibility of new policy and warmer relations, but so far Kim and the generals seems to be trying to solidify their positions with more of the same. They have room for a fourth way right now, but so far they have elected not to take it.

      In any case, what they want and need now is food. Threat of a nuclear bomb is a chip to negotiate with. A working nuclear weapons lead to unnecessary prestige and almost certain death. Isolation leads to gradual starvation, unrest, and death.

    112. Re:A strange game.... by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      Stopped that war. Maybe prevent another.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    113. Re:A strange game.... by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      That's the public propaganda bullshit. Real reasons include:

      1. Significant reduction of China's control over its nearby region. North Korea makes for an excellent agent to act through in the region to implement dirtier and less publicly accepted regional politics.

      2. Wide land border with direct access to Chinese heartland for NATO would be a massive existential threat. Remind yourself of US reaction to Russian missiles in Cuba. Now imagine if Cuba had direct land access to US. You get position of North Korea in China.

      3. Reduction of NATO influence in the region.

    114. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's black. That's why everyone is giving him slack. Political correctness gone mad.

    115. Re:A strange game.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      They surely know that we can.

      The leaders do. The populace is fed fairy tales about how the army will easily smash any imperialist yankees should they ever dare come. An American bomber dropping leaflets over the capital unmolested would actually make a powerful propaganda statement, but only assuming that it can actually be done (i.e. their anti-air won't be able to detect and intercept it) - and I wouldn't bet on that. Stealth != undetectable.

    116. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [citation needed]

    117. Re:A strange game.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      The problems with Pakistan don't end with this guy. It's a country where large parts of it are de facto independent, run by an Islamic regime that implemented hardcore Sharia, and used as training camps and fallback areas for al-Qaeda; and the rest of the country has corrupt government that is infiltrated by those same Islamists to a considerable degree, especially their army and intelligence service.

    118. Re:A strange game.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

      A first strike would then be needed to disable the artillery position in a shock and awe campaign, right?

      The sheer amount of artillery (and other stuff) NK has is such that you'd have to use tactical nukes to take it all out before it can do what it's meant to do.

      And if the proverbial shit really hits the fan I wouldn't be surprised to see most of the NK army defect in a whim.

      I very much doubt that. NK is very isolated, and its citizens are thoroughly brainwashed. A great many will be eager to stand up and die for their Dear Leader. Some might have doubts, but they know that they're likely to be shot by their comrades if they try to surrender.

    119. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I dunno. It seems like a win win to me. We get rid of N. Korea and San Francisco at the same time. What's the downside?

    120. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are having nuclear weapons and a credible delivery system really in their best interest, or is this brinkmanship really about bargaining for food aid and supplies? From what position can they bargain if their demands come down to "we'll nuke you if you don't cooperate". Sorry, but that won't fly with anyone.

      I just got done watching another NK video on YouTube; one that was state approved and shows pretty teachers and moms indoctrinating their kids about their dear leader, how America is evil and responsible for their problems, etc. You know what, I truly feel sorry for these people. As brainwashed as they are, I don't want to see any of them hurt -- and these are just the people enjoying the "good life" in Pyongyang -- never mind the ones starving outside the city. Such a deplorable situation. I truly feel sorry them.

    121. Re:A strange game.... by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      I'm curious if (but fairly certain that) computers are getting sufficiently fast that soon they will feel the same way about chess that they do about tic tac toe (and 'thermonuclear war').

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    122. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      My thought is that he CIA is feeding tech and money to DPRK to make sure they come across as credible. The more credible they are, the less the population cares about the massive debt driven by defense spending. We are still working on a missile defense to protect us from Russia. Why? Because it *might* work against a North Korean trajectory as well. Why not scrap a shield against an ally? Because the defense contractors need to keep profits up.

      We funded and set up Castro, Noriega, and Saddam Hussein, so what''s one more idiotic short-term-view CIA plot to control the world? We also helped create the USSR when we lured the White Army out of hiding and sent them to their slaughter, making the Red Army's victory absolute, but that was inadvertent, as opposed to the previous ones that were deliberate. And yes, I left off Osama bin Laden, because the official US stance is that the rebels funded by the CIA in Afghanistan were not affiliated with ObL at the time. Though making sure he wasn't captured alive helped ensure nobody would ever contradict that stance. Note, the operation wasn't "Wanted: Dead or Alive" it was "Wanted dead".

    123. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      The Pyongyang subway system is the deepest in the world. It's build that way so it's bomb proof. You think if they did that for the public subway, the military defenses aren't equally built with bombardment in mind? NK has been preparing to be bombed for the last 60 years.

      And you have no basis to presume the NK military would defect. There's nothing to suggest that at all. They are one of the most disciplined armies in the world.

    124. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "thanks" pakistan

      why are we allied with this country?

      Cold War geopolitics. India sided with the USSR, so the US allied with their enemy Pakistan regardless of the fact that Pakistan was just as aggressive and even more genocidal than the Russian Communists.

    125. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      3 weeks? I don't think they'd last 3 hours.

    126. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      If China joins in, the attack on DPRK would have little effect on Seoul. North Korea's capabilities would be reduced to small arms within the first 5 minutes. The US could level all of DPRK within 30 minutes with no help from China, but if China let the US operate from China, but didn't even actually help, that 30 minutes is reduced to 5. With China assisting in the attack, the number is reduced to 0 - they wouldn't even get a single shot off.

    127. Re:A strange game.... by tranquilidad · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I don't quite see it like that.

      He's actually more like Clinton than Bush when it comes to responding. Clinton used cruise missiles and Obama uses drones. Though drone attacks started under Bush, Obama has increased their usage. Clinton relied much too heavily on cruise missiles rather than other tools available to him in responding to crises. Many of the troublemakers accepted that they could do something and the cost would be a cruise missile that would be unlikely to find them specifically. Sadam Hussein said as much after he was captured - he believed that that his failure to acknowledge the weapons inspectors would only result in some more cruise missiles and that the U.S. was bluffing about an actual invasion. Clinton's response to Bin Laden in Afghanistan was also cruise missiles. Bush changed the rules of the game, for better or worse, by committing ground troops. Obama appears to be flowing back into Clinton's strategy of using drones tactically rather than committing ground troops. That's why I believe that Obama's military strategy is more akin to Clinton's than Bush's.

      I disagree with the characterization of going after Bin Laden in Pakistan as being brazen. Imagine that your entire national security team has been coming to you for months claiming that they have finally tracked down Bin Laden. The intelligence infrastructure has placed assets on the ground in houses near where Bin Laden is believed to be and they also believe that Bin Laden is in the house. The only real voice against going after him in Pakistan comes from your Vice President. You ran for office highlighting that Bush's failure to capture or kill Bin Laden hurt the stature of the United States and, unlike Bush, you would bring him to justice. You also turned over responsibility for the final recommendation to the head of the CIA and he comes back with a "let's go for it" kind of recommendation.

      What would have been brazen would have been to ignore all of that and NOT go after him.

      What would have been even more brazen would have been to go in and taken Bin Laden alive and never say a word about it.

    128. Re:A strange game.... by bkr1_2k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Evacuated where, exactly? We're talking about 20+ million people. That isn't just 20 million able-bodied people, it's young, old, sick and healthy alike. Hell, we couldn't even get New Orleans (population 1.3 million) evacuated properly before Katrina and the ones that did had hellish experiences for weeks.

      Be realistic. Even if you got half of Seoul evacuated (very unlikely) you'd still have no place to house them.

      --
      "Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
    129. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...and you speak like the typical pacifist who's blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. We aren't there yet, but at some point in the future it may become more prudent to say fsck it and pull the trigger. Ask Chamberlain how appeasment worked out for him (not to mention England as a larger whole). Peaceful solutions are great if they can be had without compromising our physical security, but the moment that becomes a question is the moment that we no longer have the option of being peaceful. It might not be neat and simple, but I sure do hope our current administration will have the stones to do what's necessary if and when the time comes.

    130. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Informative

      Did you forget already that there were no WMDs in Iraq?

      But there were. Of course, they were inoperable (and all stamped "made in USA"). And Iraq had a working WMD program. Though the output was solely propoganda to make people think he had them because if he was shown to be as impotent as he actually was, there would have been a revolt without US intervention. And Saddam had "links" to al Quaeda because Osama called and asked to train in Iraq, and Saddam told him "no". That is an "association," even if Saddam didn't help.

      What gets lost in the news is that everything is true or false based on perspective.

      What I can't get is that Clinton told the truth under oath (causing no harm, truth or lie) and got impeached, and Bush lied to kill millions, including Americans, and that's ok, he was obviously too stupid to know what he was doing.

      It all goes back to the anti-intellectual slant in the US. The dumb aren't responsible for their actions, but the smart should be held to a higher standard.

    131. Re:A strange game.... by buybuydandavis · · Score: 2

      Think about where Osama was hiding. He was practically within shouting distance of a major Pakistani military base. Do you really think that's a coincidence?

      No. It's a ridiculous Kabuki dance. The Pakistanis are our enemies. They protected Bin Laden.

      Pakistan doesn't want to announce to the American people that they are our enemies, because then the US might actually do something. So they pretend. Similarly, no US administration wants to publicly admit the Pakistanis are our enemies, because they don't want to fight a nuclear nation. So, everybody pretends.

      They pretend they help us fight Al Qaeda. We pretend they weren't protecting Bin Laden. So, hey, sorry about that sovereignty thing, but we're both fighting Al Qaeda, so we didn't think you'd really mind if we took out Bin Laden.

    132. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      The nearest NK ICBM bunker would be slightly more than 35 miles from Seoul. Please explain how these nukes work that could destroy such a bunker, but not kill most of the 2.4 million people in Seoul.

    133. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Currently the NK/China border is the least monitored because NK Soldiers can and have gone over the border to retrieve refugees. China will also send back all NK refugees caught.

    134. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      Typical gunk-ho talk from an American that gets his knowledge of the world from Fox News.

      What you think is not the same thing as "no one gives a damn". And if the US didn't "care what the hell they were up to", then they wouldn't want to do such a demonstration of power in the first place.

    135. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      That's why coalitions are necessary. And no, when you go in with 80% of the troops (no I don't remember the actual number) and are paying the bills for the other countries there, it's not a coalition. If China invaded with ground troops from the north while the US attacked from the south an bombed, there's be no counter attack. The *only* reason DPRK could fight us to a standstill is that China was launching attacks from China that the politicians declared to be off limits to prevent a world war over a petty tyrant in a forgotten country.

      The biggest difference to Vietnam is that the South wanted our help. In Vietnam, the US blocked democracy because the US feared the south would vote for the communist. The US put in their own puppet government to prevent democracy. But in Korea, they wanted help. That's one reason we screwed up so badly in Vietnam, we just came off a "win" in Korea.

      We can prevent NK from bombing Seoul or marching 35 miles, if we strike hard enough in the first strike. It would help if China was on board, but it's not necessary.

    136. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      We wouldn't send in that many troops anymore. We bomb from the air. There would be many fewer losses.

    137. Re:A strange game.... by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

      going back to the suez canal crisis, and baathism inspired by stalinism, and egypt allying with the soviet union, this also explains our alliance with israel

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    138. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Obama just doesn't strike me as the sort of politician who likes to take such risks.

      Thankfully. It's good to have an intelligent President again, after that Bush imbecile.

    139. Re:A strange game.... by OakDragon · · Score: 1

      You know how I know all you watch is Fox News?

      Go read some other papers about it.

      I would have, but I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere else for a long time. :)

    140. Re:A strange game.... by butchersong · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty confident that we have plans in place to minimize the impact Seoul should military intervention be necessary. We have some incredibly destructive conventional weaponry we could use without resorting to nukes. How hard would it be 1) map out known artillery locations 2) take them out 3) light up each piece of unknown N Korean artillery as soon as it exposes itself by firing on Seoul?

    141. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I mean look at how Japan was acting ... while they were actually sneaking up on Pearl Harbor !!

    142. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      You are wrong, but I don't think there's anything I can say that would convinvce you that US alone can level NK before they can damage Seoul. but what would happen if China staged a ground invasion from the north? Marching south, and the US building up, but not attacking from the south. Either NK lashes out south to pointlessly cause damage for prevenge (yes, I make up words all the time), or they wait. When NK is sufficiently squeezed, they'll have no capability to fight either side. With China's fleet to the west and the US hanging on their east coast, they'll be surrounded, desperate, and with no options.

      If China started the ground war in the north, and after 3 days, the US leveled North Korea with everything other than nuclear (about 10 times a medium nuke in 24 hours is not unreasonable with US capabilities), there'd be nothing left for the North Koreans to use to defend themselves.

    143. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      The US cares enough to keep 28,500 military personnel based in South Korea. That's about a third the number they have in Afghanistan. And it's a hell of a lot more than the theoretically zero troops they have in Iraq.

      So yes, the US cares. Regardless of how much coverage of it you see on Fox News.

    144. Re:A strange game.... by Solandri · · Score: 2

      Neither side wants a war there, NK has a pretty good memory of how the civil war went.. so NK, SK, China, Japan, US... all are quite aware that actual hostilities would be a bad idea. Symbolic gestures on the other hand have value... not on the international scale, but on the local one.

      That's what one would hope. But with NK you can never be sure. Anyone old enough to have been an adult during the Korean War is well past the average life expectancy. You think it's bad that the U.S. labeled them as part of the axis of evil? For 60 years now, everyone growing up there has been indoctrinated into a system that pounds into them from childhood that the U.S. is the great evil which must be fought and destroyed. They have children's books which advocate shooting Americans. Cartoons which make games of killing Americans. Everything they tell their citizens is predicated around the notion that the U.S. is evil, and that they are merely struggling against it. They've essentially been brainwashing their entire population with this since childhood for 60 years (i.e. anyone there is not elderly has known only this their entire lives).

      Now, one hopes that the those in power realize this is all just BS made up to control their masses. But there's no way to know that for sure. The most dangerous thing that could happen is someone coming into power who grew up in NK who actually believes what they've been teaching their people, and those in the West dismissing his actions as mere posturing. And even if it is just posturing on Kim Jong-Un's part, bear in mind that most of the generals and other military leadership there grew up being taught these same things. A situation may develop where he knows a nuke launched at the U.S. is silly, but he may be unable to convince the military that it's silly.

      The military in NK is very powerful.. while people like to talk about the place like it is a simple dictatorship, the political reality is the Leader needs the backing of the generals, otherwise his power-base dissolves. One way to do that is build up the internal public image of military streght and show that he is willing to snub the world in favor of the generals. In essence, it is the Leader demonstrating his allegiance to his military and reasserting their primacy within the country.

      That would be my interpretation of what's happening too. But prudence dictates we take precautions in case that's not what's going on. Hope for the best case. Plan for the worst case.

    145. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      As seen elsewhere, you can cause a lot of damage with an air assault. But you can't win a war that way. Troops on the ground have to follow to win a war.

      NKs nuclear program wouldn't be taken out from the air either. Pyongyang's Metro is the deepest in the world, in order to be bomb proof. If they do that for the public transport system, you can be sure their nuke development facilities are even further underground.

    146. Re:A strange game.... by acoustix · · Score: 1

      They have to know they wouldn't last 3 weeks against a U.S. military onslaught.

      I'm thinking more like 3 days and all without a single boot on NK soil.

      --
      "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    147. Re:A strange game.... by Tom · · Score: 2

      Do that with an NK flag instead and over San Francisco and tell me how it went.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    148. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep friends close, keep enemies closer.

    149. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because one person doesn't represent an entire country?

      Unless its a European/Canadian talking about Americans (USAians for the annoyingly pedantic)

    150. Re:A strange game.... by johanw · · Score: 1

      >If the point comes where there is an imminent danger that a nuclear weapon is about to be lobbed into a populated area and detonated, the US will stop playing politics and take preemptive military action. And call it Pearl Harbor 2...

    151. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I love how you throw around the word "thug" - after Iraq, you no longer have that privilege. WE are the biggest and baddest THUGS on the block and we use that thuggery to create enemies so we can out thug them. Look in the mirror before you point your crooked finger thug.

    152. Re:A strange game.... by johanw · · Score: 2

      ICBM shield? Then perhaps NK is using the same tactic the US used to send the USSR into bancrupcy. Seems like the US is already far on its way into a financial collapse.

    153. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, because we are never the bad guys.

    154. Re:A strange game.... by johanw · · Score: 1

      The nuke + delivery system will put them into a position where "preemptive strikes" a la Pearl Harbor become much less probable.

    155. Re:A strange game.... by Pro-feet · · Score: 1

      Because they have nukes?

    156. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea... The North Koreans wouldn't notice, but China sure would, and China could notify the Norks "Shoot at this spot in the sky at this time and you'll kill an American!"

    157. Re:A strange game.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      1) map out known artillery locations

      Pretty hard, since they're mostly concealed, and would only be exposed immediately prior to attack - so you can't rely on sat photos for it (and anything else, e.g. a reconnaissance flight, would likely be viewed as provocation and might trigger immediate response).

      3) light up each piece of unknown N Korean artillery as soon as it exposes itself by firing on Seoul?

      A trained arty crew can pop off two shots a minute, and each of those can be a burst of several rounds. I doubt it'll be enough to reduce Seoul to rubble even with the sheer amount of guns that they have, but it will certainly do extreme amounts of damage before taken out. And the problem with mass artillery fire is that, unlike missiles, it's hard to intercept once in flight (a dozen shells are doable; several thousand are not).

    158. Re:A strange game.... by micahraleigh · · Score: 0

      The US state department should congratulate any party that makes US citizens safer.

      Is it a double standard to forbid psychopaths to own guns and to encourage everyone else to have them?

    159. Re:A strange game.... by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

      As for motive, the only thing I can think of is that Kim Jong-un wants desperately to be taken seriously as a world leader. Which is hard to do, seeing as he is basically his own caricature. I'm not entirely convinced he's not the same guy that does that "Gangnam Style" video. Clearly having a nuclear weapon would further one's goal of being taken seriously. The problem is their current business plan seems to be

      1. 1). Threaten to develop nuclear weapons
      2. 2). Demonstrate ability to attack the United States with nuclear weapons
      3. 3). ???
      4. 4). Profit

      Not sure if they've thought out what would happen if the US actually took them seriously.

    160. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh... history shows that this type of sabre rattling from NK always leads to demands for food etc

      a bizarre kind of ransom that the US pays rather than bother with them...

    161. Re:A strange game.... by slave+6742 · · Score: 1

      For some reason seeing a dishwasher going mach 3 through the atmosphere would make my day. Do you think if we lobbied the white house with enough petitions that they might just do this for the entertainment value?

      --
      HGTTG: "I knew that there was something fundementally wrong with the Universe."
    162. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who might be the strange somebody who "gives a damn" about the UN trying to clean things up?

    163. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, as has been seen over and over again in history, North Korea WILL be allowed to fester and grow in capability until something currently unthinkable happens. Then and after, as before, everyone will gather together and give nice speeches about how "never again" and "the price of freedom is vigilance" and some such. The whole cycle repeats itself again.

    164. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He also had to be berated into pulling the trigger by Valerie Jarrett & Hillary Clinton. He would have never given the order left to his own devices. Thus spoke Bob Woodward.

    165. Re:A strange game.... by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1

      The difference in budget is staggering, about $9b for NK, $680b for US. It's true that the $9b is a much larger share of GDP, but the US spends their entire annual budget every 5 days.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
    166. Re:A strange game.... by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

      i apologize for calling osama bin laden a thug, clearly i'm way out of line

      lol!

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    167. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was thinking more like "Don't shoot! We have pr0n!"

    168. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      I wasn't suggesting NK's military approached US military size. Just that it wasn't a pushover.

      You need to read the GPs suggestion for staging the war.

    169. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who said it was? the guy was responding to an assertion that "hundreds of thousands" of us soldiers would die, saying no, that's probably not right. the reason people were talking specifically about the usa in the first place was because north korea specifically mentioned the usa in their press release today.

      it sounds like you're being anti-american just for the hell of it.

    170. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      China, a country with a vast land mass, a vast economy, and 1.5 BILLION people, are worried about being able to absorb a few million NK refugees? I'm not buying that one.

      I think you are overestimating two things...

      The ability of a country to absorb a large number of refugees (not typical immigrants, but more similar to war or famine refugees).
      The historical incompatiblity of the korean and chinese ethnicities (including a lack of common writing or spoken language even though part of the same language family)

    171. Re:A strange game.... by interval1066 · · Score: 0

      Typical response from some one who gets all their news from MSNBC- and I do not watch fox news.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    172. Re:A strange game.... by interval1066 · · Score: 0

      OH- and as I said; if you think the UN is your saviour, you're an idiot.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    173. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...I wouldn't bet on that. Stealth != undetectable.

      I would. That's the raison d'etre of stealth bombers.

    174. Re:A strange game.... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      And what pray tell are the dire consequences of the vote that they approved? Has it materially affected N Korea's fortunes?

      If not, tell me exactly what the significance of China's vote is other than PR?

    175. Re:A strange game.... by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      You're an idiot if you think that the USA would be allowed to just carpet nuke North Korea. China would not permit that.

      If the USA were to be overtly attacked by a North Korean ICBM it would be anybody's guess as to what the response wold be, but certainly it would not be to turn NK into a "glowing wasteland." In any event, NK would probably attack in secret using covert delivery means, and get away with it as well, if they wanted to nuke the USA.

    176. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not rational, thinking people. But yes, there are people upset with that.

    177. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even though most smuggling attempts into the US are successful, drug shipments to the US get intercepted all the time. The consequence for a drug cartel of losing a drug shipment is minor. The consequences for NK if caught attempting to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the US would be catastrophic for NK. China would either stand back as the US destroyed NK's military and government or ask the US through diplomatic channels to hold off while they did it themselves.

    178. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What, that the only way for anyone to 'win' is to kill all the human players first?

    179. Re:A strange game.... by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      The historical incompatiblity of the korean and chinese ethnicities (including a lack of common writing or spoken language even though part of the same language family)

      Well it would only be temporary wouldn't it? Most would move back to Korea once it was restored.

    180. Re:A strange game.... by gtall · · Score: 1

      The fallout would quickly cross the Pacific and hit the U.S. and it could easily drift south before drifting across the Pacific. The U.S. would then have wiped out the very people the U.S. is defending.

      The U.S. is not stupid enough to use those big nukes, and increasingly they don't have to. Their other weapons are quite lethal.

      Face it: there is no answer to N. Korea. The only answer is a non-answer or to use Muhammad Ali's phrase, rope-a-dope. In time, they might just crash and burn, but then they might realize it and attempt to take S. Korea with them.

    181. Re:A strange game.... by Bearhouse · · Score: 1

      You really think that he was able to do all he did without the full knowledge and support of the establishment? (Yeah, I know that's not the "entire country" but it's what counts.)

    182. Re:A strange game.... by gtall · · Score: 1

      Oh bullshit, those countries have pretty much steadily worked their way to nukes and nothing GW or any other politicians say in the U.S. is going to matter to them.

      This isn't about preventing a U.S. invasion, it is about making their dicks look larger towards their own people so they can always remain in power.

    183. Re:A strange game.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      It may be how they were originally sold, but experience has shown otherwise.

    184. Re:A strange game.... by khallow · · Score: 1

      Well, if that's you're going in point, then for NK all he has to do is approve a plan also.

      Furthermore, it could have been 1,000x worse had the operation gone horribly wrong (reference Jimmy Carter here).

      1000x worse than what? Than not doing anything and losing the election because of that?

    185. Re:A strange game.... by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      That would entirely depend on who the president was at the time. I've questioned whether some presidents would preemptively act or wait until damage was done and they were clearly justified in their actions.

      I think this is even more complicated now that we have the ability to intercept some missiles and possibly destroy a threat before it hits the US. Many of people have over estimated the capabilities of highly complex systems.

    186. Re:A strange game.... by gtall · · Score: 1

      Wow, a fresh blast of 50's thinking, are you still fighting the Vietnam war. The U.S. in no way wants a shooting war on the Korean peninsula, even if China were waving a red flag and yell, "Take'm, we'll pay you for it.". Hell, even S. Korea doesn't want N. Korea because they know it sink their standard of living for a least a generation.

      N. Korea's nukes are primarily there so their dicks will look bigger. They rather like thinking the U.S. is obsessed with them. Hint, the U.S. stopped that obsession with Eisenhower. Maybe you've heard of him, President back in the fifties which you've never left.

    187. Re:A strange game.... by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Your first point is not valid. The person I responded to stated that the US would not bother to attack some piece of shit country unless they "used" something against the US. My correction of that statement is valid, and backed by very recent history. We have attacked people for the threat posed by their "having" weapons (even when that was not true). Similar rhetoric is coming rather consistently regarding Syria's chemical weapons (warning that we will take military action if we believe that those weapons "may" fall into the wrong hands).

      NK is not a puppet? Really, that is almost laughable. Of course the North Korean people _believe_ that they are independent and take great pride in that. People in the US believe they are voting in a democratic republic too (don't confuse that with putting the US on the same plane as NK). Reality is not what delusional people are told. Reality requires looking at the world the way it is. NK is used by China to cause trouble with US and it's allies. You think that given the amount of money China pumps in to that economy they have no say-so in what they are doing? Wrong! The US uses them in a slightly different fashion. If we were really bothered by them, you don't believe we could have squashed them like a mosquito a few decades ago? Come now, use your head man!

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    188. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      You can "take out" the metro by bombing all the entrances. You can "take out" the nuclear program by bombing the facilities that build delivery vehicles or make rocket fuel, or house the workers. So just building things deep won't necessarily help. They can't strike back if they are all hiding.

    189. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. It can be argued that it may have been the best of a bunch of *bad* options, but it *can't* be argued that it was a *good* one.

    190. Re:A strange game.... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      I think both the US and China have given up on the whole expansion-of-communism vs containment thing

      OK, so imagine both sides do that. How exactly do you solve the problem? No one wants to fight in North Korea, and North Korea isn't threatening to spread their ideology anywhere. In general both S Koreans and Americans would like N Korea to open up and stop oppressing its people, but more importantly stop being a threat to the rest of the world. How exactly do you achieve that? Or is there another, more suitable goal that actually can be reached?

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    191. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No dire consequences. But if you ever wanted to tell your ally that they'd gone to far, and you didn't have their backs on "some particular action" this is how you'd do it.

    192. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's like saying a guy with an AK-47 would bother to be friends with a kid with a slingshot. Rofl.

    193. Re:A strange game.... by Creepy · · Score: 1

      Yep - that is exactly the reason - in fact, China ended the Korean War and North Korea didn't have much say in it; China wanted to push on and win the war, but they didn't have the logistics to extend their supply lines beyond Seoul and the mostly US provided UN force had the bombers and the bombs to bomb those supply lines. China probably would have won in the end, but they were looking at a protracted war with millions dead, mostly on their side, and possibly getting themselves nuked in the process for millions more casualties.

      North Korea seems to have the delusion that with America out of the picture, South Korea will just fold and reunify under their Dear Leader, or be overrun in a quick conflict like the first time (when the south had a small army of poorly equipped troops and was about as economically powerful as the north is today, which is to say not at all), which clearly isn't going to happen.

    194. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't worry. North Korea still uses DOS 4.0 in their missile program. Gonna have a lot of dead fish if they fire.

    195. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Drones can fire inside North Korea as well as the Middle East. Send a few hundred drones to watch for young fat boy and see how long he lasts.

    196. Re:A strange game.... by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      He's actually more like Clinton than Bush when it comes to responding.

      I can't actually disagree with that sentiment. The same thought went through my mind as I was typing my previous post. The biggest differences are consent and effectiveness. The cruise missiles cost millions of dollars and mostly hit where the targets were a half hour prior. They were also used against the wishes of the host government. That said, both cruise missiles and drones offer a tempting "easy" show of force, in terms of risk to forces.

      What would have been brazen would have been to ignore all of that and NOT go after him.

      Agreed, but I didn't expect that. I expected him to give Pakistan a heads up, if not seek their permission.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    197. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or you know... the state-controlled media spinning such an action as a blatant act of war and using it as an excuse to shell their neighbor to the south.

    198. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Problem is, N Korea beleives they have divine existence (at least their government does) and does its extreme best to force this divine existence on everyone else. As a result, they come off as nothing more than the playground bullies who go around punching little kids in the arm and telling them that they're important but at the end of the day, they're nothing more than loudmouth twerps who will at some point get the true smackdown they deserve when they finally go too far. I just feel bad for the rest of N Korea's people for having to endure such a government.

    199. Re:A strange game.... by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 1

      China wants stability. A war on their borders is bad for stability, the exception being the occasional skirmish with neighbors like India that amounts to little more than a military excercise. I think China is secretly "praying" for Korean unification under the more stable South tied to the withdrawal of US forces in the peninsula. China wants more food and energy, not land. It makes more sense for China to annex the South China because of its mineral deposits and other marine resources.

    200. Re:A strange game.... by jimshatt · · Score: 1

      China built a wall to keep them mongols out. You better watch out!

    201. Re:A strange game.... by Maudib · · Score: 1

      Blast radius from a W88 is 3.3 miles.

    202. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, but no. China doesn't like NK doing these things for two reasons:
      1) China wants to be big dog in Asia. That is, if they tell someone not to do something, they want that country to listen. NK doesn't do that. China tells them not to do these things, and they do it anyway, subverting China's self-proclaimed authority.

      2) If NK does start a war with the US, China will not be able to back NK without fear of major reprisal worldwide. Backing NK? Bad already. Backing an NK that started a war? Diplomatic suicide. If China did back NK, they could expect most countries to shut the door on student visas to Chinese students, as well as perhaps impose costly tariffs, or, more drastically, trade embargoes. What that means is that NK would lose, badly. China knows that. Casting the communists out of NK would likely result in a unified Korean peninsula, which would likely ally itself with the US and/or Japan (although an alliance as strong as SK/US is not terribly likely). China wants neither of those things. It would entirely undermine its ability to rule Asia.

      Furthermore, even if China did back NK militarily, they need to be assured of victory. A loss would be a disaster on all fronts: it crushes all their dreams of being an elite country from just the loss AND results in a unified Korea.

      China distances themselves publicly from NK because they must make it clear to NK that they will NOT help them if they do something stupid. NK could become an aggressor if they think it's likely China will come to its aid again (like in the Korean War)--if China backed NK publicly or even defended them when they do something like these nuclear tests, NK might develop that feeling and decide to go for it, even though, privately, China wouldn't want to get involved. They want to spend their money on infrastructure, not bombs. In that scenario, NK would be left on their own and would be crushed quickly. Then it's unified Korea disaster for China.

    203. Re:A strange game.... by Maudib · · Score: 1

      They aren't big nukes necessarily. The W88 is actually very small, 475kt.

      Each trident II can drop up to 9 of them though (4 legally under start) and an Ohio can carry up to 24 Tridents. Plenty to knock out all of NK with a relatively small amount of fallout.

    204. Re:A strange game.... by lgw · · Score: 1

      What makes you think we haven't? Back when N Korea was (quite briefly) engaging in nuclear brinksmanship and hinting about nuking the US, it was publically announce that we had moved a few B2s to an island airbase near Korea (can't remember which one now - but that was purely for show, the B2s can fly to Korea from Whiteman AFB anyhow) and Powell went for a "diplomatic discussion" with KJI who never made similar threats again. I've always suspected that at some point during the discussion Powell just said "look up" as a B2 flew overhead, but whatever he said it was persuasive.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    205. Re:A strange game.... by Maudib · · Score: 1

      I think its an absolute lock that any ICBM attack on the US (especially NK, can't let China get any ideas) will result in an immediate nuclear retaliation. Failure to do so would undermine MAD, and the US deterrent would become useless.

    206. Re:A strange game.... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      They have to know they wouldn't last 3 weeks against a U.S. military onslaught.

      Presuming of course that the US is willing to to sacrifice a good chunk of South Korea's population and economy in the process... the North Koreans have thousands of dug in artillery pieces within range of Seoul and it's environs. They have thousands more dug in all along the border seriously threatening any land assault, and we don't have any significant capacity to conduct an opposed seaborne landing.
       
      The North Koreans have had decades to think this through and to prepare, and they've done both very thoroughly.

    207. Re:A strange game.... by maeka · · Score: 1

      We can prevent NK from bombing Seoul or marching 35 miles, if we strike hard enough in the first strike. It would help if China was on board, but it's not necessary.

      We possibly could but that's not the real threat to the South.

      NK is believed to have at least thirteen thousand artillery tubes pointed at Seoul. Most of them are embedded. We don't have that many bunker-buster bombs in inventory. We can't deliver that many precision munitions in an hour even if we did, and we don't know where most of the tubes are. Even the most conservative estimates (such as the recent one by Roger Cavazos) put the death toll at 30,000 Seoul civilians where the high end one count in the millions. And that's just the first hours.

    208. Re:A strange game.... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Thing is, if they were actually going to attack the US, using an ICBM isn't the best method anyway. They could just put a nuke on a fishing trawler and wander into any number of coastal ports.

      O.o
       
      A nuke on a fishing boat has no deterrent value - unless you announce it's existence. And once announced, it's going to be found very quickly... pushing you into a "use it or lose it" position. (Not to mention placing it beyond trustworthy command and control - something dictators are loathe to do.) Not even the North Koreans have shown themselves to be that monumentally stupid.

    209. Re:A strange game.... by mug+funky · · Score: 2

      i think the only reason DPRK has had any support from China at all is that they're downwind from them...

    210. Re:A strange game.... by danfromsb · · Score: 1

      Also, look what happened with Gaddafi. He voluntarily suspended his pursuit of nuclear weapons in exchange for aid, then was promptly removed. Would he have been removed so quickly if Libya was a viable nuclear power? What kind of lesson does this send Iran and NK?

    211. Re:A strange game.... by Captain+Nitpick · · Score: 1

      The nearest NK ICBM bunker would be slightly more than 35 miles from Seoul. Please explain how these nukes work that could destroy such a bunker, but not kill most of the 2.4 million people in Seoul.

      They work by not having a 35 mile blast radius. The yields of nuclear weapons have fallen significantly from their 1960s peak. A B61 bunker buster couldn't blow up Seoul from the far side of the border under ideal conditions, much less after ground penetration.

      --
      But then again, I could be wrong.
    212. Re:A strange game.... by Luckyo · · Score: 1

      If you seriously think NK is not under constant existential threat from US, SK and JP, I have land on the moon to sell you. That level of naivete is both endearing in a child and dangerous in someone of voting age in any relevant country. All of above would profit greatly from collapse, both directly and indirectly in countless ways.

    213. Re:A strange game.... by servognome · · Score: 2

      How about 99 red balloons delivered by Captain Kirk

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
    214. Re:A strange game.... by Nossie · · Score: 1

      difference is, America is not a paper tiger.

      And no, I'm not American.

    215. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What "line"? Where is the "line", exactly? That's the whole point.

      Sure, launching a missile, even one with no active payload, at California would be over the line. Nobody would expect the US to take that without severe retaliation. So we can reasonably conclude that it's not going to happen - unless the Americans are dumb and careless enough to back the NK regime into such a corner that it starts to see that as a desirable way out.

      But launching a missile to land harmlessly in international waters, designed to prove that it could do that if it wanted - what "line" does that cross, exactly? America has done exactly that to them in the past. Turnabout is fair play.

      Incidentally, I'm always struck by the correlation between people who claim to believe in nuclear deterrence, and people who don't think other countries should be allowed to have nukes. You can't have it both ways, folks. If the balance of power is how you preserve the peace (and the Iraq example suggests that nothing short of an active nuclear threat is good enough to stave off the US if it takes it into its head to attack), then why shouldn't every country have nukes? It's basically the same as the 2nd Amendment argument, only on a global scale.

    216. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They have to know they wouldn't last 3 weeks against a U.S. military onslaught.

      bahahahahahaha! American's can't even get a handle on Afghanistan and Iraq, they're still getting fucked by the Taliban and those don't have any kind of real military power, much less the possibility of nuclear arms. The US has struggled in the middle east, it would bankrupt itself trying to take on North Korea, it simply cannot afford it. North Korea is hardly a significant threat to the rest of the world but the idea that the US could just effortlessly beat them down is laughable, they can barely maintain the conflicts they've already dropped themselves in and that's without weapons of mass destruction (as much as the US tried to convince everyone otherwise).

    217. Re:A strange game.... by servognome · · Score: 1

      Yup, once you have nukes then the bigger worry for the US is that they keep control of the nukes.

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
    218. Re:A strange game.... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      All I could think reading this news was "Do they want to get smashed flat?".

      You really think the US can manage another conflict? One that actually does involve WMDs?

    219. Re: A strange game.... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      You're forgetting something though. Us Americans, we love our nukes. Big city vaporizing nukes, and small artillery-launched cork-popper nukes. All sizes of nukes, with all sizes of mushroom clouds. In fact, we have nukes with dial-a-yield, so that we can just mass produce the same nuke for all different kinds of uses. We've detonated hundreds of them, all over the place. Japan. The South Pacific. Nevada. New Mexico. The upper atmosphere. We even like them so much, we wanted to send them to the moon. The only thing we like more than nukes, is expanding our ability to put a nuke exactly where we want it to detonate from half a world away. Missile crews in California are judged by how many yards a tungsten stand-in for a Minuteman-3 missile misses a 55-gallon drum on the target range at the Enewiak Atoll 27 minutes after a few keys get turned in the control room. We not only want the ability to turn you into a small wisp of ash, but we want you to see the warhead crash through your bathroom window before the overpressure waveknocks your city flat while the thermal pulse burns everything within a mile or so.

      To think that somewhere in the vast array of nukes at our disposal, we couldn't find the right combination to deal with the muppet regime in North Korea without irradiating the west coast is ridiculous. We've got decades of experience at this, son. In fact, nowhere on earth has been nuked as much as Nevada, and their Senator is sitting in one of the big chairs in the leading party of our government.

      (Yes, this was meant to be satirical.)

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    220. Re:A strange game.... by Divebus · · Score: 1

      If China ever thinks through how this nonsense will likely play out, they may take the DPRK out themselves.

      --

      Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
    221. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Your first point is not valid. The person I responded to stated that the US would not bother to attack some piece of shit country unless they "used" something against the US. My correction of that statement is valid, and backed by very recent history. We have attacked people for the threat posed by their "having" weapons (even when that was not true).

      That's not what I corrected you on. You said they had the same technology. They did not.

      You think that given the amount of money China pumps in to that economy they have no say-so in what they are doing?

      That's right, they have no say. That's why NK continues rocket and nuke tests, despite China saying no. Resulting in China voting against NK in the UN.

      The US uses them in a slightly different fashion.

      One which you can't quite think of just now, apparently.

      Come now, use your head man!

      I am. I consider the world from NKs point of view. Few here are doing that, including you. NK are playing their own game, they are not being played.

    222. Re:A strange game.... by jafac · · Score: 1

      hah.

      Not only was it "brazen".
      His predecessor was pretty much too broken to try it. (they were not aggressively looking for bin Laden after Tora Bora).
      His primary opponent called him NAIVE, on national television, for suggesting this action.
      As a matter of fact, that was when Clinton really started to slide in the primary contest. Not only was her attack seen as mean-spirited, but most Americans saw it as "overly pragmatic" - and in fact, hell, we've got tens of thousands of troops over there, fighting and bleeding - what the fuck, let's DO this.

      Then he hired her as secretary of state.
      Then he went ahead and DID it.
      That was some brazen shit right there.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    223. Re:A strange game.... by jafac · · Score: 1

      I agree.

      We need to build a national time-machine, go back to 2001, and ask ourselves again, seriously: why are we allied with this country?

      we've also funneled billions in military aid to that government.
      fuck them.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    224. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      You can "take out" the metro by bombing all the entrances.

      That'll work for the few hours it takes to dig back into them. The trains are 100 meters down, all bombing the entrances will do is take out a few of the upper stairs. But I wasn't really making a point about the Metro itself - that was simply to say: if they are that dug in on the subway, think how well dug in they are with actual military facilities.

      You can "take out" the nuclear program by bombing the facilities that build delivery vehicles or make rocket fuel, or house the workers.

      The ones that are underground you mean? No, that won't work.

      They can't strike back if they are all hiding.

      Wanna bet? A bunker doesn't have to be open long to launch missiles or artillery.

      NK is a more formidable enemy than any that USA has waged war on since WWII. And those wars on the enemies own territory always turn out to be far more difficult and long than anyone thinks.

      Meanwhile, even though USA would win in the end, it'd come at the cost millions of lives in South Korea. And the US don't have the stomach for that.

    225. Re:A strange game.... by servognome · · Score: 1

      It was brazen politically. You are conducting operations within the borders of a supposed ally without informing them. Imagine the uproar if Mexican special forces conducted a raid within the US borders to kill a drug cartel leader.
      If things went seriously wrong it would have been seen in a worse light than the Iranian hostage rescue attempt. Just look at how people are jumping on the administration for Benghazi. If Bin Laden wasn't there, or Pakistani security forces intervened, Pakistan wouldn't even to pretend to be our ally, Republicans would try to impeach Obama, and a chance at a second term would evaporate.

      --
      D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
    226. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Our military always defeats countries with armies (or without them) in 3 weeks. Like Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam.

    227. Re:A strange game.... by MrEdofCourse · · Score: 1

      "If they launched something no more damaging than a dishwasher at San Francisco..."

      I live in the San Francisco area and need a new dishwasher, so Korea, there you have it. Maximize your threat to the absolute limit and send me a new dishwasher!

    228. Re:A strange game.... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      The nearest NK ICBM bunker would be slightly more than 35 miles from Seoul. Please explain how these nukes work that could destroy such a bunker, but not kill most of the 2.4 million people in Seoul.

      Trivially - because the nukes from an Ohio are at most 475kt. The proof is left to anyone with sufficient intelligence to google for a nuclear weapons effect calculator.

    229. Re:A strange game.... by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      The problem with that scenario is that China responds immediately with a full spread, turning our ICBM attack into a suicide bid. We nuke them back, Russia gets involved, etc. total world cinder pile.

      A NK ICBM attack on the USA, if successful, would be dealt with militarily but not by an instant launch of another nuke. Anyway, they aren't stupid or insane in NK, they retain nukes as a deterrent, to prevent an invasion.

    230. Re:A strange game.... by Maudib · · Score: 1

      They actually ARE insane in NK. Really.

    231. Re:A strange game.... by Divebus · · Score: 1

      China has just voted against North Korea probably for the first time. How angry are the North Korean leaders I wonder? How long before North Korea starts biting the hand that feeds it? If China thought through the likely outcome of what the North Korean behavior is, they'd probably take the DPRK out themselves.

      I just looked up some sources on artillery and the DPRK has lots of artillery, most of which can't reach Seoul. They apparently have 17 guns that can, however, and those can be quickly located and silenced before too much damage is done to Seoul. All they have to do is fire one round from each gun and we'll have return fire on the way before their shell hits anything. It's likely that the South Koreans have figured on intercepting projectiles from these guns. The U.S. has had field portable radar systems since the 1960s designed to calculate the source of mortar fire for this purpose. I can imagine it's more sophisticated now.

      The DPRK million man army (and 8 million reservists) would likely come pouring over the DMZ in an old fashioned charge and get chewed to ribbons before they finished the 40km trek to Seoul through the rugged mountainous areas. There are a bunch of mountain passes to defend but they can forget about making it through the passes or the mountains. The ROK army has thought of that and they've got some nasty surprises ready to go.

      I'm sure the DPRK has got missile systems to deliver plenty of fire power to Seoul, so that would be the bigger worry. If I were a leader of the South, I'd have a line of anti kinetic weapons systems aimed northward. They already know where it's coming from.

      I'd say a DPRK attack would create more psychological impact than physical damage to Seoul, much like the V1 and V2 rockets of WWII. Most everything coming over the DMZ would get toasted. Once the DPRK shoots that wad, they're essentially undefended. Then what?

      --

      Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
    232. Re:A strange game.... by smellotron · · Score: 1

      You should learn to grapple

      I tried that, but the rules were too complex!

    233. Re:A strange game.... by aquabat · · Score: 1

      What is Kim Jong-Un, like 25 years old? I have underwear older than that. You have to expect a certain lack of foresight from a young, inexperienced ruler whose advisors are used to dealing with the world in a paranoid fashion. The poor kid probably hasn't ever really lived in a society where he actually has to interact with people in a normal social dynamic like we are used to doing, so it's no wonder his perception of how to get along with other nations is all bent up. I pity him that lack of human connection.

      --
      A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    234. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At the end of the day it isn't because Beijing are big fans the NK regime. They likely hate the Kims as much as anyone. What wakes up the Chinese leadership in cold sweats late at night is the idea of a regime collapse (whether internal or external factors) and millions of North Korean refugees flooding over the border.

      The Chinese may be more willing to use open lines of communication to voice their disapproval of the regime's conduct than in the past, but until someone can come up with a credible plan to wind the regime down with as little violence and upheaval as possible, they will continue to back it.

      I think you don't understand China's intentions. Originally they were using the North as a buffer against McArthur, who scared the fuck out of them before he got canned. They didn't really trust the US even after he got sacked, so they figured they'd continue to support the North to maintain the buffer zone, and if the US left them alone they'd have a nice little lapdog puppet state which they might eventually be able to quietly absorb. The Kims, however, haven't been as cooperative in that regard as China would have liked, but China hasn't given up their ambitions of adding some more land to their map. So if things really heat up to the point where the US, UN, or anyone else starts talking invasion, I predict that China will try to step in and take care of it themselves. Why worry about refugees crossing the border when you have a chance at just moving the border itself?

    235. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You speak like it would be so neat and simple to wipe them from the map. Have you forgotten about China, or the very strong chance they'd shell Seoul--home of some 24 million people--into rubble?

      Anything the North can muster has little or no chance of ever reaching the US. That's just the public face of what is actually going on. The North is well aware that their use as a buffer by China against the US is long past- China would jump at a chance to take that land for their own and the North knows it. The deterrent is against China, not the US, the South, or Japan.

    236. Re:A strange game.... by sl3xd · · Score: 1

      For 60 years now, everyone growing up there has been indoctrinated into a system that pounds into them from childhood that the U.S. is the great evil which must be fought and destroyed.

      I recall a documentary made by a Swedish film crew, I think - they followed a mother as she walked her child to school. They were singing a children's song about killing Americans.

      In fact, every documentary I've seen about North Korea appear to show a picture of a populace that is so indoctrinated that you can take pretty much any stereotype from a megachurch, and apply it to their worship of "the dear leader". The major problem with the metaphor is that even a megachurch (which is supposedly there to worship a God) doesn't have the level of devotion you see in the North Koreans. So when they're taught that Americans are the great evil of the universe, it's "God's truth" - and beyond question. Their God speaks to them firsthand, not through some guy interpreting a set of ancient writings.

      Surrender wouldn't even occur to them were war to break out, any more than a "good Christian" would surrender to the Devil's legions.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    237. Re:A strange game.... by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      Actually, they're not. Everything they do makes perfect sense when you actually study the situation. The clearly have game theorists informing decisions at the top level.

      Now, our yellow media portrays them as insane, but our media is just as reliable as North Korea's.

    238. Re:A strange game.... by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Communism is responsible for the plight of N. Korea. Yet ironically, it's going to take the very nations responsible for this to solve the problem. Specifically China. Let's face it. Even if we had a full deceleration of surrender from the N. Korean regime, the people wouldn't listen to America. Too much bitterness exists from generations of brainwashing. We have nothing in common. China OTOH could act as a mentor in establishing post communist reforms to a more capitalist society. It wouldn't be an ideal "Western" reform, but it would be a vast improvement in terms of the overall human condition in that nation. Think about it for a moment. China would feel secure knowing an American military presence is little to non-existent on the border, they would have a regional trading partner post reforms, and America wouldn't have to spend our hard earned tax dollars floating yet another welfare nation. It's basically a win-win-win for everyone involved.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    239. Re:A strange game.... by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Even if we had a full deceleration of surrender from the N. Korean regime, the people wouldn't listen to America. Too much bitterness exists from generations of brainwashing.

      I'm not so sure about that. Some things that we take for granted can be pretty eye-opening, especially to a starving people.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    240. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A US made nuke, good!
      A NK made nuke, evil!

      Got it!

      Somehow I doubt it. Maybe this will help:

      Good US, made nuke, OK. Evil NK, made nuke, evil.

      Do you still get it?

    241. Re:A strange game.... by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      umm, I think they're doing this precisely because everybody already knows how much of a bully the US is. But hey, whip out your penis if you want.

      US bullies?

      It is strange that someone with your interest in penises has such a difficult time figuring out who the real dicks are between the two. As to world-wide? Not even close.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    242. Re:A strange game.... by s.petry · · Score: 1

      That's right, they have no say. That's why NK continues rocket and nuke tests, despite China saying no. Resulting in China voting against NK in the UN.

      Do you really think that what gets said in media is what goes on behind the doors when no media is around? Come now.. who do you think makes sure NK has the materials and small technology advances to ensure that the scud technology is improved (very slightly). China of course does not give them the same tech they have for nukes, just like we don't sell our current M1 Abrams to Saudi Arabia. We sell variants that look similar enough, but in combat we win. This strategy is normal, and logical.

      One which you can't quite think of just now, apparently.

      I didn't think it worth mentioning since the use is so simple to see. We have a blame guy for any action we want to take on the Korean peninsula. We need the bad guy to keep spending money in the MIC. We need the bad guy to maintain a military presence in that region of Asia. None of that is obscure, and everything is so easy to see you simply have to open your eyes. Do you need everything spelled out for you really?

      I am. I consider the world from NKs point of view. Few here are doing that, including you. NK are playing their own game, they are not being played.

      hahaha, sorry but that made me laugh. You can't dispute anything I just said any more than you can dispute what I said before. Look man, if you want to live in a delusion that's fine. Many people fear change and cognitive dissonance so much that they do everything they can to stay remain living in a delusion. Hell, Plato's Republic spends quite a bit of time on that very thing. You can stay in the cave if you like, but honestly there is a whole world outside the cave. If you step outside, you can find some freedom.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    243. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why the hell would a kid with down's punch anyone? I had a down's kid as a neigbour as a kid. Yes, he was slow, yes, he was emotional, but he was never violent.

    244. Re:A strange game.... by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      The US already has a working missile defense capability at a reasonable price. The spending that is bankrupting it is social welfare spending.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    245. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Yes, the Kim family knows about some advances that have been made. They know about the internet, for example, and they have at least a passing awareness that cell phones exist; but those are just specific examples of a much larger trend, a trend they very well might not be aware of at all."

      Ummm, i guess you are an american? You do know the NK leader(s)(at least the curent one) has studied in Switzerland? I'm pretty damn sure they have more than passing awarness of cellphones. Geez. They might have nuclear weapons, they are capable of building pretty fine missiles, they have huge nice buildings. It's not totally a shithole with mudhuts.

    246. Re:A strange game.... by jandersen · · Score: 1

      China is all for NK being a general pain to the US

      And so is the US, probably. There is nothing like a perceived threat to security - or better, and obnoxious "naughty boy" to focus the attention away from other things. Just as an example, there are elements in the US who could be an internal threat to national security, if weren't dimwitted enough to follow the reality show in North Korea and elsewhere.

      All of which is not to say that there isn't also a genuine, humanitarian concern in both China and America about the poor souls trapped in that regime. Even politicians sometimes have a heart, although it often seems to be painted on.

    247. Re:A strange game.... by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      One of the reasons the people are so poor is because they spend so much on their military.

      The main reasons they are so poor is incompetence, corruption, and hardline Stalin era communist economics that even the Chinese "to get rich is glorious" Communist Party has abandoned, and their unfortunate policy of "self-reliance." They then take the results of that mess and channel resources into the military on a high priority basis, including priority for food. They could get away with it while the Soviet Union was underwriting them, but not anymore, not without an enormous price.

      In the days of Chairman Mao Zedong, capitalists were considered enemies of the state. Some business owners were persecuted and most enterprises became government property.

      That changed in the 1980s and in the early 1990s when paramount leader Deng Xiaoping was said to have declared that "to get rich is glorious." A 2002 constitutional amendment established that the Communist Party henceforth would consider valid the contributions of private enterprise, therefore providing a place for private entrepreneurs in the party system. -- Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    248. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My thought is that he CIA is feeding tech and money to DPRK to make sure they come across as credible

      That, and some of the other ideas in your post, are on the axis of fringe, crank, disorganized. My thought is that a good therapist and medication might help.

      The more credible they are, the less the population cares about the massive debt driven by defense spending

      The massive debt in the US isn't driven by defense spending.

    249. Re:A strange game.... by Dave+Emami · · Score: 1

      It doesn't help that even the wider international community applies the double standard of congratulating most countries on their space programmes while condemning NK. Why would India be allowed such a programme when NK isn't? Why should the US for that matter?

      Because both India and the US are democracies, and North Korea is not. Same goes for France and the UK. I would have zero problem with, say, South Korea or Poland or Australia having nukes, or if South Africa decided they wanted them again. Unfortunately there's nothing that can be done about the PRC having them, but ideally, only democracies should have nuclear weapons.

      In fact, it's misleading to speak of NK or other dictatorships as countries in the same sense as democracies, in this question and in others, because that implies we're talking about what the people of those countries want and what they have a right to do. The question is not "why should India have nukes but not NK?" The question is "Why should President Mukherjee of India have control of a nuclear arsenal, but not Kim Jong-un of North Korea?" Well, because President Mukherjee was voted his authority by 700+ million Indians (~70%), while Kim Jong-un inherited his authority and continues to wield it because, for the high-ranking officials who count, showing anything less than absolute support means trading your perks for a firing squad. I don't put the decisions of free Indian citizens on the same moral plane as those of North Korean generals.

      --

      "The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
    250. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The entitlements have their own tax scheme. If you eliminate the entitlement tax when you eliminate the entitlements, you see it's all military.

    251. Re:A strange game.... by Cimexus · · Score: 1

      Shhh don't give them any ideas - they could achieve first dishwasher in orbit!

    252. Re:A strange game.... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      If they really only have 17 pieces of artillery that can reach that far then I agree that the damage to Seoul will be moderated. As you say modern counter-artillery fire is quite effective and I'm sure that is deployed and on a hair-trigger.

      That said, even 17 guns can do quite a bit in a surprise attack. Unless all units are on full alert and have orders to return fire without further authorization they're going to get off a few rounds at least. If the counter-fire isn't completely automated (ie it involves a bunch of people relaying coordinates over the radio followed by corrections) then they're going to get off a few rounds even under high alert. If you take a random modern city and set off one bus bomb it practically shuts the city down. Now imagine having bombs several times larger than that going off in dozens of locations - perhaps 100. Thousands dying does not seem impossible.

      The same applies to missiles - it all depends on how many launchers they have. Bottom line is that if the number is low enough then they will get hit fairly quickly and they won't really have any strategic effect beyond making a mess on day one.

      After that it will be one big mess. The US will no doubt bomb the dozen or two buildings that have electricity into the stone age, and anything resembling command/control. There would potentially be millions of people marching through the minefields and who knows how long they keep that up in the face of heavy losses with no commands from above to spur them on. As soon as things bog down (likely a few days) I don't think the NK army will make any further advances. They'll have trouble with supplies, poor command/control, and being in open conventional warfare without an air force in this day and age is suicide. If the army is fanatical they might continue to make trouble in a disorganized fashion, if not they'll likely surrender.

    253. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Surrender wouldn't even occur to them were war to break out, any more than a "good Christian" would surrender to the Devil's legions.

      I'm not so sure. Suppose you've been indoctrinated all your life to believe that your country is militarily invincible. Then you see foreign troops on the street and your army on the run. Some people will have a complete flipover; such a basic, fundamental assurance from the former govt. has turned out to be lies, so they suddenly realize *the whole thing* was a lie and a sham.
      (Some would kill themselves unable to deal with it, others would fight to the death, true, but I think most would adjust).

    254. Re:A strange game.... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Technically, "USian" is just annoying, not pedantic.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    255. Re:A strange game.... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Do you re-write history, or just ignore history much?

      If you're taking someone to task for ignoring or re-writing history... You shouldn't be committing the same error.
       
      You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that Iraq did have and used chemical weapons. You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that Iraq did have an active WMD program, both nukes and chemicals. You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that Saddam took every action possible to frustrate and thwart the inspectors in such a manner as to give every impression he was continuing to hide something.
       
      In the end, no, there were no WMD - but Saddam acted like a guy with a gun in his pocket (as opposed to just his hand formed into a gun-like shape) and did practically everything in his power to goad the West because he was threatened from within and without if he didn't. Let's not forget that fact and the other facts because they're inconvenient to your handwaving and smokeblowing.

    256. Re:A strange game.... by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Typical gunk-ho talk from an American

      gunk-ho?? WTF does that mean? I'm guessing you aren't from around these parts, are you?

      :)

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    257. Re:A strange game.... by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1

      Wow, GPs suggestion is pure insanity. Unleashing a horde of American criminals seems like a good way to guarantee the loyalty of NK troops.

      --
      Man, you really need that seminar!
    258. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Do you really think that what gets said in media is what goes on behind the doors when no media is around?

      That then is an argument for making up anything you like from your imagination as to what is really happening. Do that and you're in the realm of conspiracy theory. It's exactly the same argument as 9/11 and Princess Diana conspiracy theorists. Push it further and you're into the illuminati and lizard men from outer space.

      For sure, there's a lot of untrue things in specific news outlets. But reading widely is the best to base an interpretation of what's going on. Everything else is speculation at best, conspiracy at worst.

      Come now.. who do you think makes sure NK has the materials and small technology advances to ensure that the scud technology is improved (very slightly).

      The Scuds were originally from Egypt, and have been further developed mostly by NK themselves over the years. With assistance at various points from former USSR countries, Iran and China. That doesn't mean they are China's puppet any more than it means that they are Iran's puppet. Countries do arms deals.

      I didn't think it worth mentioning since the use is so simple to see. We have a blame guy for any action we want to take on the Korean peninsula. We need the bad guy to keep spending money in the MIC. We need the bad guy to maintain a military presence in that region of Asia. None of that is obscure, and everything is so easy to see you simply have to open your eyes. Do you need everything spelled out for you really?

      As I said, you're inventing conspiracy theories out of pure imagination.

      hahaha, sorry but that made me laugh. You can't dispute anything I just said any more than you can dispute what I said before.

      Sorry, but fact outweighs your imaginary conspiracies. All conspiracy theorists tell people no one can prove them wrong.

    259. Re:A strange game.... by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      and North Korea isn't threatening to spread their ideology anywhere.

      Except southward, which is essentially the whole of the problem.

    260. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Incompetence, sure. Corruption?

      Welcome to western propaganda.

      Communism, that's a way too big a topic. Capitalist and communist states fought a cold war. The capitalist states won it. That doesn't necessaily mean theirs was a better system - they had more power, more countries, with better resources. If communism was bound to fail by itself, the USA wouldn't have had to make such great efforts to oppose it.

      And now, just a couple of decades later, we seem capitalism failing too.

      I don't think either system is intrinsically right or wrong. And certainly neither is optimal.

      By all means state your opposing opinion. But I may choose not discuss it. It's a different topic, and a discussion I've had many times before.

      They then take the results of that mess and channel resources into the military on a high priority basis, including priority for food.

      That's what I said.

    261. Re:A strange game.... by halfkoreanamerican · · Score: 1

      It doesn't help that even the wider international community applies the double standard of congratulating most countries on their space programmes while condemning NK. Why would India be allowed such a programme when NK isn't?

      India is allowed a space program because they are not belligerent, starving millions of their own citizens for the perpetuation of their regime. If you show yourself to have good intentions and play by international rules then things generally go well. If you prove to be untrustworthy, how can any request be taken seriously? No one really believes they have peaceful intentions by perfecting their rockets. They never say what they mean.

    262. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pakistan is a brown shithole. saudi arabi too. fuck 'em all.

    263. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A threat to peace ?

      Oh come on, you can't seriously think that a threat to the USA is a threat to peace.

      What greater threat to peace exists besides the USA ?

    264. Re:A strange game.... by godefroi · · Score: 1

      Like it worked in WWII in Japan?

      We dropped leaflets in 33 cities in Japan warning them of the impending destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (among others). The Japanese government made it a crime to possess or discuss them with other people.

      How well did it work?

      --
      Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
    265. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, and USA pretends to be fighting Al Qaeda, while Al Qaeda is just a gang of off shore bandits acting in the interest (and at the command) of the USA.

      Just look at how USA is attacking Libya right now.

      I can't believe how easy it is for these americans to gobble up all that hog-wash media.

    266. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here here !

      "Our guns, Our intelectual property laws, Our allies"

      Its all I ever hear now adays on slashdot, silly whining americans thinking everything is all about THEM.

      DAMN

    267. Re:A strange game.... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      We don't know, since Japan was not invaded before it surrendered. If it were, and each of those leaflets made even one person doubt enough that they wouldn't fight at full strength, it's already an achievement.

    268. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you think war is about resources? This is 1950's politics: The Containment of Communism. It's what led to Viet Nam. It's just the continuation of the Korean War (which never officially ended, btw). North Korea wants a United Korea, with Kim Jong-un in control. (China probably does too.) The U.S. is standing in the way of that. That's why the DPRK is mad at the U.S.

    269. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a book titled Why countries fail (Acemoglu & Robinson) that has an explanation for it

    270. Re:A strange game.... by s.petry · · Score: 1

      That then is an argument for making up anything you like from your imagination as to what is really happening. Do that and you're in the realm of conspiracy theory. It's exactly the same argument as 9/11 and Princess Diana conspiracy theorists. Push it further and you're into the illuminati and lizard men from outer space.

      Wrong, and absolutely horrible logic. Let us look at 9/11 since it is a valid conspiracy. What we were told happened was a lie. There is no doubt about what we were shown being a lie (though cognitive dissonance, and all that, may keep you from looking to find out). Continuing to believe in a lie is not the action of a sane free person, but many people do so. Since this is a conspiracy you may never find out what really happened, but to believe in a lie because nobody showed you reality? Come now, you should be much better than that.

      Where your argument takes a turn from bad to worse is when you bring up things that are improbable. It's like arguing against a particular Theology by bringing in a flying spaghetti monster. Sure, the rhetoric works on a few.. but to use a fantasy to dismiss a fantasy is not the action of a sane person.. it's the act of a desperate person.

      One more quick point - You state "Everything else is speculation at best, conspiracy at worst.". You do realize that your statement is either an attempt to, or the result of brain washing right? A conspiracy is not a bad thing necessarily. Denying any such thing or labeling them as bad does not magically make them go away. To truly believe that there are no conspiracies in the world is delusional at best, insane at worst. To spread propaganda is worse, but generally delusional people don't realize that they help spread propaganda so I'll cut you some slack with that one.

      I didn't think it worth mentioning since the use is so simple to see. We have a blame guy for any action we want to take on the Korean peninsula. We need the bad guy to keep spending money in the MIC. We need the bad guy to maintain a military presence in that region of Asia. None of that is obscure, and everything is so easy to see you simply have to open your eyes. Do you need everything spelled out for you really?

      As I said, you're inventing conspiracy theories out of pure imagination

      Strategy does not exist in politics? Really? Are you that blind? Okay, maybe you are just someone spreading propaganda. There is no conspiracy involved in my statement. It's called political strategy. If you don't believe it exists, then you should really visit the library sometime. There are easily thousands and thousands of books on the subject. Some good mentions would be Henry Kissinger, Winston Churchill, and of course Plato. Yes, we have known about this thing called political strategy for thousands of years (that we know of and can prove just by reading).

      The Scuds were originally from Egypt, and have been further developed mostly by NK themselves over the years. With assistance at various points from former USSR countries, Iran and China. That doesn't mean they are China's puppet any more than it means that they are Iran's puppet. Countries do arms deals.

      Wrong again! Scuds were Russian technology, not Egyptian. Go do some homework, you are absolutely wrong. And yes, the way technology exchange works: If I purchase Russian technology from Libya, it's _still_ Russian technology and not Libyan technology. China used to purchase much of this same Russian military technology. China's MIC and space programs still rely pretty heavily on Russia to support technologies today (though the dependance is way down).

      hahaha, sorry but that made me laugh. You can't dispute anything I just said any more than you can dispute what I said before.

      Sorry, but fact outweighs your imaginary conspiracies. All conspiracy theorists tell people no o

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    271. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Gunk-ho"! I like it!

    272. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Let us look at 9/11 since it is a valid conspiracy.

      So you are a conspiracy theorist. I called it perfectly.

      Wrong again! Scuds were Russian technology, not Egyptian. Go do some homework, you are absolutely wrong.

      I never said Scud's were not Russian technology. I said NK got theirs originally from Egypt. And they did.

      "North Korea obtained its first Scud-Bs from Egypt in 1979 or 1980. These missiles were reverse engineered, and reproduced using North Korean infrastructure, including the 125 factory at Pyongyang, a research and development institute at Sanum-dong and the Musudan-ri Launch Facility.[10] The first prototypes were completed in 1984, and designated Hwasong-5. They were exact replicas of the R-17Es obtained from Egypt. The first test flights occurred in April 1984, but the first version saw only limited production, and no operational deployment, as its purpose was only to validate the production process."
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scud_missiles#North_Korea

      As I said, the facts back me up, not you.

    273. Re:A strange game.... by s.petry · · Score: 1

      After Gulf 1, Saddam had to put on a tough face and act like he was packing. We were not protecting his borders after we turned his military into dust. (Don't confuse that statement with Saddam being innocent, he deserved to have his military beat up in Gulf 1). He did provoke Gulf 1, not many would dispute that statement including myself. After Gulf 1 though, we in the US knew he had no military left. Iran on the other hand may have jumped in to Iraq. We in the US knew he had to keep a tough appearance up because of that. Did he use chemical weapons on his own people and Iranian military a decade earlier? Yeah, I know maybe better than most since I was in the military and saw some of what happened long before. Again, he was deserving for Gulf 1 and I won't dispute that. We also knew (go read military intelligence reports) that after Gulf 1 he had nothing. He never had a military Nuclear program so your one statements is an absolute lie. The US did talk a lot after we invaded them in Gulf 2 about "maybe he'd have made and used dirty bombs", but that is rhetorical fallacy plain and simple.

      After Gulf 1 the US kept pushing and pushing him further into the corner, but not under Clinton. The bullying started when Bush II got in to office. Saddam still never pulled a gun on us, which is why it took 9-11 to start staging Gulf 2. Or did you forget about all the rhetoric where we claimed he was helping train the Taliban, training Al Qada, and maybe even harboring Bin Laden?

      Go read the damn Wiki page for Gulf 2. Understand that in Gulf 1, we had support from the UN more than half the nations of the world. Gulf 2, we had support of very few nations and no UN support. We had vocal opposition from not just the Eastern block, but numerous countries in the West like France, Germany, Canada.

      Gulf 2 has cost the lives of thousands of US and UK citizens, in addition to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. Not because Saddam had WMDs, but because of an agenda which is closed to the public. Again, go read the Wiki page.

      Lastly, take your own advice. If you're taking someone to task for ignoring or re-writing history... You shouldn't be committing the same error..

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    274. Re:A strange game.... by toddestan · · Score: 1

      The fallout from the other side of the world would not be an issue, considering that we survived nuking ourselves repeatedly in the 1950's and 1960's with all the testing that took place in the southwest.

    275. Re:A strange game.... by s.petry · · Score: 1

      Let us look at 9/11 since it is a valid conspiracy.

      So you are a conspiracy theorist. I called it perfectly.

      And exactly what does that mean, that there is no such thing as a conspiracy? Do you think a label being tossed out as an attempt at ad hominem makes you right? Sorry, go back and re-read my post.

      Wrong again! Scuds were Russian technology, not Egyptian. Go do some homework, you are absolutely wrong.

      I never said Scud's were not Russian technology. I said NK got theirs originally from Egypt. And they did.

      "North Korea obtained its first Scud-Bs from Egypt in 1979 or 1980. These missiles were reverse engineered, and reproduced using North Korean infrastructure, including the 125 factory at Pyongyang, a research and development institute at Sanum-dong and the Musudan-ri Launch Facility.[10] The first prototypes were completed in 1984, and designated Hwasong-5. They were exact replicas of the R-17Es obtained from Egypt. The first test flights occurred in April 1984, but the first version saw only limited production, and no operational deployment, as its purpose was only to validate the production process."

      You claimed originally that "The Scuds were originally from Egypt, and have been further developed mostly by NK themselves over the years.". Now you are retracting that statement and claiming you said something different. You do realize that you can read post history to see what you wrote, as well as comments correct?

      Facts don't back you, sorry. Your delusion backs you. You can't discount what I said, and have not done so. Since you are either 1) Ignorant and/or delusional. or 2) Spreading propaganda. my statements end here.

      --

      -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    276. Re:A strange game.... by BasilBrush · · Score: 0

      You claimed originally that "The Scuds were originally from Egypt, and have been further developed mostly by NK themselves over the years.". Now you are retracting that statement and claiming you said something different.

      Two possibilities. English is not your first language. Or you're a dishonest prick.

    277. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I made several comments here yesterday that were all deleted, presumably because they were interpretted as "Obscene".

      "I understand the monetary interest North Korea has in appearing to be a credible threat to peace."

      What I find disconcerting about that comment, is that you would think a threat to the USA is a "threat to peace".

      Why is it that americans commenting on slashdot believe this soft of stuff ?

      Have you travelled much ? Do you realize that the greatest threat to peace in the whole world is quite obviously the USA ?

    278. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kim Jr was educated in Switzerland (same with his older brother) - he certainly knows all about 6 year olds with cell phones, and all of the NK generals know all about the internet. The extended Kim family are regular visitors to Geneva and Interlaken.

      How foolish do you have to be to think that the generals are willfully blind to modern technology, and yet still in charge of a nuclear menace?

      "Kim doesn't understand about modern warfare because of his isolation" - and yes, I paraphrase your rant.

      You sound like you've been isolated from reason yourself - too much Faux News or something similar.
      You don't have anything worthwhile to say at all, and you score an "Insightful" ?
      I weep ...

    279. Re:A strange game.... by euroq · · Score: 1

      +1

      Holy shit, at first I thought you sounded like you were being a typical slashdotter trolling dick... but everything you said was pure gold. This idea of sending a primitive nuke over to my home of San Francisco would suck ass for me, but it is, at this point in time, 65-50 year old technology. No the U.S. would not blow up the world... we would completely dismantle NK from top to bottom, and it would likely take less money than Iraq, and would likely have 100X more support, and there would (likely) BE NO NUKES INVOLVED, even if we had to use our own military to invade . There is no case for survival of a poor Emperor against a democracy whose citizens supports the war, along with tons of fucking money and technology.

      When NK people there do "nuke tests" for "deterrence" they really need to understand two things: 1. 1950s war technology and 2. Very undeveloped people trying to get to the 1960s. The many military powers against them have been in the last 6 decades for a while now, oh, let's say I'd say 6 decades or so.

      What US people need to know is that they - the DK - are a small, bullied people, who are trying to be badasses (via their government). They have impressive technology for such bullies. But as soon as they try to capitalize on their apparent self worth, they are fucked by so many players - Chinese, Japanese/Americans. Their country will seriously dissolve within a few weeks. So we can guess that they know that and won't hit SF because of that. And in the interim, they are just going to bully a little further until it happens. The Americans will never let them get to the point where they can actually bomb SF. It's just a game.

      I really do believe, regardless of politics, that the natural and expected outcome of their continued bellicose attitude is just the beginning of reunification.

      --
      Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
    280. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing a demonstration might show is that our targeting isn't as good as everybody thinks.

      Dude! America accurately shot down a satellite with a rocket launched from a ship at sea. Think about that for a minute and then let's discuss accurate targeting again.

    281. Re:A strange game.... by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      There isn't even the weak excuse of fighting over oil (sorry, "energy security").

      Ahhh, and your qualifications for saying that are ?

      North Korea only has trivial oil production. It has non-trivial prospectivity. Look at the geology of the region.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    282. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no MAD here, supposedly NK could have 1 to potentially 5 bombs, sure that would suck for San Francisco and Alaska, but the US has what 25,000?

    283. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? Causing no harm? The leader of the free world lies repeatedly and you do not consider it to be a problem? Ignoring the fact that he DID lie under oath maybe you will feel better about this:

      http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/huston/070827

    284. Re:A strange game.... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      That's just another reason NOT to do a demonstration. Everybody KNOWS the US has extremely good targeting - that we couldn't possibly miss.

      If a demonstration were mounted there are only three possible logical outcomes:
      1. The demonstration goes better than expected.
      2. The demonstration goes as well as expected.
      3. The demonstration goes worse than expected.

      People already expect perfection, so the chances of #1 happening are almost impossible (how do you do better than a bullseye?). I'll agree that #2 is by far the most likely outcome, but there is no benefit to achieving #2 as it won't change anybody's expectations. #3 is unlikely, but always possible (there is ALWAYS the possibility that things could go wrong). So, mounting a demonstration is really all downside - it can't possibly improve the world's awe of US weapons because the world is already in awe of US weapons. It could, however, decrease the world's awe, which would be bad for the US.

    285. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Clinton never lied under oath, and this "lies" to get us involved in a civil war weren't ever listed in that article. They just imply and complain. He wasn't impeached for any lies having to do with the conflict that article focuses on, but when he answered a dumb question from a silly judge, and did so truthfully.

      Did Clinton lie? Sure he did. No human never lies. Did people die? I can't name a single president that didn't have someone die under their command. And even then, articles with 10+ years to search for proof (or even a shread of evidence) can't come up with anything any better than "Clinton mischaracterized a civil war as 'genocide'" Yawn, that's not even a lie.

    286. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. I lay tile for a living and I was wondering what kind of knee pads you use. Seems like they are awesome.

    287. Re:A strange game.... by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Just because you make your living on all fours doesn't mean we all do. Do they tip you well after laying you?

    288. Re:A strange game.... by godefroi · · Score: 1

      I think we were kinda hoping that people would leave the areas about to be nuked...

      --
      Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
    289. Re:A strange game.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We need to put the likes of James Holmes and Jared Lee Loughner into good use. After all their skills are suitable to be at the front line of the battle.

      As far as "loyalty of NK troops" we don't need any. We don't expect any of them to defect. They can bring the loyalty to hell as we will make sure we will get EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. You submit, you live. You fight, you die. That's American.

  2. congratulations dear leader of north korea by Ruede · · Score: 0

    :) congratulations dear leader of north korea

  3. Test just for show by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If they really wanted to deliver a nuke, they'd ship it in on a tramp freighter or submarine, land on some remote area of the coast, and walk the thing in somewhere. The whole missile thing is a national prestige exercise for domestic and regional consumption.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    1. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      High yield weapons are still large, and maximum damage requires detonation at altitude.

    2. Re:Test just for show by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      >If they really wanted to deliver a nuke, they'd ship it in on a tramp freighter or submarine, land on some remote area of the coast, and walk the thing in somewhere.

      Since you can't have a colonoscopy and cross a bridge in the US without getting pulled over by DHS, I'm *sure* the above is going to work. You'd much rather have one of your give nukes delivered in 2.5 months, over a route filled with inspections and radiation detectors, than have it delivered in 12 minutes via missle.

    3. Re:Test just for show by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      it's mainly for domestic and regional.. and mainly domestic at generals(it's not like you need to tell this stuff to domestic peons..).

      but the funny thing about this is that the terms used make no sense at all.

      "Aimed at USA" "High level!" ... so wtf are they going to do? aim a rocket at usa and explode it at high altitude over the pacific as a training?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    4. Re:Test just for show by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Splattering it across the Pacific Ocean doesn't do much to scare people.

      Just threatening to put it in a container full of Tupperware would be a more credible threat than launching something at us.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    5. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We're talking about the resources of an entire country, not just money, but manpower and research. Not some two-bit terrorists, with, at best a few college dropouts to provide them with the brains for something similar. If they wanted a ship to carry a warhead into the USA, they could probably do it successfully, even if at a very very high cost.

      Because we're talking about an entire country, not two-bit terrorists, it's also safe to say, they're only posturing, and not actually planning to do something about it. They don't have the resources to make enough nukes to incapacitate USA enough to stop them from retaliating, let alone hit all it's territory.

      Still, I'm happy to be on the other side of the planet, away from those wackos.

    6. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shame said detectors can't tell the difference between a truckload of kitty litter and a 475kt yield W88, so, yes, it would work.

    7. Re:Test just for show by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Like most other nukes, it's a deterrent. If the US should decide to invade/liberate North Korea like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, North Korea would like the US to know they have nukes and are bat shit crazy enough to use them. Threatening to launch a nuclear missile is a little more immediate than threatening to smuggle it into the US covertly, which would also give away the "covert" part. They want to bluster about their ability to nuke San Francisco, if they actually did it I wouldn't expect two bricks to be standing in Pyongyang an hour later. The only reason they'd use it is because they're about to get deposed anyway.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    8. Re:Test just for show by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Informative

      Their nukes are the still huge. Think old 40s nuclear test stands. You aren't walking that anywhere. It would never fit in a sub.

    9. Re:Test just for show by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

      Um, did I say something about the USA?

      --
      Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    10. Re:Test just for show by Jeremi · · Score: 1

      Since you can't have a colonoscopy and cross a bridge in the US without getting pulled over by DHS, I'm *sure* the above is going to work

      Just wrap it in a layer of marijuana, then it will get through without being detected.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    11. Re:Test just for show by glueball · · Score: 1

      You mean like Starfish Prime?
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

      "Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands.[5]"

    12. Re:Test just for show by CanHasDIY · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >If they really wanted to deliver a nuke, they'd ship it in on a tramp freighter or submarine, land on some remote area of the coast, and walk the thing in somewhere.

      Since you can't have a colonoscopy and cross a bridge in the US without getting pulled over by DHS, I'm *sure* the above is going to work. You'd much rather have one of your give nukes delivered in 2.5 months, over a route filled with inspections and radiation detectors, than have it delivered in 12 minutes via missle.

      An estimated 1,000,000 people secretly cross the border into the US every year; that's about 2,700 people per day.

      I fear your confidence in the success rate of American border agents is overly optimistic.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    13. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, did I say something about the USA?

      That's explicitly stated as North Korea's target, so if you DIDN'T mean the USA, you're being rudely misleading in your statements and should cease communicating with us until you're ready to NOT be a dick about intentionally misleading this discussion, dick.

    14. Re:Test just for show by parlancex · · Score: 1

      Actually, not really. 95% of what you see what you see when you look at a high yield weapon like a modern ICBM is devoted to getting the warhead to the destination, the warhead itself is a tiny fraction of the overall size and weight.

    15. Re:Test just for show by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      The US could theoretically invade North Korea and shut down their ability to do something like that quite quickly. Having a missile that can reach the US means they're safe from invasion.

    16. Re:Test just for show by h4rr4r · · Score: 0

      Which is not what the DPRK has. Their weapons are no where near that modern.

    17. Re:Test just for show by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      Having your nuke confiscated by the Coast Guard and traced back to you, doesn't do much to scare people.

      At this point, they might miss Seattle by 30 miles. An air burst would still spread the radiation of a 100 Chernobyls.

    18. Re:Test just for show by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      Japan? Russia? China? Just whom do you think they'd want to attack?

      The isotopes are traceable, so within a day or two the response is the same. Launch capacity is a far more effective nuclear posture than "we'll ship it to you."

    19. Re:Test just for show by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      Right? That would probably be the best attack tactic, from NK's point of view (notwithstanding the stupidity of baiting the US).
      Technically, no one dies, no buildings are actually blown up, but it wrecks a good chunk of infrastructure and further damages the US economy, and all without requiring a particularly complicated guidance system. And it stokes fears of further, more dangerous attacks. But the UN security council might not sanction a military reprisal since people weren't actually targeted, so how would the US respond? I'd hate to have to make those decisions.

      --

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    20. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really, It just means that prior to an invasion the US would need to simultaneously destroy all possible launch sites and deploy some kind of countermeasure in case they missed some. It would be quite a bit more expensive and dangerous, but possible.

    21. Re:Test just for show by Zmobie · · Score: 1

      I don't really buy that considering NORAD would detect it the second it was out in the open. Even encasing the damn thing in a lead shell the patrols and sensors around the coast would probably still pick it up. While I am the first one to say we have a bloated over the top military budget, some of the defense tools they use for physical defense and prevention are extremely advanced.

    22. Re:Test just for show by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

      the problem with talking about rational choices the regime is making is i don't think rational choices are being made

      you can't talk about what a crazy guy would prudently and logically decide. he's crazy. he's not acting prudently and logically

      so it's a big problem

      because you have to talk about really crazy irrational things happening, because they could happen. this is a cult of personality dictatorship with absolute power in the hands of a 20 something kid

      you can't rest on the assumption cooler heads prevail. there is no magical level of cooler heads here

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    23. Re:Test just for show by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Their nukes are the still huge. Think old 40s nuclear test stands. You aren't walking that anywhere. It would never fit in a sub.

      Sure it would. Well, if you're talking about a suicide sub. :)

    24. Re:Test just for show by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      No. Having a missile means that they are enough of a threat for the average American to care about. Otherwise, your typical tea bagger would be completely unaware of them.

      Having a missile means that they are part of the mutual-assured-destruction doctrine.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    25. Re:Test just for show by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      6 to 8 weeks later..... boom!

    26. Re:Test just for show by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Problem is, even FedEx doesn't deliver nukes overnight. And since few people, let alone countries, will come and pick it up, you have to have some kind of delivery system. Preferably one that isn't prone to malfunction because a country decides to close its borders to your wares.

      While I agree that it's a propaganda coup if anything, it's more one directed towards the US population rather than the local spectators. The goal seems to be to reduce or preferably eliminate any public support for an invasion of NK, because now they could retaliate. And while the NK population gets little if any information about life outside their Truman Showesque country, the NK leadership surely does, and they know exactly how US politics work. They also know its weakness, at least from their point of view, the influence the average person has on it. Public opinion, as much as it is directed and steered by mass media, is key to success in our politics. And nothing frightens the US population more than the idea that they are somehow vulnerable.

      For reference, see 9/11.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    27. Re:Test just for show by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 1

      I believe AC meant "large" as in "too big to 'walk in'" (you'd probably need a pickup truck at least), and the point about airburst being more effective is also correct, ideally you'd want to get it to the top of a skyscraper or similar. However, even a small nuke set off in non-optimal conditions would probably be enough to have the desired effects, mass panic and enormous financial damage.

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    28. Re:Test just for show by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

      Problem is, even FedEx doesn't deliver nukes overnight.
      The trick is to tip the driver occasionally. Really speeds things up.

      --
      Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    29. Re:Test just for show by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

      NORAD would see a flying missile, not a truck with a large lead lined box in a truck in a line of several hundred lead lined boxes in trucks. Camouflage, in this case, would be trivial.

      --
      Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    30. Re:Test just for show by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

      Just whom do you think they'd want to attack
      Anyone they can shake down for money, pretty much. I don't think Kim Jong Un is that fussy. In fact, they don't even need to handle the shipping. There are numerous entrepreneurial extremist groups who would be glad to transport the weapons at very competitive rates.

      --
      Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
    31. Re:Test just for show by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Yet somehow all that inspection isn't managing to stop the tons of drugs getting in. And that's just organised by small crime gangs.

      For a nation state to get a nuke into the USA is easy. It'd be surprising if there isn't one or two already there, waiting.

    32. Re:Test just for show by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      How's the coast guard doing at keeping all the cocaine out of America?

    33. Re:Test just for show by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Their nukes are the still huge.

      How do you know?

    34. Re:Test just for show by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      Your metaphor is a bit mixed in application. One task is stopping a tidal wave from hitting an entire coast, the other finding a large needle in a haystack. How you do one, doesn't say much above how you do the other.

      If you could deliver a nuke into the US-- why would you wait, given the chance of it's detection before you could use it? Risk analysis says you would use immediately.

    35. Re:Test just for show by Bigby · · Score: 1

      An estimated 1,000,000 people secretly cross the border into the US every year; that's about 2,700 people per day. ...

      It must not be much of a secret then...

    36. Re:Test just for show by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      They'd still fit just fine in a Kia. Hide a nuke in a car (even if you have to modify the car) on a shipment to the LA docks, and detonate it in the LA harbor. You wouldn't kill as many as a detonation a couple miles up over downtown at noon, but it would still have quite an effect.

    37. Re:Test just for show by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Put it on a commercial shipment of machinery from south Korea to LA or San Fran.

      And if you were going to do the above you are attacking, it would be easy, take some nuclear material on the route and see who, if anyone, responds. Oh, and if you are doing it with full DPRK resources, 10,000 lbs of lead shielding on your container would probably go a long way to preventing any readings from the roadside sensors.

    38. Re:Test just for show by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      A nice achievable 10 MT blast above the midwest at high altitude would go a long way to shutting down every computer system in the US. NYNEX and NASDAQ crashed at once. Real estate and stock ownership wiped out in a milisecond. That'd be interesting to see.

    39. Re:Test just for show by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      An estimated 1,000,000 people secretly cross the border into the US every year; that's about 2,700 people per day. ...

      It must not be much of a secret then...

      http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/secretly

      The word has more than one definition, you know.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    40. Re:Test just for show by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      Sounds like a reasonable point :). I don't know enough about detection mechanisms to say anything more about lead containers (need to Google & read); perhaps one gets really suspicious of large blocks of lead.

    41. Re:Test just for show by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      I doubt they are even that small.

      Shipping in and out of DPRK is watched pretty closely. Besides doing that would end their country. They do these things for food aid and to make sure they are not invaded. They gain nothing via some terrorist strike.

    42. Re:Test just for show by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      Nobody has any good information on the size of their gadgets. I find it bizarre that you think you do. Could be huge, could be small, who knows.

    43. Re:Test just for show by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Fat Man would fit in the dimensions of a Kia, so I can't think of why the North Korean bombs would have to be larger than the first deployed one.

      It isn't a question of whether it makes sense. It's a question of whether it would work. We are constantly told that North Korea isn't sane, so your argument against it based on rationality is irrelevant.

    44. Re:Test just for show by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Lots of lead would be suspicious, but mostly undetectable. We got leaded toys from China for quite a while, and they were noticed from home testing, not capture at the port.

      The only flaw with my plan is that someone suspicious enough would take such penetration tests as signs of the impending attack.

    45. Re:Test just for show by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      Yes, but how many of those 2700 both had a colonoscopy and crossed a bridge when sneaking in? Exactly. Of course they didn't get caught!

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    46. Re:Test just for show by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      If it makes you feel any better I'd hate for you to be the one to have to make those decisions too. There's no decision to be made and if a counter attack CAN still be accomplished after such an event it should be. And if the rest of the world had a problem with it enough to start trash-talking the US, then the US should go ahead and fire off a couple of the same sort of attacks at a few nato nations and see if they still feel like it's no big deal. And then ignore them either way.

      Likely issues: pacemakers (death), traffic fatalities from failed signals (death), people on medical equipment that requires power (death), hospital outages (likely death especially for anyone unfortunate enough to be in surgery), lost productivety, the anarchy that would quickly break out when people realize they have no power for an extended time. This list goes on and on.

      To even assert that it is somehow not a first strike because "technically no one got killed" just boggles.

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    47. Re: Test just for show by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      A brick of cocaine is much easier to hide than a bomb the size of a Volkswagen that emits radiation.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    48. Re:Test just for show by jafac · · Score: 1

      I think it might even take all of 5 minutes to restore that shit from backup.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    49. Re:Test just for show by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Their nukes are the still huge. Think old 40s nuclear test stands. You aren't walking that anywhere. It would never fit in a sub.

      The largest and heaviest nukes ever built could easily be fit into something not significantly larger than North Korea's domestically produced Sang-O class submarine. It would require some modest re-engineering, and it wouldn't be a comfortable trip for the crew, but it would be doable.
       
      There's a variety of very good reasons why they probably wouldn't... but the size of the weapon isn't among them.

    50. Re:Test just for show by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Only if your backups are on optical.

    51. Re:Test just for show by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      How's the coast guard doing at keeping all the cocaine out of America?

      Why don't you use this argument in the "assault weapon" discussions?

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    52. Re:Test just for show by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      I don't think EMP is going to be wiping tape.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    53. Re:Test just for show by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      It takes a large amount of practical design and testing to miniaturize warheads, unless someone slipped them a stolen US or USSR/Russian set of plans. And of course there is no chance they could be fake plans.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    54. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not quickly enough to prevent North Korea from leveling Seoul and killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of South Korean civilians.

    55. Re:Test just for show by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Can they enrich that well? We used an enormous amount of power to do it.

      North Korea is sane, they want food they rattle their sabers. The Kims might be a bit nutty, but they are not suicidal.

    56. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if the rest of the world had a problem with it enough to start trash-talking the US, then the US should go ahead and fire off a couple of the same sort of attacks at a few nato nations and see if they still feel like it's no big deal.

      You advocate an emp attack on your own *allies* just for 'trash-talking'? I take my hat off to you for getting an 11 on the 'barmpot' scale , which only goes up to 10...

      I suppose your next move is 'and if that doesn't show 'em, we'll blow up *the entire solar system*, then they'll know we mean business'.

    57. Re:Test just for show by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Lets take an example.

      Adam Lanza stole his guns from his mother. His mother was a school teacher. Had guns been illegal, she wouldn't have had them. School teachers don't tend to be buying illegal stuff from criminals.

      Just because guns can be smuggled in doesn't mean banning them is pointless.

    58. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why land it?

      Drop it in the harbor. Tsunami bomb.

    59. Re:Test just for show by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Tapes are magnetic media, same as hard drives. They may have a perception of greater long-term stability, but I've seen nothing that indicates either would do well against an emp, and a magnetic field can wipe tapes, that's sufficient "proof" that an EMP would wipe them.

    60. Re:Test just for show by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

      You misread my point of view..slightly. I did, after all, specify that "technically", no one died - that is, as a *direct* result of the attack, as in, blown to bits. That might alter the response as opposed to a direct nuclear strike. However, I also don't personally disagree with you the possibility of death caused indirectly by the attack, as in the examples you mentioned. The extent of that damage is an unknown variable. From a political perspective, and not taken anything as a given, it'd be a little more complex, I assure you. That's just the reality, not necessarily how I think it should be.
      OTOH, you're a little too loose with the nukes.

      --

      Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
    61. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's mostly balony.

      My girlfriend visited the states with her Korean passport, she had trouble entering twice because the border
      official "forgot" to stamp her on the way out, so statistically she was still illeagaly in the USA when she tried
      to re-enter. They told her not to worry, it'll take an hour to get sorted out, this happens "all the time" she was
      told.

      The statistics are spoofed in favor of the propaganda, contrary to popular american belief...
      NOBODY wants to immigrate to the USA.

    62. Re:Test just for show by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      All and all you're right. I wouldn't choose to give someone cancer just because they didn't understand what someone else was going through or was making fun of them. I wouldn't wish someone's family member murdered just because they didn't understand what someone else who experienced a family member dying felt like. In fact I'd generally feel sorry for them and tell them I hope they never have to experience it. I also wouldn't nuke (even in the high atmosphere) another country just for running their mouths - especially when what they're attempting to do is deescalate the situation.

      In this case though, if some other country or collection of countries (UN) is trying to determine the US response to an issue having never been in their shoes themselves then I think a reasonable political response from the US would be "That's easy to say when it didn't happen to you! Let me go down the list of all the things you call no big deal. How would you feel about me if I did the same thing to you right now?". And then itemize each and every one. This would be a very reasonable and may even get others to understand that it is, in fact, a big deal though I doubt it. But the truth is, it doesn't matter if someone else gets it or not sometimes... sometimes you just have to do what you think is right.

      Some people are so passive they'll let anything happen to them and never respond (until one day they just say f it all and go postal). Other people are overly aggressive and go out picking fights for a good time. But almost everyone lies in between. The US lies in between and they are generally a very meek country in terms of what they could do vs what they actually do. In this case, they would have every right to tell anyone who wants to meddle to go find something else to get involved in, because the US is going to go make sure the offender never does it to anyone else again. That would be the right thing to do, and hard decision or not I'd hope they'd do it.

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    63. Re:Test just for show by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LIberate? Are you that naive to buy into such a word or thinking? SMH

  4. Good idea. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey North Korea,

    That country holding the other end of your leash just voted for the Security Council resolution against you rather than abstaining as they have done in the past. Maybe before you talk a bunch of shit about lobbing a nuke at the US, you should worry about China giving that leash a big yank.

    Also, don't you guys only have enough nuclear material for 7-8 weapons? Please continue nuclear testing in your own country and use up all of your weapons grade material as fast as possible on making holes in the ground a lot bigger.

    Cordially,
    The Rest of the World.

    --
    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    1. Re:Good idea. by theNAM666 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > Maybe before you talk a bunch of shit about lobbing a nuke at the US, you should worry about China giving that leash a big yank.

      Uh, hate to break it to you, but when North Korea yanks China's chain, the US major media don't typically care to report it. Korea and China are traditional enemies. Read the Chinese and Korean press, to see how often North Korea plays with China. Stop being a head-in-the-sand, reactionary US-American.

      And you can bluster all you want, nuke tests don't have to use the same amount of fissile material for different yields. Five multi-megaton warheads capable of hitting the US West Coast is serious. Treating this like a high school shouting contest, is not.

    2. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Cordially,
      An ignorant fucking american.

      FTFY

    3. Re:Good idea. by yurtinus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The more I observe, the more I come to the conclusion that all of politics is a tragic high school shouting contest. North Korea is just somebody's obnoxious eight year old brother that nobody wants to claim.

      --
      +1 Disagree
    4. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You say that the U.S. has "barely any oil", and then go on to refer to Americans as "ignorant"? Please.

    5. Re:Good idea. by Kotoku · · Score: 2

      We have plenty of rare earth ores and oil....its just cheaper to get it elsewhere. Add a couple bucks per gadget/tank of gas and we could do it all here. Frankly, most oil lately has been coming from Canada which is essentially an immortal ally.

    6. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      'MURICA!!!! P.S. when you pay off your world debt then you will be free, now China owns your ignorant american ass by the balls.

    7. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      -and he mentions rare earth minerals too. Rare earth minerals are all over North America, they're only called rare because they appear in low concentrations, not because of an imbalance in their geographical distribution or general rarity. Yep, he's a fountain of knowledge and insight.

    8. Re:Good idea. by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      Meh. Most of the liquid crude reserves in the US are either tapped or in environmentally protected areas. But they do have a *very* large amount of shale-based deposits available to them, not to mention enough farmland to be able to provide alternative fuels for their own need.

    9. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends on how you define free. Freedom of speech? Welcome to slashdot, created in America and happy to allow you to post offensive nonsense. Good luck in North Korea or China.

    10. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, don't you guys depend on a lifestyle that requires rare earth minerals and oil as sustenance despite the fact you have barely any of either?

      No, because that "fact" isn't a fact at all.

    11. Re:Good idea. by Arrogant+Monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

      "which is essentially an immortal ally." Damn, I'd heard their health care was good... I had no idea!

    12. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're only capable in the sense that the missile could travel that distance and ignores the reality of the situation. North Korea has essentially no chance of actually hitting the US with a nuclear ICBM. And any ATTEMPT to do so would result in the immediate removal of DPRK from the planet.

      And while no one really likes DPRK, it is still propped up by China to a certain degree for strategic reasons (keeping the US away from Chinese borders via North Korea). OP is right, China typically abstains from these otherwise unanimous UN votes for sanctions to appear neutral. They are the best friend the DPRK has in the world.

    13. Re:Good idea. by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      Immortal ally? We only seem to take it up the ass from the US for our resources. We usually have nothing to do with your war-mongering stupidity though.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    14. Re:Good idea. by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Now only if North Korea had something in a multi-megaton range. Or anywhere within 1/100th of that yield. Except they don't. Their first test was a fissile, barely one kiloton. The second was estimated in the 2 kt range - less than a 10th of what Nagasaki was. And those devices are most likely way too heavy and non-aerodynamic to fit on any missile of any kind, and take weeks to set up for one of these tests.

      The only country that is in any danger of being under nuclear attack from North Korea is North Korea. Besides, in the tragic event that they manage to get one to blast at full yield, somewhere other than a cave under a mountain close to the border with China, the US could have several 450 kiloton warheads over their country guaranteed hot in 30 minutes or less, delivered directly from North Dakota.

      I'm treating it like a high school shouting contest because that's exactly what it is. North Korea is not a threat to the US outside of the troops the US has positioned on the border with South Korea. They use their nuclear saber rattling like a crying 3 year old - they crave international attention and they aren't getting it.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    15. Re:Good idea. by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      That's fine. Except that the people I talk to in IR and State, clearly take seriously the possibility that NK will continue to develop in capacity, and learn how to turn their fissile material into those kinds of warheads, using that to cement a position as a regional player. And while actually threatening the US.

      It's find to point out they are posturing, it's not useful to posture in a way that doesn't take their posture seriously, in return.

    16. Re:Good idea. by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Press and bluster aside, the two countries do quite a bit of trade. There is a lot of money at stake.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    17. Re:Good idea. by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah. NK certainly receives much more financial support from (and thus is dependent upon) China, than the US. Even if they do traditionally hate each other, and even if every player in the region is on edge about China's rise.

    18. Re:Good idea. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing more ignorant than an american is a non-american that's ignorant of the real purpose of the US military industrial complex.

    19. Re:Good idea. by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Five multi-megaton warheads capable of hitting the US West Coast is serious.

      It's extraordinarily unlikely that the North Koreans have weapons in that range. You can't get there with a pure fission weapon,or with boosted fission, or even with a crude ('Alarm Clock'/'Sloika') fusion device... The only way to get there, barring previously unknown physics, is a staged Teller-Ulam configuration - something that's essentially impossible without significant nuclear weapons experience or external assistance.
       
      Furthermore, a multi-megaton weapon is *big* and *heavy*, bigger and heavier than could be boosted by any launch vehicle demonstrated to date by North Korea. Assuming they aren't entirely stupid (and I doubt they are on this matter), the best they can probably do is in the mid tens of kilotons, and the low tens is much more likely for a weaponized ballistically deliverable device. But the 2006 'fizzle' and the lack of demonstration of any delivery capability mitigate against both yield and deliverability.

    20. Re:Good idea. by sl3xd · · Score: 1

      "which is essentially an immortal ally." Damn, I'd heard their health care was good... I had no idea!

      Well, they sent us packing every time we've tried to invade.

      We thought we could invade them with Hollywood, but they retaliated with Bill Shatner, Nickelback, Bieber, and Celine Dion.

      I've heard the best weed we can get comes from British Columbia...

      It's also our hat; keeping that cold polar chill from reaching as far.

      Plus, any country that has a strategic Maple Syrup reserve is a force to be reckoned with.

      --
      -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
    21. Re:Good idea. by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 1

      Actually, somebody's obnoxious eight year old brother with an arsenal of weaponized Uranium.

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      Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
  5. Right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Okay - But as long as it's just San Francisco that you're targetting...

  6. FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Not sure why news articles say things like this, but Alaska and Hawaii are much closer to North Korea than San Francisco. Do you think a nuke hitting Anchorage would be taken less seriously than one hitting in San Fran?

    1. Re:FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Depends how long it takes people to realise they don't need to be concerned about Palin anymore.

    2. Re:FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      Not sure why news articles say things like this, but Alaska and Hawaii are much closer to North Korea than San Francisco. Do you think a nuke hitting Anchorage would be taken less seriously than one hitting in San Fran?

      Probably because Hawaii is too small for them to hit, and the chances of them actually hitting a populated area in Alaska are rather remote.

      That being said, a launch carrying a nuclear payload from NK aimed at anything outside of NK itself would probably result in the United States turning Pyongyang into the world's largest glow-in-the-dark parking lot.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    3. Re:FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

      "That being said, a launch carrying a nuclear payload from NK aimed at anything outside of NK itself would probably result in the United States turning Pyongyang into the world's largest glow-in-the-dark parking lot."

      given the lift capability of the USAirforce we don't need to go nuclear to "show them a Dragon" we have enough HE and Fuel Air stuff to do the job quite nicely.

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    4. Re:FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by Daetrin · · Score: 1

      Would the response be pretty disastrous for NK regardless of which part of the US they hit? Yeah. Would people care as much about a nuke hitting Anchorage as they would about it hitting SF? No.

      I'm not saying they wouldn't care. They'd still be outraged. But there's definitely a hierarchy of importance in peoples' minds. Obviously everyone has a particular fondness for their home town/state, but outside of that there's probably a reasonable level of agreement, based on an amalgamation of population, political importance, economic importance, and cultural importance. Obviously DC is at the top. After that would be New York and Los Angeles. Then a big third tier, with San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, etc.

      As long as NK is going to bluster and threaten, they're going to threaten the biggest target they can. Actually, i'm not sure why San Francisco is being focused on rather than Los Angeles. From NK's perspective the difference in the distance between them is pretty small.

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    5. Re:FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      given the lift capability of the USAirforce we don't need to go nuclear to "show them a Dragon" we have enough HE and Fuel Air stuff to do the job quite nicely.

      And this is less likely to set off a confrontation with other nuclear powers.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    6. Re:FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      You have a reasonably large kill area if you set it off at 5 miles up. But Alaska is remote enough that killing all 250,000 people in Anchorage wouldn't really be felt by the nation. Putting it on a high altitude balloon and having it go off as high as possible 20 miles or more up (100 would be better, but balloons wouldn't do so well up there) would still work somewhere over the continental US. There exists the technology to do this better than the Japanese in WWII.

    7. Re: FYI: Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      If someone nuked Detroit, would anyone even be able to tell?

      Just kidding. Kind of.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  7. Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by BoRegardless · · Score: 0

    The only way the civilized world is going to limit the cost of dealing with the ultimate war with N. Korea is to prepare S. Korea, with the help other friendly countries, to do a massive surgical strike to take out the entire N. Korean military and its facilities and have S. Korea able and supplied and armed with its own people who can move in to supplie staples and organization to the society.

    I am not convinced the military which is ultimately in control of everything, will ever give up its power, no matter what the "Glorius Leader" says or does, as he can be replaced.

    You let the cancer grow or you cut it out and deal with the consequences. Of course this could never happen within the next 4 years because of leaders in power now who have no vision other than their own personal power.

    1. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by John+Hasler · · Score: 2

      The problem with the first strike idea is that Seoul is within easy range of a vast number of dug-in North Korean artillery and rocket emplacements. They might be able to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the time it would take to destroy them. Of course, the US and South Korea will have been mapping and targeting those emplacements for the last fifty years and may have found them all. Maybe.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    2. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by samkass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The only way the civilized world is going to limit the cost of dealing with the ultimate war with N. Korea is to prepare S. Korea, with the help other friendly countries, to do a massive surgical strike to take out the entire N. Korean military and its facilities and have S. Korea able and supplied and armed with its own people who can move in to supplie staples and organization to the society.

      I am not convinced the military which is ultimately in control of everything, will ever give up its power, no matter what the "Glorius Leader" says or does, as he can be replaced.

      You let the cancer grow or you cut it out and deal with the consequences. Of course this could never happen within the next 4 years because of leaders in power now who have no vision other than their own personal power.

      We certainly have battle plans ready that would allow us to militarily unify Korea under the south. There would be nothing "surgical" about it, though. North Korea has massive numbers of troops, rockets, artillery, etc., and South Korea's capital is only 35 miles from the border, within range of the larger NK guns. Here's a map of what could happen. Seoul would be a pawn in the battle, and it would destabilize the entire area for some time.

      I think the fundamental question here is whether this is a show of strength being done because North Korea wants to talk but has nothing else to negotiate with. If so, perhaps you meet them, acknowledge their big scary threats, trade around for some perks (maybe make Kim Jong Il the equivalent of the British Royal family in the new Korea, with a figurehead role), and unify them peacefully with everyone coming out ahead. On the other hand, maybe they want to remain independent and hold a nuclear threat over the United States' head... in which case better to strike sooner, before they have the capability. I don't have any of that information, so I'm not going to second-guess the decisions.

      --
      E pluribus unum
    3. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      Even if you blanketed the area with nukes you're not going to make a sizeful dent in the amount of artillery deployed there. We're talking about an enormous number of hardened bunkers in a large mountainous area.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    4. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tried to look at the map, but when I load up a page that's blank, and I go to my noscript addon blocklist to see if I can guess which script I need to temporarily enable to see content, and noscript tells me that the webpage is trying to run scripts from no less than SEVENTEEN different websites, that's the website telling me that I don't really need to see their content anyway.

    5. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Antipater · · Score: 3, Interesting
      And how would you do it? They have been sitting there preparing themselves for a "surgical strike" for sixty years. They have the most extensive tunnel and bunker system known to man. The entire freaking country is one massive fixed fortification. The people are raised with no sense of empathy, compassion, or feelings other than for their Dear Leader - children turn in their own mothers at the slightest hint of disloyalty.

      Meanwhile, as soon as the fighting starts, the DMZ turns into a sea of fire. Seoul and Incheon, the capital and primary port for the South, both within easy gun/rocket range of the DMZ (you can bet those gun emplacements are already pre-sighted), are decimated within a day. 100,000 SK and 20,000 US troops hunker down to resume the WWI-style trench warfare that characterized the latter years of the Korean War, and nothing of value is gained. A fast amphibious force from the west could probably capture Pyongyang, given the current lack of Chinese support for NK and the fact that most of the NK forces are concentrated at the front, but then what? You'd still have the full stalemate at the most fortified military position in human history, and your quick-strike force would be left holding a town in the middle of a population so hostile it makes Iraq and Vietnam look like Kentucky.

      The Chinese taught the N Koreans how to dig in. Dug in they are, culturally and militarily. There's a report floating around somewhere stating that the only possible way to reinitiate the Korean War without unacceptable losses, both military and civilian, is a first-strike with chemical weapons. Even with that, the report said it would take four times as much nerve gas as the US ever had on hand at any time.

      Some tumors you just can't slice out. You can isolate them and try to prevent them from growing, but the surgery is just too dangerous.

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    6. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by guttentag · · Score: 4, Informative

      The only way the civilized world is going to limit the cost of dealing with the ultimate war with N. Korea is to prepare S. Korea, with the help other friendly countries, to do a massive surgical strike to take out the entire N. Korean military and its facilities and have S. Korea able and supplied and armed with its own people who can move in to supplie staples and organization to the society.

      It's a tempting thought, but it's not going to happen unless a nuclear attack on S. Korea, Japan, or the U.S. is imminent. The people of North Korea may be impoverished, but the country has the fourth-largest active military in the world:

      China 2.285M
      United States 1.458M
      India 1.325M
      N. Korea 1.106M
      Russia 1.027M
      (Everyone else in the world has a military roughly half the size of N. Korea's or smaller. Other members of the security council listed below)
      France 0.353M
      United Kingdom 0.198M

      If you look at military reserve, which would be called up in the event of a strike against N. Korea, you add 8.2M people to the fray. That's nearly 10 million people who have been cut off from the outside world for generations and taught that the world is out to get them and their glorious leaders protect them. A lot of people will die, on both sides, and no one has the stomach for that -- and rightly so. Alternatively, saving our side casualties by using nuclear weapons would be unthinkable. So the people in power (the military) sabre rattle to maintain their grip on the country and to try to force aid from the rest of the world. It's not in their interest to attack us, because we would stop feeding them. But we can't afford to let them get in a position where a nutjob or nervous, clumsy individual accidentally launches a nuclear strike. Our job (as the rest of the world) is to ensure they don't gain the ability to threaten us with nuclear weapons, even if that means cutting back our aid to their poor impoverished citizens who think the aid comes from their leaders and don't know any better.

      But don't think for a moment that we're going to send two helicopters full of seals into Pyongyang, dump the glorious leader's body at sea and suddenly N. Korea will become a sunny land of welcoming people with a big rainbow over it. If the military leadership ever fails there, it's going to be chaos, and the people won't want our help.

      The real news here is this:

      • They're taking a confrontational stance with China, which is incredibly dumb, but may be an indication of increasing desperation within N. Korea's leadership. China doesn't see N. Korea as a favorite nephew. It maintains its relationship to assert its power in the region, because it fears that millions of refugees would spill over its border in a crisis, and because it believes it's the only superpower in a position to keep N. Korea on a leash. By being confrontational, N. Korea is threatening China's understanding of their relationship, and telling the world it's willing to bite the hand of everyone who feeds it. It's saying "we're crazy and out of control, so you'd better keep feeding us."
      • They're acknowledging that their "peaceful space program" was just a cover for ICBM testing. Which we already knew. But telling the world it lied about its peaceful intentions says, "don't trust us, you don't know what we might do." More sabre-rattling, ratcheted up to the point where they're hoping we'll have to give them more aid to stabilize them.
    7. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AFAIK the dominant class in South Korea is absolutely dependant upon the threat of North Korea. It's like how the warmongers in the USA and USSR were in a sort of symbiotic relationship during the Cold War. If any one nation's leaders suddenly said "this is silly, let's get along", the other would completely lose the cultural war between their ideologies by suddenly being the unbreasonable bad guys, instead of the paladins that protect us from the unreasonable bad guys.

      Do you remember the recent stories about the South Korean man who was arrested for tweeting pieces of DPRK propaganda as a joke? It's almost a crime in South Korea to even acknowledge that there are actual civilians in North Korea, free speech be damned. If the crazy enemy to the north disappears, the ruling class in the south will lose much o its power.

    8. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by sosume · · Score: 1

      Then just take out the communication capabilities. The gunners in remote areas won't know what's happening for weeks.

    9. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Interesting

      will never happen

      china hates the idea of a united korea allied with the USA on its border. it prefers unstable mad dog north korea to that possibility

      but as time goes on, china is going to have to make peace with the possibilty

      in fact, if north korea does go full bore wackjob, and action becomes inescapable, china would involve itself actively and militarily as well, it's not foolish. any action in north korea is dependent on chinese involvement and acquiescence, obviously

      but what i see happening is china going for regime change, but keeping the countries separate

      simply because it hates, hates, hates the idea of a united korea allied with the USA

      germany reuniting was really made possible by a sinking USSR

      china is not sinking. it's rising. therefore, the prospects of a united korea in my estimation is doomed

      any koreans dreaming of a united korea: i'm sorry, the geopolitical agenda of china is not going to let it happen

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    10. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by BoRegardless · · Score: 1

      Then cut off the head!

    11. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      The solution to war is war. Yup, sounds 'civilized' to me, well, USA civilized at least.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    12. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      And how would you do it? They have been sitting there preparing themselves for a "surgical strike" for sixty years. They have the most extensive tunnel and bunker system known to man.

      You don't follow a snake in the grass back to its nest. You take out all observable rocket launch pads, factories, landing strips, bunkers, buildings of leadership...etc with nothing but cruise missiles. Lots of them!!! Then, you wait until every man north of the border comes running into the meat grinder of weaponry just waiting for them at the line.

      Let them come to you. No need to put boots on the ground. They will either starve to death, go thirsty, or spark an internal civil war from all the mass confusion.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    13. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Quila · · Score: 1

      4th huh? Didn't Iraq have the 4th largest military in the world before 1991?

    14. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      You take out all observable rocket launch pads, factories, landing strips, bunkers, buildings of leadership...etc with nothing but cruise missiles. Lots of them!!! Then, you wait until the gigantic dust cloud that used to be Seoul settles down enough that you can see two feet in front of your own face, since the NK's started pounding it into the ground the moment your first missile landed. Then you keep on waiting, because you're DigiShaman and therefore apparently dumb enough to think that the enemy will just mindlessly charge what few remaining fortified positions you have left like they're the fucking Zerg or something. Eventually it dawns on you that you just got countless civilians killed for no good reason at all, essentially elevating incompetence to the level of a war crime.

      There you go.

    15. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      (maybe make Kim Jong Il the equivalent of the British Royal family in the new Korea, with a figurehead role)

      Shouldn't Kim Jong Il be, you know, alive for that scenario to work?

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    16. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sometimes that's absolutely correct. Not this time, no. But sometimes.

    17. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by BoRegardless · · Score: 1

      I think N. Korea is just crazy enough to use their nuclear weapon/s to try to blackmail S. Korea into "giving up". N. Korea ultimately needs S. Korea's resources & people.

      The sooner people in government wake up to the long term goals of this warlike state the better. There is no good outcome from these people and it all has to do with the retention of power totally in the hands of the military in N. Korea where the "glorius leader" is just a glorius mouthpiece for the military to which everyone bows.

    18. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      NK has been preparing for bombardment for 60 years. You really imagine they haven't considered communication?

    19. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by rahvin112 · · Score: 1

      Nice list. Saddam used to be number 4 on that list in 91.

    20. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's a map of what could happen.

      That's rather a lot of maps.... I knew it was bad, but damn.

    21. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by jafac · · Score: 1

      Well, one tragic consequence is that, when Seoul gets blowed up, the collusion in the flat-panel display industry will evaporate. Prices in that market will definitely collapse!

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    22. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And we walked in there and limped back out.

    23. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Cimexus · · Score: 1

      That's a good point. All the talk on this thread is about the strategies needed to launch a large-scale military attack on NK without SK incurring too much artillery damage. But I wonder what would happen if you simply took out the leadership and the senior military figures, a few ranks deep?

      Not that I question the loyalty of the citizenry and the rest of the military to their leaders. They would without a doubt keep fighting. But they might be so used to simply following orders from the top, that without that familiar hierarchy, things would be so chaotic and disorganised that the country would just fall apart within days...

    24. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      In 1991? You better check your history again.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    25. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The NK army is not invincible, and we have the gunships, smartbombs, and satellite technology needed to defeat them. The only thing missing is an installation of widescale phalanx-style rocket defense, for Seoul.

      The DMZ would not "turn into a sea of fire." What are you, an NK propagandist? The only way the NK is getting through the DMZ, is by quietly tunneling under it. Like mobile artillery, they can't do much damage, due to the small size of any undetectable tunnel. In fact, their fortifications don't mean squat. If they centralize (and fortify) their attack bases, they risk catastrophic failure, because we OWN the air, and can smash them in a few short attacks, and if they disperse them (a smarter tactic) they are vulnerable to communication disruption and environmental disruption and if they both disperse and fortify them, they are limited in aim, and are sitting ducks -- and we can leapfrog over them, and attack them from behind, from the center of the country (after we secure an airfield and start flying in tanks). There are good reasons why countries develop mobile missile launchers (and tanks) -- they don't want all their weapons to be unable to flee from an missile attack, and be destroyed, at the start of a conflict.

      Of coutse, this all assumes that we won't be going nuclear. Due to environmental effects, we might not use nukes. On the other hand, if NK nukes us with one of their 4 or 5 nukes, it would probably be decided to hit back with about 100 nukes.

    26. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I couldn't care less about 10 million, kalishnikov toting, battle hardened soldiers creeping towards Seoul, let alone 10 million starving north koreans armed with a rusty spoon.

      No one really travels far on foot, even if they are Rambo. They will not be able to use mass transport (for bringing in food, weapons or people) when all their vehicles have depleted uranium slugs shot through their engines (courtesy of our gunships).

      Any underground bunkers/subway tunnels will be made into deathtraps, with our nuclear bunker busters.

      Really, the worst they can do is load chemical weapons from Syria, into their rockets, and attack Seoul. Once we install rocket defences, and wipe out their rocket emplacements (at the start of a conflict), they are finished. They don't have credible defense in depth -- and WE have OFFENSE in depth.

    27. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I second this idea. Yes, techonologically, it's feasable to win a physical war with NK. We have anti-rocket technology (not fully implimented, but it exists).

      However, like many other extremist ideologies, there are symbolic things which it holds dear. If we (or China) could capture or kill the royal family, we would have a lot of leverage, after most of the fighting stopped.

    28. Re:Kill the Virus in Pyonyang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hell, he'd be wrong even if he was talking about the last round. Our failure in Iraq is political, not military.

  8. Pointing it the wrong way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The potential power to reach the stars, yet all anyone wants to do is point it at their neighbor and make threats. We will never escape these "Dark Ages" we're all living in.

    1. Re:Pointing it the wrong way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      North Korea did shoot a satellite up.

    2. Re:Pointing it the wrong way by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      We will never escape these "Dark Ages" we're all living in.

      Sure we will. We're already merrily on our way to bombing ourselves back into the "Stone Ages".

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:Pointing it the wrong way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought that was a dishwasher

    4. Re:Pointing it the wrong way by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

      there is plenty to be disappointed about human behavior

      but using north korea as an example of average human behavior is not accurate or fair

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    5. Re:Pointing it the wrong way by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      Depends. When you keep having a bully spreading 'freedom' and destroying everything in it's wake, you can't peacefully go along with your business. You either have to try and stand up to them or be dissolved.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    6. Re:Pointing it the wrong way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Humanity is all washed up anyhow. A dishwasher seems quite fitting if you ask me.

    7. Re:Pointing it the wrong way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yin-Yang will always exist together. It is neither the dark ages, nor the age of enlightenment. Keep looking both ways before moving ahead.

  9. High-level nuclear "test" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By high-level, surely they don't mean high altitude? Better get out the farraday cages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage).

  10. How's that for critical thinking? by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

    "North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range."

    And Portland and Seatle are closer than San Francisco. And all in the continental US, last I checked. And I know-- warhead + rocket, but last I checked, belief was unclear on their ability to pair a warhead various rockets, but they could likely come within 30 miles of Portland. Or Portlandia.

    1. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by BradleyUffner · · Score: 1

      "North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States, although its December launch showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range."

      And Portland and Seatle are closer than San Francisco. And all in the continental US, last I checked. And I know-- warhead + rocket, but last I checked, belief was unclear on their ability to pair a warhead various rockets, but they could likely come within 30 miles of Portland. Or Portlandia.

      Just because it's in range doesn't mean they have a guidance system that will actually get it here, or that it won't explode 10m off the launch pad.

    2. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      Ggggguidance accuracy has always been a known problem, which is why I said "within 30 miles." Exploding on the platform doesn't seem to be a problem, as they are using modifications to known Russian designs etc.

    3. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RTFA - it specifically says that it's believed that N Korea can't build a nuke small enough to deliver via rocket

    4. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      They can't make a high enough yield war head to deal with guidance errors fit on their rocket. These folks are too broke for that.

      Nor are they quite that suicidal. This is saber rattling for food aid again.

    5. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, but did you just stutter..?

    6. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by khallow · · Score: 1

      They can't make a high enough yield war head to deal with guidance errors fit on their rocket. These folks are too broke for that.

      Yet. Ten years ago they couldn't make a nuclear weapon and stick it on a rocket. Ten years from now, maybe they'll have that accuracy problem fixed well enough or maybe they'll have abandoned nuclear weapons altogether and be back in their original state of being incapable of doing what they've done so far.

      The problem here is that such statements of impossibility are never true for very long unless someone does something to keep them true.

    7. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by SleazyRidr · · Score: 1

      Over 10,000 miles, getting within 30 miles is still a pretty big deal.

    8. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because it's in range doesn't mean they have a guidance system that will actually get it here, or that it won't explode 10m off the launch pad.

      Nukes don't work like that, the stages to detonation aren't as trivial as a simple switch or lit fuse wire. If they wanted to strike with one, they'd merely need to fly it or ship it and then trigger it. It wouldn't be as destructive as an in-air explosion but still pretty damaging to a populated area.

    9. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Food aid they're not gonna get!! They're the kind of country that "bites that hand that feeds them", shooting down helicopters bringing food and supplies to them. It's ridiculous to even fathom helping a rogue country.

    10. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by j00r0m4nc3r · · Score: 1

      Just because it's in range doesn't mean they have a guidance system that will actually get it here, or that it won't explode 10m off the launch pad.

      That could be the ticket. If we could secretly "engineer" this scenario to happen, we get a free nuke strike on NK and make them look like idiots in the process.

    11. Re:How's that for critical thinking? by tibit · · Score: 1

      They may decide to do it under clear skies and have video terminal guidance. This can be achieved using pretty much open source software, for the most part.

      I sincerely hope that the U.S. has a system in place to disable the GPS constellation as soon as a confirmed threat launch took place, because it'd be really silly if they simply guided their rocket using GPS and succeeded in hitting their target.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  11. Sounds like by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 1

    they had a blast.

  12. a defensive nuclear strike on them. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would make me feel better.

    Perhaps Patton was right.

    1. Re:a defensive nuclear strike on them. by VAXcat · · Score: 1

      We should take off and nuke the site from orbit....it's the only way to be sure.

      --
      There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
    2. Re:a defensive nuclear strike on them. by Talderas · · Score: 1

      That was likely MacArthur. Patton was dead well before the Soviets withdrew from N. Korea.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    3. Re:a defensive nuclear strike on them. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Patton was dead before the North Korean conflict started. It was General Curtis Fucking LeMay who wanted to nuke them. Actually he wanted to nuke every commie on the planet and tried to get the job done.

  13. Just shoot it down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just shoot down their test and get it over with. Having a rocket capable of traveling 10,000 km is utterly pointless when your enemy can just shoot it down before it ever leaves your own airspace.

    1. Re:Just shoot it down... by Quila · · Score: 1

      So we just happen to schedule our interceptor test at the same time they schedule their rocket test?

  14. Attention Whore by GameboyRMH · · Score: 0

    I'm the one who builds the nukes
    I'm the one to tease the spooks
    I'm the one to launch the sats
    I'm the one who calls you rats

    I'm the one you're looking for
    'Cuz I'm a big attention whore

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  15. The new, friendly leader by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When Kim Jong-Un came to power, I was soundly modded down for expressing skepticism about his being a reformer. I was insulted for being an "old man" stuck in a cold war mentality. Now he is dancing Pyongyang Style.

    1. Re:The new, friendly leader by medcalf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Youth always discounts experience.

      --
      -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
    2. Re:The new, friendly leader by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

      My guess, the "boy" will get snuffed out in a coup d'état. Then, the new leadership will start war to solidify power from with in.

      Just a pet theory.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    3. Re:The new, friendly leader by Ghjnut · · Score: 2

      Who the hell was suggesting that the son of tyrant would be a reformist? It sounded to me like everyone was aware that this was far from a regime change.

      --
      MouseClass extends ScrollClass, which extends TabClass, which extends SidebarClass, which extends PowerClass, w
    4. Re:The new, friendly leader by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      My thoughts weren't that he'd be a reformer, but that the military leadership would have tired of daddy's isolationism and elected to pressure a naive young dictator to restart dialogue with the West. Not a reformer, but a puppet leader for a new agenda. I guess when the leadership lives like royalty, it doesn't matter how many people are starving.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    5. Re:The new, friendly leader by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His advisors are also old men and very much stuck in a cold war mentality.

  16. Hey, the USA Finally Found Them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You know, those Weapons of Mass Destruction? They were in North Korea all along!

    1. Re:Hey, the USA Finally Found Them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that who the Syrians sold them to?

  17. Lets just cut off the food aid by DarkOx · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Its a pretty good bet South Korea and China won't step up. We simple broadcast in Korean on Voice of America that we are cutting off the assistance and why.

    The North Koreans can then do something about their government or stave. I think we should try hard to no care which they choose.

    --
    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    1. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by PraiseBob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      But it is worth keeping in mind that starvation is why North Korea started rattling its sabres in the first place. A starving populace needed an enemy to blame, so the leadership started blaming foreigners for everything going wrong. They started down the nuclear path specifically to get attention from the US and other countries and basically using extortion to get food aid from their "enemies".

      Do we want a completely desperate nuclear power? Will the people turn against the leadership, or will they vent their rage against foreigners leading to millions of deaths?

    2. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you need to do a little more investigation. North Koreans are already starving, food aid or not.

      What exactly should they "do about their government"? How easy to you think it is to dislodge a totalitarian regime?

    3. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is incredibly easy to dislodge a totalitarian regime when the soldiers have no food.

      If the civilians are starving and there is food aid coming in then the food aid is going to the soldiers.

    4. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

      The North Koreans can then do something about their government or stave.

      The sad thing is, the past few times they've had this option, they chose option two. And it wasn't the leaders, or the military that starved to death, it was the common people in the fields and villages. Exactly the people that we should be protecting from the government, not sacrifice to bring the government down.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    5. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      arabs manage to keep doing so.

    6. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by Marxdot · · Score: 2

      Oh look, DarkOx is being exceptionally ignorant and is making rash proposals based on that ignorance again.

    7. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by ducomputergeek · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They'll starve. There was a documentary made when some western doctors went to NK a few years ago to do things like cataract surgeries. After they got their surgeries and could see again, the first thing they did was turn to the closest picture of dear leader and begin praying to it. Literally praying to the picture as it being the representation of their Dear Leader who is a Man-God.

      I've since known people who have had dealings with NK as part of the UN. I've asked many of them if what we saw in the documentary was even remotely true and the answer was astoundingly yes. That among the population of the cities at least, that is how the leaders of the country are seen by the "loyal political" class. Even in the country side where there is mass starvation there is at least the appearance of that belief.

      --
      "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
    8. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by alexandre_ganso · · Score: 1

      Their radio devices only access preselected stations. They don't have a dial, and being in possession of one is ilegal in there. The few people who do have one, stay quiet about it.

    9. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To add to this: after their sight was restored, most of these people immediately gave their thanks to Kim Jong Il - completely ignoring the incredible doctor that performed literally 1,000 surgeries in a week.

    10. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by aquabat · · Score: 1

      Do we want a completely desperate nuclear power? Will the people turn against the leadership, or will they vent their rage against foreigners leading to millions of deaths?

      This is exactly what North Korea is trying to suggest , with all their sabre rattling. Somebody needs to say to them, "okay, I guess you should do what you think you need to do, but we're not giving you any more free food just because you might cause some shit if we don't. We have our own problems to deal with, thank you very much."

      --
      A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    11. Re:Lets just cut off the food aid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are three types of North Koreans.

      1. Those that believe the government is good and other countries are worse off than they are.
      2. Those that claim the government is good and other countries are worse off than they are.
      3. The dead.

  18. linux cookie anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All extremists should be taken out and shot.

  19. Let's just get this over with by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you build a rocket, throw a bomb in it and then think about hitting a target 6200 miles away...sounds pretty easy? I don't think this will see the light of day. Dear Leader please rethink this...maybe wait until you're much older and wiser and then you can make the fateful decision.

  20. Can't we(US), for once, just do nothing? by cellocgw · · Score: 1

    I mean, really, there's one or two countries rather close by North Korea who don't like them either. How about, instead of waving our allegedly big nuclear dicks all over the place, just plain ignore NK? Don't talk about them; don't talk to them. At some point they'll get bored and promise that their missiles are specifically targeted at $OTHER_COUNTRY.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    1. Re:Can't we(US), for once, just do nothing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At some point they'll get bored and...

      ...sink another S. Korean destroyer or shell another town.

      Our big nuclear dick has immunized the Western world from large scale warfare for over half a century. I say we ignore panzy ass office people like you and continue to put the fear of fucking god into whomever fails to understand the consequences of messing with us or our allies.

      The peace provided by that very policy allowed you to become the malcontent pantywaist you are today.

    2. Re:Can't we(US), for once, just do nothing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They already have $OTHER_COUNTRY. Two in fact, South Korea and Japan.

      The USA is only the focus due to it's continued allegiance and support for their mortal enemy, South Korea who the DPRK government views as a US puppet.

      If the US didn't continue to support South Korea then they wouldn't be in the firing line. The US has it's own reasons for supporting South Korea, having to deal with North Korea is one of the consequences of supporting the strategic and economic interests in South Korea.

    3. Re:Can't we(US), for once, just do nothing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, because much like Internet trolls, being ignored is exactly what they don't want.

  21. Sorry world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry, world, North Korea is right on this one. They launched a ** satellite, even if the same technology could be used to develop long range nuclear capabilities, space exploration is a worthy endeavor and adding pressure and getting hysterical about it pure hypocrisy. If in the top of it, increasing international pressure for something like this is a clear message that the US and allies are bent to prevent NK from developing any technology that can potentially be weaponized.

    In those circumstances, resuming the nuclear program in order to prove nuclear capabilities is the only deterrent they can have to prevent an escalation of the situation, specially in a piss poor country with an obsolete army.

  22. Exactly! by mveloso · · Score: 1

    That's just what I was thinking.

    You don't need a missile do deliver a nuke. Heck, you don't even need fission. Just grind up a bunch of radioactive material and use explosives to disperse it into the air. There you go, you've poisoned a city forever. Game over.

    Plus, if you don't care about high efficiency you have lots of options. Airburst = maximum damage, but you don't need to use a nuke as a bomb if you don't want to.

    1. Re:Exactly! by Arrogant+Monkey · · Score: 2

      You're overestimating the effect of a dirty bomb. It would be nasty, and would contaminate a few blocks, and some unlucky souls might be poisoned or statistically more likely to experience cancer later in life. But those blocks can be decontaminated, the radioactive material hauled off and entombed, and the city be just dandy in a handful of years.

    2. Re:Exactly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that you can't do that in all cases. Just dump a lot of radioactive material in the water reservoirs and your city is going to be in trouble for the years to come. The bottom line is that you dont need to kill a lot of people to cause lasting damage.

  23. Hey China by kawabago · · Score: 0

    Hey China! Did it ever occur to you that the Imperial Kim Dynasty of North Korea might decide you are the greatest threat to it's existence and might want to make a preemptive strike? Isn't Beijing sitting so close to this paranoid autocracy that if Kim decided he needed to, he could vaporize Beijing before you could react? Isn't the Korean army just as large as the Chinese army? Doesn't it bother you that a capricious dictator has a massive army right on your doorstep? I'd be worried. It wouldn't be the first time the student killed the master.

    1. Re:Hey China by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      Hey USA! Did it ever occur to you that China holds no threat for the NK way of life but the USA way of life is anathema? It wouldn't be the first time a bully has been taken down by the bullied.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    2. Re:Hey China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are so fucking stupid. Kill yourself, eurotrash.

  24. Defcon II or jawbone? by swschrad · · Score: 1

    personally, I'd load up the bunker-busters, get the Aegis cruisers out in the western Pacific, and overfly Nut Korea every half hour anybody starts scuttling around the missle fields there, fly over and dig until you find sanity.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
    1. Re:Defcon II or jawbone? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Foreign affairs isn't a Rambo movie. You don't let nutjob governments paint themselves into a corner where military action is their only recourse.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  25. Put it in a shipping container by localroger · · Score: 1

    Seriously, there is NO CHECKING of incoming freight into the US. You put the bomb in a shipping container, have it offloaded and shipped to some random warehouse, then put the bomb in a panel park and park it downtown $victim_city. There is no mechanism whatsoever to catch you if you do this. I have done work in ports. If the paperwork is straight for it to be tennis shoes it will get where it's going with nobody the wiser. Of course if you're NK your bomb is a piddly fizzly Plutonium gun bomb that doesn't work all that well so it will only knock down a few square blocks and spray a bunch of contamination around, but that will be annoying enough that nobody will mind if we respond with one of our own slightly more effective systems, right?

    --
    Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
    1. Re:Put it in a shipping container by theNAM666 · · Score: 1
    2. Re:Put it in a shipping container by Jaysyn · · Score: 1

      Not to burst your bubble, but does it really matter much if it's in port as opposed to "on land" when it blows up?

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    3. Re:Put it in a shipping container by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

      I would assume efforts would be to scan *before* it reaches an actual port, but this is DHS we're talking about. :P

  26. North Korea is not a threat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many A-bombs the United States has? My simple guesstimation is more than 5000.

    How many A-bombs the North Korea has? Well, at most 10 A-bombs I guess in the future.

    North Korea is not a threat at all even if its rockets can reach to the U.S. continent. It can not attack the U.S. first unless it can destroy all the US A-bombs.

    Frankly, I don't understand what the fuss about North Korean's nuclear bombs.

    Do you know the real meaning of it? It means that the U.S. can't attack North Korea easily unlike Iraq.

    1. Re:North Korea is not a threat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm, which country has already delivered two A-bombs on another country?

    2. Re:North Korea is not a threat. by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      No threat. Look, let's compare this number I made up, to this other number I made up, and it's plain as day.

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    3. Re:North Korea is not a threat. by stox · · Score: 1

      We don't have that many A-Bombs, we do have a pile of F-Bombs. Ie. Fission vs, Fusion. Do note that a fusion warhead is 1,000+ times more powerful than a fission warhead.

      --
      "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  27. They can reach everywhere by Hentes · · Score: 1

    If they have the capability to launch a satellite, then any point in the world is within their reach. Whether their aim is good enough to hit the target is another question.

    1. Re:They can reach everywhere by circletimessquare · · Score: 2

      no kidding. they aimed for Japan in in December and hit the Philippines:

      http://www.interaksyon.com/article/50244/philippines-condemns-north-korea-for-missile-launch

      so if they are aiming for the USA now, only one thought comes to mind:

      watch out Russia, incoming!

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    2. Re:They can reach everywhere by MiniMike · · Score: 1

      Except for a few things:
      They have no re-entry capability.
      They lack guidance is systems capable of hitting the intended target, unless your intended target is "anywhere on the continent (or nearby)". This answers your question.
      The satellite they launched weighs 1/10th the weight of the average nuclear warhead.

      See this article for more detailed info.

  28. Re:Rice-a-Roni by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You idiot who modded this down. NK is a GREAT threat! They (at least) have the ability to reach San Francisco with their nuclear missiles and possibly a longer range. They taunt is and express publicly that they're meant for us. They continue to develop their weapons technology. They are a REAL threat; one far greater than the USSR used to be. The USSR wasn't a rogue nation, neither is modern-day Russia (despite the tension between us).

  29. keeping SK is the hard part by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

    the big problem is that if we decided to instruct the Dear Leader in humility then SK would become a wasteland within minutes.

    now if we could get enough "civilian contractors" in place to get everything sorted out then we would have a single Korea in hours/days.

    --
    Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
  30. One of these things is not like the others by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1, Troll

    As reported by Reuters, The New York Times, and Fox News...

    Seriously? You couldn't think of a third actual news source? Couldn't find a link to the National Enquirer, so you went with one of it's peers?

    1. Re:One of these things is not like the others by circletimessquare · · Score: 2
      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    2. Re:One of these things is not like the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, you could have listed Jersey Shore and been about as good.

    3. Re:One of these things is not like the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, what in the fuck. The New York Times is worthless.

    4. Re:One of these things is not like the others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As reported by Reuters, The New York Times, and Fox News...

      Seriously? You couldn't think of a third actual news source? Couldn't find a link to the National Enquirer, so you went with one of it's peers?

      Fox News is awful at domestic politics because it was founded as a Republican partisan mouthpiece, and it is adequate at foreign affairs because a lot of Republicans work in government after Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush II and when they decide to leak information they will leak it to Fox News. Their domestic reporting lies, but their foreign reporting is merely slanted.

      Reuters lies. Their foreign reporting regarding Israel is not merely slanted or packaged to make you believe what they want you to think, but they will completely make shit up to make you believe what they want you to think.

      Know the biases of your news sources, to the individual reporter if possible and recognizing different degrees of bias, rather than rejecting one entire publisher out of hand and considering the others to be clean. Everybody is biased on some issue to some degree.

      Also, this.

    5. Re:One of these things is not like the others by RocketRabbit · · Score: 1

      The NYT is just as bad, what with the Maureen Dowds and the made-up shit about WMDeeeez and countless other overt propaganda pieces. Our media is no more honest than that of North Korea, perhaps less so because while they do not play around and pretend to be anything but government propaganda, our media does.

      Wake up.

    6. Re:One of these things is not like the others by Spy+Handler · · Score: 1

      Reuters and NYT are liberal establishment sockpuppets. Fox News is a GOP sockpuppet. Different sides of the same coin.

  31. Re:A parallel thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nah. We should nuke them.

  32. Thank-you, United Nations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank-you, United Nations, for leaving the war unresolved. Even post-war Europe was not this messed up. The GDR was behind the "iron curtain" but at least it was not trapped in a state of perpetual cease-fire with an opposing force.

    You've had a long time to demonstrate that you, as an oranization, are no better than ad-hoc treaties between nations and are in many respects considerably worse. Now will you do us a favor and please go away? Don't even try to fix the problem you caused. Just let the 7 nations currently interested in this fix it, with more bloodshed if necessary--blood that will be on your hands.

  33. December: they aimed for Japan and hit Philippines by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Funny

    so now they are aiming for the USA?

    watch out Russia!

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  34. Re:A parallel thought... by TheMiddleRoad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    International politics and child development are not even close to the same thing. It's scary that you even make a comparison.

  35. Re:A parallel thought... by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    that's cute

    but the temper tantrum of a child and the calculated provocations of a cult of personality dictatorship are slightly different

    try again

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  36. Oh, please come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    America cannot win a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan! Why on earth do you think they would be able to win one of the biggest military forces on the planet that actually BELIEVES in what they are doing after almost a century of brainwash?

    1. Re:Oh, please come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      America has forgotten how to win wars. You smash the enemy into dust in every way possible and tell what's left how it's going to be. Worked out pretty well for the losers of WWII in the long run. Now we worry so much about civilian casualties instead of just lancing the boil and squirting all the pus out.

    2. Re:Oh, please come on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please don't pretend you're talking as if you're at the big dog table. You're not.

      Nuclear war is not the same thing as counter insurgent war. And America can win a war against the Taliban if they wanted to. They decided at a later point that "destroying all taliban" is not what they wanted. And it's not a great deal to try to do so, cause it's a big economic drain for a superpower vs. a military which doesn't have massive amounts of money. The only thing you are saying is that suicide bombers exist with Taliban and it doesn't with America. OK, we (and everyone else) knows that.

      NK has one of the biggest military on the planet, but for fucking real, bro, if they nuked or even titty fucked San Francisco and didn't give her a reach-around, their entire government, along with many of their innocent citizens, would be dead in a week. Yeah, even with Obama as president.

  37. These are the cities you are allowed to nuke... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Detroit. St. Louis. Anywhere in Florida. Los Angeles. Oakland.

  38. Help NK to implode by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    NK's little kingdom of retards is run entirely by fear and has a sell by date. Not everyone is a brainwashed tool of the state. Policy should be to offer a counterweight to NK propoganda thru all possible modes of communication.

  39. and in a war that can be drilled real fast by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    and in a war that can be drilled real fast.

  40. Are you sure? by ub3r+n3u7r4l1st · · Score: 1

    "Bombing would almost certainly destroy the world's economy."

    U.S. unemployment rate during year 1938 - 1945:

    1938: 19.0%
    1939: 17.3%
    1940: 14.6%
    1941 - 9.9%
    1942 - 4.7%
    1943 - 1.9%
    1944 - 1.2%
    1945 - 1.9%

    Hint: a couple of military conflicts occur during these years.

    1. Re:Are you sure? by j00r0m4nc3r · · Score: 1

      Since when does the US == the world?

    2. Re:Are you sure? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      then after the conflicts ended, unemployment rates went back up to 3.9% in 1946 and stayed around that amount for many decades.

      Add to that, when women did not work in those times, they were not counted as unemployed.

      Also over world war 1, the unemployment rate doubled in the first few years of the war from 4.4% in 1913 to 9.7% in 1915.

      So the big drop in unemployment wasn't world war 2, it was the recovery from the great depression.
      Fighting a war doesn't fix your economy problems. Sitting on the sidelines for the majority of a war selling weapons to your friends helps quite a bit though.

    3. Re:Are you sure? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      U.S. unemployment rate during year 1938 - 1945:

      WW2 was "good" for the American economy because it finally forced us to adopt an aggressively expansionist fiscal policy. We should have been doing that regardless of the war, and if that fiscal expansion had gone toward civilian infrastructure instead of bombing other countries, it would have been even better for our economy. Roosevelt was increasing spending prior to the war, but not nearly enough. Hitler did much better in Germany, and was leading Europe out of the Great Depression. (Does it still count as Godwining if you compare someone to Hitler in a positive way.)

      A war today is unlikely to improve our economy because we already have very expansionist fiscal (and monetary) policies, and war spending would probably just divert resources from other, more useful, purposes. The was no economic "bump" from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    4. Re:Are you sure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and how much of this is due to the employable population being permanently removed from the workforce pool?

    5. Re:Are you sure? by ub3r+n3u7r4l1st · · Score: 1

      That's the point. The poster claims that military conflicts destroy economies everywhere in the world. I just prove one case that is not true.

    6. Re:Are you sure? by j00r0m4nc3r · · Score: 1

      ah, yes. understood.

    7. Re:Are you sure? by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      Add to that, when women did not work in those times, they were not counted as unemployed.

      Is it any different now? When women don't work today they're not counted as unemployed when they don't want to be "employed". For example, stay at home mothers are not "unemployed" the way you are using the word. And at that time, that was the majority of women's profession... by choice.

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    8. Re:Are you sure? by slew · · Score: 1

      Since when does the US == the world?

      Okay, I'll bite...

      Although US != world, if the US economy is in the dumper because of a war, the modern world economies being tightly interlinked will certainly have effects. Heck, people were talking about the world economy going down because of the situation in Greece, what do you think would happen if an economy 50 times bigger*** hits the skids?

      *** Assuming (usa.gdp=15000B) / (greece.gdp = 300B) is a suitable approximation for a /. discussion...

    9. Re:Are you sure? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      These days an 18 year old women with no children is unemployed if they have no job, back then they were not.

      Single women with teenaged children are also unemployed if they have no job.

    10. Re:Are you sure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're just plain wrong here (based on the context). If you aren't LOOKING for a job them you're not unemployed "by the govt numbers". These women you mention aren't unemployed just because they don't have a job. They have to at least say they that Are trying to get a job to be considered unemployed.

  41. SF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Kim Jong Un, why do you hate gay people? Oh, just not a Niners fan?! So, uh, why do you hate gay people?

  42. USA Logical Next Step by coolmoose25 · · Score: 1

    The US, and Japan for that matter, have the ability to shoot down NK missiles as they are in the ascent stage. Now that NK has formally stated that it is their intention to create missile technology that can deliver nuclear weapons to the US mainland, the US has the excuse we've needed to formally state that we will shoot down ALL NK missiles whether they are military or civilian in nature.

    This leave NK with the next move. They can shoot a missile. We shoot it down. NK's next move?

    Well, they might start shelling Seoul, but if they do, they are basically violating the cease fire, and it's the Second Korean war. But will they do that? My guess is no, they won't. Because as bloody as it might end up, the Kim clan knows where this leads, as does their military. They end up dead. Or in prison. Or in prison and then dead. And their country is subsumed by SK and the world is a better place.

    Is it a gamble? Sure. But this would send a message to all like minded states, like Iran. Build a weapons capability that threatens the US with nukes and you lose your missiles at the very least. If you escalate after that, you end up dead. Even "madmen" like Kim and I'madinnerjacket will understand that. End result? Bad guys in a worse place, good guys don't have to worry about nukes raining down. Win Win.

    --
    Brawndo: It's what plants crave!
    1. Re:USA Logical Next Step by Junta · · Score: 1

      and it's the Second Korean war

      Well, *technically* the first one isn't 'ended' by some measures, so it would just be resuming the first one.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  43. are you gonna bark all day little doggie? by 0111+1110 · · Score: 0

    Talk is cheap. All I hear from NK is a lot of yapping. Yap, yap, yap. It's difficult to take them seriously when they never actually do anything. I don't think they have the balls to actually attack the US even with conventional weaponry let alone with nukes. If they want some credibility then maybe they should actually attack someone and accept the consequences.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0Y7brwz6fA

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  44. Don't Worry Baby... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The girls are here just in time to save you.

  45. Re:A parallel thought... by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

    Sounds like that kid needed a bit of spankanol. This is also why I would be a bad grade school teacher.

    --
    Time to offend someone
  46. We're going to need anti-missiles and shelters by Animats · · Score: 1

    We're entering an era where more countries have nuclear weapons. They've become too easy to make. Isotope separation used to take huge gaseous-diffusion plants. Entire cities were built just to enrich uranium. Centrifuge plants are now medium sized industrial park installations. That's URENCO's plant in New Mexico. It produces enough enriched uranium to power a sizable fraction of US reactors, and it's being expanded. A much smaller plant could enrich enough uranium for a few bombs.

    Once you have enriched uranium, making a nuclear bomb isn't a huge job. As a build, it's roughly comparable to making an auto engine from scratch, a job that some auto racing shops can do. Machining uranium isn't that hazardous. Here's a how-to guide from Union Carbide from the 1980s. (Plutonium is a totally different story; there you need glove boxes, remote manipulators, and huge precautions against dust escaping.) There aren't many secrets left about how ordinary atomic bombs work. It's been almost 70 years, after all. (Some of the tricks of fusion weapons still haven't leaked out.)

    We've been very lucky that this was a hard thing to do. But it's not that hard any more, and it keeps getting easier.

  47. Do you do work in ports? No I didn't think so. by localroger · · Score: 1

    Radiation detectors at ports are gamma detectors, primarily for detecting radiologically contaminated scrap. I have actually worked next to those detectors and seen them go off. The principal material in an atomic bomb is plutonium, which is an alpha emitter. A piece of paper will stop an alpha particle, much less a bomb casing or even the skin of a shipping container. A finished, functional atomic bomb is not all that radioactive compared to some steel that you stupidly alloyed with cesium from an old cancer therapy machine, which is what the ports are looking for.

    --
    Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
  48. They must be crazy by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Only a suicidal country would nuke the Untied St... oh wait, nevermind.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  49. Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Lose war.
    2. Declare war.

  50. Well... by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    As I keep saying, as long as the US is still testing, creating and updating their nuclear arsenal, ANY other country has it's right to test and create their own, even if the country seems to be a 'villainstate'.. It doesn't mean I like it, but the US should shut their mouths as long as they have theirs and keep threatening other countries..

  51. They wont automatically disperse like a gas by reluctantjoiner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It will be 2 million people needing food, shelter, and likely medical attention. In one place, at the same time. I'd expect that it would test the logistics of any well organised country.

  52. Why is china allowing a nuclear power next door? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    Once this tiny country has a nuke with 6,000 miles of range, it could turn on China.

    China couldn't even invade if the country had more than one nuke. Any concentration of force is toast for a nuke.

    This would be like letting cuba develop a nuke because they were currently angry at France.

    What are the chinese thinking letting this nuke program complete RIGHT ON THEIR BORDER???

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  53. Re:Do you do work in ports? No I didn't think so. by theNAM666 · · Score: 1
  54. Re:Prediction of unification by alexandre_ganso · · Score: 1

    Or this is how they will become more like china - with their "communism" meaning the same people are in power forever.

  55. Minuteman test by Is0m0rph · · Score: 1

    We should tell North Korea if they continue we will test a couple minuteman ICBMs on their capital, invade from the South, and just end this silliness.

  56. Time for another civilian flotilla by poity · · Score: 1

    Gather all the people who did the Gaza flotilla thing
    Sail into North Korea with food and medicine.
    Film the entire trip.

    --
    your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
  57. San Francisco? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cool!

  58. The US is in South Korea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Christ, people. Will you please open your eyes? All NK needs to attack the US is a fair-size trebuchet and a fairly deep trench for themselves. Boom! Instant nuclear "missile" and instant US involvement. No one needs to lob an ICBM at Montana.

  59. Jealousy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All this nuke weapons posturing is because Gangnam Style reached no.1 on YouTube. Haters gonna hate.

  60. How innocent are you anyway by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    But someone over there needs to look at the end of this game.

    When you're only looking at two pieces, you aren't seeing the whole game.

    You are not seeing for example the possibility of the leaders of NK authorizing an attack, then bugging out to some other country as NK is nuked a few times. Any number of other countries could probably arrange compelling payment to make NK a proxy for such an attack. And lots of other countries benefit economically or just spiritually by the US suffering a few million causalities and crippling economic disaster that would result.

    Apart from many dead, NK wouldn't even be that hurt by any attack (having very little infrastructure to harm anyway) and as a bonus they get to fry South Korea as a byproduct of any attack on them. For the highest echelons of NK leadership, it all looks pretty compelling.

    Look at the pictures of Obama from first to second term; they detail quite well the level of shit that the world is stirring up against the U.S.

    Within ten years the U.S. will probably be hit by some kind of nuclear attack; it's just a matter of where or how big. There are too many people itching to do so regardless of consequence because for them there is no consequence personally.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  61. "... not believed"??? by mark-t · · Score: 1

    "North Korea is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States"

    Uh... talk about denial.

    Didn't NK only just last month just make an attempt to launch a satellite?

    Granted, its orbit wasn't stable and they lost control of it within only 24 hours, but if they even do that much, how on earth do they think that NK does not have a delivery system capable of hitting a country the size of the USA?

    1. Re:"... not believed"??? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Sputnik weighs a lot less than Little Boy.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  62. Re:December: they aimed for Japan and hit Philippi by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

    They're not showing off aim, they're showing off range.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  63. Re:Rice-a-Roni by tibit · · Score: 1

    A nuclear missile consists of the launcher, the payload, and the reentry vehicle. They haven't done any reentry tests, and as far as we know their payloads can't fit on anything near the size of the missiles they have tested so far. So you're, at the moment, very much mistaken. Clueless, even. I do agree that the Russian Federation isn't a rogue nation, and that neither was USSR, to an extent.

    --
    A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  64. Re:Why is china allowing a nuclear power next door by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

    It's the buffer nation strategy. If you can't overrun them, load them up with weapons and force the guy next door to waste time and resources on them while you go about your business. Same thing Pakistan did with Afghanistan (turning it into a fundamentalist backwater nightmare).

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  65. Let's hope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That the missile fail to launch and detonate on-site. We don't need idiots who can't learn from mistakes of the past.

  66. Maybe they want to be take over? by crakbone · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of the book "The Mouse that Roared" Where the Duchy of Grand Fenwick tries to go to war with the US in order to get out of bankruptcy.

  67. Right to self determination and defense by zerosomething · · Score: 1

    All nations have the right to self determination and also self defense. If they want to build nukes and rockets they can. However just like any right, if exercising it causes injures to someone else then you are fair game for retribution. Let them play with fire but if they launch on anything owned by another country then they should pay for it. Let them know if the they ever launch a nuke at the US or any of our allies that they will be annihilated.

    --
    It all starts at 0
  68. Re:December: they aimed for Japan and hit Philippi by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    which is not at all important when you are launching missiles or satellites or nuclear bombs

    lol!

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  69. Honored by ks*nut · · Score: 1

    So this little country is bankrupting itself so they will have the capability to lob a nuclear weapon at us? They need to up the ante a little bit and build up a huge stockpile of weapons and delivery systems. Then I'll show you bankrupt - morally and economicaly.

  70. Pinky and the by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Dealing with North K. is like watching Pinky and the Brain.

    Pinky: "Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"

    The Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky--try to take over the USA!"

  71. Re:Do you do work in ports? No I didn't think so. by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1
    From the top result of that search:

    Existing radiation portal monitors, as well as new advanced spectroscopic portal machines, cannot reliably detect weapons-grade uranium hidden inside shipping containers. They also set off far too many false alarms.

    I'd say having faith in finding a bomb is misguided.

    --
    Man, you really need that seminar!
  72. Re:A parallel thought... by gtall · · Score: 1

    See the Clinton administration policies, that's exactly what they tried. And N. Korea promised to stop their nuke program in response. You know what, they did. Except that they then started another in secret. When Bush got into office, the Clinton admin people sheepishly explained that N. Korea still had a nuke program and Bush realized the Clinton policies were not going to work. Been there, done that. N. Korea is not the U.S.'s fault. N. Korea is N. Korea's fault.

  73. Re:Do you do work in ports? No I didn't think so. by theNAM666 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I read that one. Then I read the WikiPedia article. Randomly quoting random crap off the internet, does not yield truth.

  74. Re:A parallel thought... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    And yet, surprisingly, interpersonal relationships can make a huge difference in international politics. An example is Churchill's excellent skills at working with Stalin.

    If I were working a president working with North Korea, I would do everything I could to make two things clear:

    1) America does not want to fight N Korea, and will not make a pre-emptive strike.
    2) If we are forced to fight N Korea, we will destroy them. There is no way that scenario ends well for N Korea.

    With people like that, they need to understand what their options are, and how to make good choices. If they are stuck constantly expecting an attack from the US, then they will continue to make bad choices.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  75. Too many people by DuranDuran · · Score: 1

    Too many people in this thread have been watching too many Michael Bay films, and not enough time reading how international relations actually works.

    --
    "You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
    1. Re:Too many people by aphelion_rock · · Score: 1

      It is high time the world ignored NK. If NK tries to use their missiles in anger his country will be wiped off the face of the earth. He cannot even feed his army let alone sustain any type of land attack. http://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/military-food-07132012175239.html Let lil Kim stamp his feet demanding attention because he has constructed a missile or two. The people will realize the failure that he is and turn on him.

  76. How is this still a problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't Batman capture their leader and drop him off at Commissioner Gordon's house tied up with a note a few years back?

  77. I'll bet I know why by Weaselmancer · · Score: 2

    All this hubbub is in response to a UN vote censuring them for the December rocket launch. The vote was unanimous - China did not back them up or even abstain.

    Betcha I know why.

    If war were to break out and China supported NK, we would technically be at war with China. Or at the very least consider them hostile and sever ties. Which wouldn't be in China's best financial interests at all, seeing as how they own over a trillion dollars of US debt. If things went that way I think they would have a hard time collecting on a single penny of that debt. And that's a lot of money to flush away.

    So for purely financial reasons alone, China wouldn't get involved. There are other good reasons, sure. But a trillion dollars in the balance probably trumps a lot of them.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  78. Re: great leader by presidenteloco · · Score: 1

    Oh yeah, isn't he that Gangnam-style guy? Dorky, yes, but great sunglasses.

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
  79. Kimmy, prepare to meet your dear father by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have a feeling any genuine moves in this direction will probably result in Ms. Kim going home to Daddy, the dear one. Make my day, Kimmy!

  80. Don't tug on Superman's cape ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't spit into the wind.

    Don't fool around with the old Lone Ranger and ...

    Don't fuck with the Pentagon.

    They would like nothing better than to turn your entire fucking dictatorship
    into egg drop soup, you stupid third-rate slant-eyed Korean fucks.

  81. Not so strange game by jd.schmidt · · Score: 1

    Actually, the actions make perfect sense.

    First, I am fairly certain the new leader knows about Macroeconomics as he was educated in the West. If had to bet on anything, I would bet he is trying to open up the country, while keeping his leadership secure.

    To make long story short, the saber rattling is wholly for the consumption of internal NK and Chinese politics. In order to liberalize policies he has to appear to be a hard liner militarily.

    First, you have to understand the North Koreans really do hate the U.S. with a passion. The Vietnamese were able to forgive the U.S. (kind of) because they won. The NK experience was much more awful. The casualties on all sides were pretty high, on par with the casualties in the Vietnam war, but happening over 3 years rather than 20! And the outcome was the worst imaginable for the long term, all those people died and nothing changed! So anti U.S. propaganda sells well.

    NK leadership has to know full well they are no threat to anyone besides SK. So why would they want to alienate China.

    Let's ask a different question. Let's say one day, by a miracle, everyone in NK woke up and thought "this sucks, let's just surrender to SK, reunify our people and start making a better life". Seems like the smart thing to do right? Well, so what does China do? Does China, also a country that made a huge investment in lives in NK, say "Yeah, cool, enjoy yourselves. Oh, and NP if U.S. military personnel are now walking around our border."

    OK, maybe they don't all wake up one morning and do this, but instead the leader starts a plan that seems to have an end game of effective Korean reunification. Is China cool with that either?

    So NK is kind of between a rock and a hard place. Don’t destabilize or China comes in to “clean up”, don’t appear to be on the way to reunification with SK or the Chinese come in to “prevent U.S. expansion”.

    Throw into the mix the real bad blood on all sides and you have a real problem.

    So, who can NK really use its nuclear weapons on. The U.S.? Not really, not for a long time. Japan? Why? SK? Yes, they could kill a bunch of Koreans is they wanted. U.S. forces in SK? Well, yes, but they are fairly intermingled with SK population and military bases. The Chinese? Wait, they would never do that, right, I mean they are allies, right?

    OK what does everyone want?

    NK – to continue to exist as nation, perhaps to better their lot
    SK- Security, possibly improve NK out of charity (they ARE family, literally in many cases)
    U.S. – Bases ON the Chinese border would be nice, but in the meantime SK security and excellent justification for U.S. bases in SK
    China – Buffer between China and close U.S. ally and no U.S. bases on border.

    NK is threatening us, because we have the least skin in the game, are least likely to attack them and care least about what is going on. It sells well internally and with China, certainly sells better than threatening China. None the less everyone in the area gets the message loud and clear, “don’t F with us!”

    OTOH China and the U.S. find the situation right now very good for our geopolitical interests. China gets its buffer and the U.S. gets its bases. Sure, each side might want more, but it is as nice deal as they could hope for under the circumstances. The only reason to want to change anything is humanitarian, and which of those normally win out in your experience.

    Next, if NK wanted to be come closer (absorbed?) into China maybe they could. Invite in Chinese investment, let in lots of Chinese businesses, kind of like Tibet is right now. But what if they want to get closer to SK? Kind of sounds like a path to reunification to me, sort of a no go.

    So what to do? Maybe, just maybe, if you are a big enough pain in the butt, the U.S., but more importantly China, will decide the status quo isn’t such a good deal after all. Attacking isn’t such good option, what with the nuclear weapons and all. But maybe letting NK open up will make the situation less bad for everyone. And as a bonus, you appease hard liners.

    1. Re:Not so strange game by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > First, I am fairly certain the new leader
      > knows about Macroeconomics as he
      > was educated in the West.

      So was Obama. Sometimes ideology prevents people from understanding things. (It doesn't always have to, of course. Clinton was ideologically liberal but understood economics rather well. He signed NAFTA on purpose and actively fought Congress to balance the budget.)

      Admittedly, I can't claim to know what the new leader in North Korea understands, because he's so new he hasn't really had time to do much yet. Time will tell. But I can tell you for sure the late previous leader of North Korea did not understand macroeconomics.

      > In order to liberalize policies he has
      > to appear to be a hard liner militarily.

      Ancient Vulcan proverb?

      > First, you have to understand the North Koreans
      > really do hate the U.S. with a passion.

      Yeah, I kind of got that, but it doesn't necessarily imply that they understand us.

      > NK leadership has to know full well they
      > are no threat to anyone besides SK.

      I'm not at all sure they understand this. Hubris often prevents realization of such things. Saddam Hussein clearly didn't get it, and his country wasn't nearly as isolationist as the DPRK, nor were they as close to having nuclear capability.

      > So why would they want to alienate China.

      They would prefer not to, obviously. Chinese aid is one of the Kim family's main sources of income. The question is, can they _accurately_ estimate how far they can push without significantly alienating China?

      > Let's say ... NK woke up ... surrender to SK
      > reunify our people and start making a better
      > life ... Well, so what does China do?

      Realistically, there are only two ways that could happen in the near future. One way would be if the Kim family either chose to push for reunification (which _theoretically_ could happen, e.g. if as you assert the new leader understands socioeconomics MUCH better than his forbears did, and if he were a more or less benevolent despot, which is somewhat unusual but not unheard-of). The other way (which is even less likely) would be if someone close to the Kim family (e.g. a top military leader) turned traitor and assassinated them and then pushed for reunification. Either way, this scenario is unlikely in the near future.

      (The more distant future is, of course, harder to predict with any accuracy. Among other things, politics in China are visibly shifting, so it's difficult to predict what relations between China and North Korea will look like in a couple more generations.)

      As for what China would do, well, they'd likely stop providing aid, but that wouldn't matter anymore. In the event of reunification, South Korea and/or her allies would provide whatever was needed. China would *want* to do more than this, but the Chinese government (at this point, having got rid of Mao) is not dumb. Stubborn sometimes, but not dumb. International political pressure would not allow China to directly intervene military in a completely internal and peaceful purely Korean affair.

      > So, who can NK really use its nuclear weapons on.

      Depends how you define "use". Realistically, they can't deploy them in an active mushroom cloud of physical destruction. (Whether they quite _realize_ this, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe they do, in which case the situation is actually rather stable. If they don't, it's primarily the North Korean government that is in danger as a result.)

      > NK is threatening us, because...

      Also partly because it sends the right message to their own people. Remember, they have internal propaganda to maintain, as well as international saber-rattling.

      > if NK wanted to be come closer (absorbed?)
      > into China maybe they could.

      That would significantly improve the situation of _almost_ everyone in North Korea, with the Kim family being a notable exc

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  82. Re:Prediction of unification by damn_registrars · · Score: 1

    That is how Communism will really fall in North Korea, not with bombs but through sound economics.

    What decade did you write that statement in? Communism failed in North Korea in the 1990s at the latest, an argument could be made that it never really existed there at all. Just because someone calls themselves a communist doesn't mean they actually reflect communist ideals, any more so than someone who calls themselves a libertarian actually reflects liberty.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  83. Re:Why is china allowing a nuclear power next door by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    Yes, I get that. But Pakistan did not give Afganistan nukes.

    Today's friend could be tomorrows psycho enemy.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  84. Re:Why is china allowing a nuclear power next door by jsepeta · · Score: 1

    China helped North Korea with their acquisition of nuclear tech so that NK could harass us at will, and the Chinese likely enjoy watching the US threat over the not-entirely-sane actions of the NK leadership. It's just like when a President allows the VP to go on the attack -- the guy at the top keeps his hands clean. I'm not certain we need to step in to protect South Korea any more than I think we need to help out Israel. Our defenses should protect the US, no more no less. We could strike NK100 or 1000 times for each of their attacks on us; at what point does it stop being comical and become tragic? Diplomacy has not helped us in our efforts to pin down the North Korean hostilities or nuclear program, and GWB (worst president ever) went to war against Iraq (who didn't have weapons of mass destruction) instead of North Korea (who did), allowing NK to transfer nuclear tech to the Pakistanis. [my GOD bush was an idiot] in any case, we don't have anything to fear from NK, and I'd prefer that our state department be rougher and more aggressive in our approach to their threats and histrionics. kissing their ass hasn't gotten them to dismantle their nuclear program. we would gain nothing from an invasion. so really we should just focus on humiliating their leader to encourage the population to take a stand against communism.

    --
    Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
  85. Wrong. You need to look carefully. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    China is busy following America's old plan against USSR. Basically, they are building an economic powerhouse. They are trying hard to tie 3rd world nations to them economically, as well as exporting to the west, BUT, not the opposite. The ONLY western nations allowed to export of any manufactured amounts are those that are next door so that they can grab them if needed.

    BUT, if you look CLOSELY, you will see that China is helping a number of nations develop their own nukes and missiles.
    1) Where has North Korea getting tech for doing nukes and missiles? China.
    2) Now Iran is building their own nukes and missiles.
    3) Burhma is currently building a 'medical' reactor that is buried deep and that if enabled will produce enough 'nuclear medicine' to treat the world for the next 100 years. And that is EACH YEAR that it operates.
    4) Venezuela is now working with China to build a reactor and missiles. That is in addition, to having PLA ships dock at their ports. Ever wonder why China now control the Panama canal? It is NOT for commerce purpose. That is just a side effect.

    The fact is, that all of the nations busy acquiring nuke and missile tech right now, has exactly one thing in common: CHINA.
    China is building up their own NATO in which they have control of a number of nations with loads of nukes. It will make it difficult for even NATO to deal with it. What is really going on, is that China is using North Korea to provoke us to see what our cards are. They want to see how much Reconnaissance we have. They want to know who is going to work with the west, not necessarily, just America.

  86. Nuclear missile for sale! by petsounds · · Score: 1

    Most of you seem to be caught up in NK's propaganda. While yes, appearing threatening and capable of inflicting injury on the U.S. is part of their game, it's not the endgame. They want to build nuclear missiles so that they can sell the technology to whatever nasty state has the money. The leadership realizes they need more economic activity, but doing it on the West's terms is not acceptable to them. So, they're doubling down on the black market.

    Now, for those of you who Hate America, can you perhaps see why North Korea attaining nuclear missiles is a worldwide threat? Imagine every crazy dictator or extremist group out there gaining nuclear launch capability.

  87. Re:December: they aimed for Japan and hit Philippi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    watch out Russia!

    Watch out for who? We possess the largest nuclear stockpile in the world and a formidable missile defense. Whoever fires a missile at us is a dead man.

  88. Re:Do you do work in ports? No I didn't think so. by LunaticTippy · · Score: 1

    If the wikipedia article is more informative you should have linked to it. You provided a google search link that refuted your claim. If you have such little faith in quoting random crap off the internet, please refrain from giving links to random crap on the internet.

    --
    Man, you really need that seminar!
  89. Re:A parallel thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Humans look for patterns to explain things they cannot grasp. Hence religion, and idiotic views that international politics and educating/raising children can be even remotely similar

  90. US's trump card: Japan by unixisc · · Score: 2

    As Charles Krauthammer once pointed out, one trump card that the US has vis a vis China is Japan. The last thing that China ever wants - for historical reasons - is to see Japan go nuclear, and they know that since Korea (both) too is a tradiitonal rival of Japan, if North Korea went full nuclear (in terms of launching abilities), the US could simply let Japan know that they have no problems w/ ending the WWII requirement that Japan never re-militarize. The last thing that China wants would be a re-militarized, nuclear Japan, which is why they are doing what they can to rein in Pyongyang. Let's see to what extent that works.

  91. Re:A parallel thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    International politics and child development are not even close to the same thing. It's scary that you even make a comparison.

    You think North Korea's educational system included psychology as one of its courses?

  92. Re:Why is china allowing a nuclear power next door by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    Yes I get that.

    But why would you give your psycho neighbor next door an AK-47 just to annoy the guy down the street?

    A missile that puts LA in range puts ALL of china in range.

    Given a half dozen nukes on missiles like this, all of china could be held hostage. I'm wondering if china is thinking this one through.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  93. Re:December: they aimed for Japan and hit Philippi by circletimessquare · · Score: 1

    Well be prepared for the idiot mad dog nation you helped create

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  94. Dear Leader by SirVirtual · · Score: 1

    I have to ask......am I the only one that, when I see the "Dear Leaders" picture, hears Tommy Chong say "hey man, who cut your hair?"

  95. Provide plenty of food-aid by phorm · · Score: 1

    And put something very subtle in it that affects birth-rate. Perhaps something that disables the "Y" chromosome (or perhaps the other way, something that would cause predominantly male births instead).

    Nothing contagious etc mind you, this isn't something that you'd want to mess with passing on. Just something that's persistent so long as people are eating the food.

    It's a long-term solution. But as I'd imagine those "in-favour" will consume most of the food-aid, suddenly you're going to have a population with a huge female-male ratio. I'd imagine that while the few remaining males would enjoy that ratio for awhile, over time it's going to eventually significantly reduce the ability to increase population through internal procreation.

    Oh hell, perhaps if they could match for aggression, spread something that will eventually lead to a population that is very passive and non-warlike.

  96. Came for news by AbominousSalad · · Score: 1

    Saw the article was by timothy

    Stopped reading.

    --
    Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"