Oh lovely, lets all sit back and enjoy the festivities. /sarcasm

The world sucks, heh.

I saw this on Foxnews this morning

Link

It's been a few days that I saw this...

It isn't missles I'm concerned about....

Easy now, this has all happened before (and will happen again so long as Kim Jong Il or someone from his family, like his son, is in power)

Let's look at the formula that's been very well established over the years.

1) North Korea is essentially contained, by and large. Their only economic trade outside of their borders is with China and whomever they can sell soviet era weaponry to. While they trade with China, even the Chinese have grown wary of relations with North Korea over the years. It's nothing personal, it's just that Kim Jong is completely and utterly batshit crazy, and they know this very well from putting up with him for years and years.

2) Because North Korea is largely contained, and therefore mostly forgotten on the other side of one of the most formidable lines of defense established at the 38th parralel, the only way that Kim Jong can get anyone to even notice that N Korea still exists is to do something belligerent and flashy. Like setting off a nuke underground or test-firing a missile

3) Precedent, precedent, precedent. If you'll remember, a couple years ago (or was it one year ago?) when they set off their first underground nuke.... what was the response? We promised massive amounts of free food, oil and other commodities if they gave up their nuclear program. Now, we gave them their food and there were images on TV of a cooling tower being collapsed by the N Koreans, but it was not their main reactor, we knew that they didn't really disassemble their program but we didn't make much of a stink about it (keep in mind this was all during the Bush administration, dealing with a nation that he included in the so-called axis of evil) Why was there not a harder response from us? 

Because it's all a game.

Every couple of years, North Korea does something flashy to get attention, we throw a few trinkets at them and say "okay, now go back behind your wall"

The reason why this time around is particularly more flashy than normal is for a couple reasons.

1) Since Obama took office he pretty much hasn't said or done jack about N Korea. They're not even on the radar of this administration as Obama's dealing with a nation in the throes of a collapse that's been coming ever since the early 70's when we went off the gold standard. So Kim Jong, the batshit crazy nutcase that he is, is personally enraged that the shiny new U.S president hasn't so much as looked in his direction yet.

2) Kim Jong is getting old, and the fact that he's batshit crazy combined with old age is making him even more unstable. Possibly more unstable in that he might order an all out attack against S Korea, but no one is seriously concerned about that. The real concern is that now that it's clear that his time as absolute ruler is coming to a close, there are lots of generals in the army jockeying for position. One line of thought is that a group of generals will take over and run the country, either using him or his son as a kind of figurehead that will be trotted out in front of the masses from time to time. Another line of thought is that Kim Jongs son actually will take the reigns as absolute dictator, in which case various generals right now will be jockeying for position to garner favor with him, in order to secure a good spot in his future regime.

Just my two cents

It has nothing to do with the democrats my good man, and more to do with the fact that the U.S economy has tried to have large quantities of both guns and butter since the end of WW2 (See President Eisenhower, a republican, speech about the dangers of the  military industrial complex  in the 1950's)

Vietnam was the breaking point. The Vietnam war essentially broke the bank, and when the ambassador from Great Britain showed up at the U.S gold window (rember currency valuation used to be based on gold) and requested to withdraw 3 billion dollars, a lot of central bankers were spewing their coffee that morning.

The simple truth was that the massive expenditures and debt incurred by that war meant that the U.S would need to have several hundred times more gold than it actually owned to pay it's expenses and keep the dollar from becoming about as valuable as a deutchmark (spelling?) in Germany circa 1920's.

So, the U.S went off the gold standard and instead placed the valuation of it's currency based on the "full faith and credit of the United States Government"- some fancy words that sound nice but mean very little at the end of the day.

This system was not sustainable. It never has been. What has kept it going all of these years has been a lot of smoke and mirrors

1) Massive exploitation of overseas colonies (in this case economic colonies, but colonies nonetheless)

2) The inflation of unsustainable bubbles, and when they collapse the creation and over-inflation of new bubbles. The dot-com bubble, the housing bubble,

3) Financialization of the economy- creating obscure and complicated financial methods that involves virtual money changing hands, and in the process creating MORE money with little to no actual work or production of any tangible good or asset behind that "wealth creation"

You should be. N. Korea knows that it's Air Force is less capable than any of it's neighbors. To try and deliver a nuke that way would have a high probability of failure. Missile technology is the best delivery method. It does not require air superiority. They are nowhere near close enough to weaponize a gun fired projectile, and then it would only have a range of 20 miles or so. Bad for Seoul but hardly effective in modern warfare. No missiles and nukes are like peanut butter and jelly, they were made for each other.

Apparently so. Some nations only understand action, which is unfortunate. When the US invaded Iraq the Iranians got so scared they stopped their nuclear weapons program. They finally resumed when the Democrats were calling Iraq a failure and wanted to cut and run. They know our congress all too well, and the same could be said for the N. Koreans. I don't want war as much as the next guy, but how many times do we stand there getting bitch slapped before we do anything? Should we wait until NK is stronger? My answer is no, it may hurt a little now, but it will be much more painful later. It wouldn't take much to damage the NK's infrastructure and the country would probably collapse easily, especially if China was on board.

That's more something for the Bin Laden-type cowards. North-Korea wants to project power, not an ability to do what every crackpot Islamic terrorist can do once given the right weapons by somebody else.

North-Korea has rockets that can hit Japan. I wouldn't expect them to attack the US directly. What would that be good for given that the US has a weakness in the form of the easily-accessible Japan and South-Korea?

If North-Korea hits the US with rockets a few times (or smuggles bombs into the country and blows stuff up), how long do you think the US should wait before responding, how should the US respond, and should we hold the US responsible for every single Korean death caused by the conflict (and possibly killed by the US response)?

(What would happen if North-Korea blew up the UN headquarters in New York? Would the Chinese pay for a new one?)

Sure a device could be smuggled, but the chance that the weapon would be detected before it could be used is much greater. NK hasn't had time to miniaturize a device. They would have to find some covert means to get it into the US (probably not an impossibility). It's not like they can put it into a container and ship it to the US. First of all I doubt anything arrives directly to the US from NK. Second all ports of entry have the capability to detect radiation. No, if they went this route i believe they would use it closer to home, if they were stupid enough to use it at all.

I do agree all avenues should be cover, and we should be vigilant in all respects. But, a missile launched nuke is really what they want IMO. Uncle Kim has a big ego.

Thank you for the insightful commentary! Please state why.

haaah ha ha haa aaaah ha ha haa haa haaaaa!!!!!

whew!

Thanks for the laugh. I needed that.

Please explain why a 10 trillion dollar debt (that can never, ever be repaid) owed by a nation that no longer produces very much actual products, should ever be taken seriously.

How do you know the protesters won't come out in force and demand a "proportionate" response, or better yet, no response at all?

I think the generals know very well (or at least might now think) that anti-western powers can do anything they like and that anti-western protesters will take care of stopping the response.

A few years ago when Bush taught everyone that America _will_ strike back it was different (that's when Gaddafi gave up his nuclear arms project). But today...