Korea Thread: Liberal Moon Jae In Elected

[mongers]

I don't know Jacob, but given what you've said and what we know about N.Korea, usable nukes are the Kim family's crown jewels: the only way I see them 'giving' them up is through use.

Trump's 'bluffing' if that is what it is, seems almost designed to force NK to use them or lose them, hence precipitating the war he's MacArthuring for.


I don't see China intervening to kill Americans, but I can see a face-to-face confrontation where they call his bluff, perhaps by occupying the rump N.K. state?

[grumbler]

If this is a bluff, China is the target, not NK.  Trump may be trying to get China to act to preempt him.  Kim rules by suffrage of China.

[Jacob]

Would it be better to get it over sooner rather than later? Every year they build shinnier toys.

Yeah, the US military is only going to get tougher.

[HVC]

Would it be better to get it over sooner rather than later? Every year they build shinnier toys.

Yeah, the US military is only going to get tougher.

I see what you did there . New Kim isn't the most stable and seems worse then his predecessors. I don't trust him not to do something stupid.

[CountDeMoney]

Blind brinksmanship is not the way to pressure China.  They don't do brinksmanhip, they don't like improvisation, and they certainly don't like being misread.  It makes them nervous, and they get all twitchy and shit.

[Ed Anger]

Is it time to have unprotected sex?

Yes!

[Ed Anger]

Tim better have a bug out bag ready.

[mongers]

Tim better have a bug out bag ready.

Yeah, not a bad idea.

I did considering PMing to suggest he call in sick for the rest of the week and book a couple of  ferry tickets out of Pusan for the weekend. 

[Jacob]

Tim better have a bug out bag ready.

Yeah, not a bad idea.

I did considering PMing to suggest he call in sick for the rest of the week and book a couple of  ferry tickets out of Pusan for the weekend. 

Maybe just post in this thread instead?

[mongers]

Tim better have a bug out bag ready.

Yeah, not a bad idea.

I did considering PMing to suggest he call in sick for the rest of the week and book a couple of  ferry tickets out of Pusan for the weekend. 

Maybe just post in this thread instead?

Tim may become the first* Languish forced to flee a warzone. 



*excluding Bmollson's serling efforts with a plant-pot at the battle of Sweated-labor.

[Ed Anger]

The Michigan SSGN is in the area. 154 tomahawks.

*puts hand down in pants*

[frunk]

If this is a bluff, China is the target, not NK.  Trump may be trying to get China to act to preempt him.  Kim rules by suffrage of China.

I think if China really wanted Kim out he would be gone already.  Trying to bluff China into doing something isn't going to get anywhere.  Why should they act when they could call our bluff and we either look like fools or blunder into an unnecessary and dumb war that is likely to devastate one of their local rivals (SK).

NK is a trap that China has set for anybody who is stupid enough to do something about them.

[CountDeMoney]

*excluding Bmollson's serling efforts with a plant-pot at the battle of Sweated-labor.

That was a righteous uprising of the people against a dictatorial foreign slavemaster.

[CountDeMoney]

Tim better have a bug out bag ready.

Dumbass has it filled with anime DVDs and stupid cosplay kitten ears.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I tend toward thinking that Donald is easily over-awed by his military top brass and is taking cues from them on North Korea. The military leadership is often more bellicose than a typical Dem President, and I think Trump is running out some things they've been wanting to do for awhile.

But I also think the brass are the most aware of how rough an actual war on the Korean peninsula would get, so are unlikely to advise him into that. I think there are many that really believe we can push the needle more, likely to the point China gets mad enough over some overreaction by Kim that they take more serious actions against him.

FWIW I think that's unlikely. China is/has been pretty incrementalist in their thinking, in some ways the communist party rule has done a good job the last 25 years making sure the people who run the country aren't hot heads. I think China believes the long term trajectory on North Korea still works to their advantage. For example before some recent troubles, Kim Un has had more foreign investment in North Korea than ever before, more North Korean workers crossing the Chinese border in those semi-slavery arrangements they do, and there has been a notable loosening of state grip on the black market. I think China believes all of these things will slowly, glacially slowly by our standards, make NK start to look more and more like say, 1980s China, a country ripe for full market reforms. Once that happens they think it's inevitable you see an erosion in the sort of cult of personality rule that has dominated North Korea since Sung took power.

The Chinese are usually playing a longer game than us, and they have no problem with a scenario that takes 35-40 years to play out.

The risk of the Chinese approach is that North Korea doesn't go in that direction, and that the Kim regime becomes dangerous unstable but armed with nuclear weapons if some of these changes cause instability in North Korea itself. Part of what China also maybe isn't factoring in as much as it should, is part of China's own transition along these lines was in large part facilitated by Nixon's "opening" relations with China, which started the long process in which huge amounts of commerce between China and the United States fueled serious economic growth in China. I'm not sure we're going to see anything similar with North Korea as long as they have nuclear weapons, and in fact we're going to see the United States using a lot of its energy to try and keep North Korea economically isolated...one thing that appears to be more or less working, only China does significant business with North Korea now, and even that is being closed off at the moment.

The reality is Trump isn't playing that different a strategy on North Korea than Obama did, his rhetoric is different, but both Obama and Trump basically tried brinkmanship. Obama did it a few years back then decided to deescalated, and he avoided ever speaking as harshly as Trump has, but the core elements of the strategy are the same. Basically we've been running the same playbook on North Korea ever since we found out they had violated the Jimmy Carter negotiated nuclear deal under Clinton, which happened in the first term of the Bush administration. I think this strategy is dangerous because I think repeated series of brinkmanship has real chances of causing a war. All you need to do is bluff good enough that Kim thinks we're really going to attack him, and it's not that crazy to imagine Kim himself doing an insane pre-emptive strike, feeling it necessary because he fears we're about to blow his regime up and he wants to kill a lot of people before he goes to that big buffet in the sky.

I've always said there aren't a lot of good answers on North Korea, and I think both the American and Chinese perspective are fraught with potential perils.