North Korea joins the Nuclear Club

[The Scotsman]

I think we handle it by pressuring China. I think if you remove China from basically propping up the North Koreans, they will collapse.

..... you think China really wants to see NK collapse? More to the point do you think SK can afford to have NK collapse, the experts reckon that it would take upwards of 4-5 times SKs GDP to get the Norths economy functioning again!!!

As for China do you think they would want a vibrant capitalist economy such as a re-united Korea right on their doorstep? They've always been pretty leery abot that!

Its a really screwed up situation and I guess there's no real answer? But I guess at the moment its better to have them contained in their own little kindergarten, making stupid bilgerent statements and playing with pop-gun nukes than trying to re-build another failed state!?

Did you hear their comments issued yesterday by the Central Committee? "we no longer recognise the ceasefire" I almost peed myself laughing when I heard that - the mouse that roared!!?? Daft buggers........

 

[BigRob]

..... you think China really wants to see NK collapse? More to the point do you think SK can afford to have NK collapse, the experts reckon that it would take upwards of 4-5 times SKs GDP to get the Norths economy functioning again!!!

They certainly do not want NK to collapse for many reason, however I would argue that weighing that against a nuclear Japan, China would side with at least some form of regime change in North Korea.

As for China do you think they would want a vibrant capitalist economy such as a re-united Korea right on their doorstep? They've always been pretty leery abot that!

North Korea could collapse or undergo regime change without reunification with the South. I would think China would not mind a united Korea, as long as China was able to dominate it.

Its a really screwed up situation and I guess there's no real answer? But I guess at the moment its better to have them contained in their own little kindergarten, making stupid bilgerent statements and playing with pop-gun nukes than trying to re-build another failed state!?

I am not sure just sitting by thinking it is better than any alternative is the best course of action. North Korea sells every weapon system it has to anyone who will buy it. There are reports that Iranian "advisers" were present for the previous missile test, and sitting by while North Korea exports nuclear material and missiles is not something we should do. We have already seen how they do this with the BBC China, and we have had success in stopping some of it, but we cannot stop it all.

Did you hear their comments issued yesterday by the Central Committee? "we no longer recognise the ceasefire" I almost peed myself laughing when I heard that - the mouse that roared!!?? Daft buggers........

Well if you are South Korea, I would bet you are not laughing. If you are the roughly 30,000 American soldiers in the DMZ, I would bet you are not laughing. North Korea might not exactly be a "giant", but they can certainly cause a giant amount of damage.

 

[Hobo1]

No one knows what will happen after Kim Jong Il dies. No one knows the true, hidden power structure in North Korea. Remember the history of China after the the death of Mao - everything changed very quickly and certainly not to for the worse:

After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping quickly wrested power from Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng. Although Deng never became the head of the Party or State himself, though Deng was in fact the Paramount Leader of China at that time, his influence within the Party led the country to economic reforms of significant magnitude. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some[20] "market socialism". The PRC adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982​

With regard to NK's nuclear/ missile program, it is logical to assume only China can really put enough pressure on them to stop these destabilizing activities. It really is in China's best efforts to have a stable global trading environment. Countries like Japan and South Korea + plus many others in the world (including the US), are not going to let China play it both ways... they cannot support NK and still have all the benefits of being in the WTO. Think what an American boycott of Chinese goods would do to their economy.

If NK wants to sell its technology to other countries, then NK's list of enemies grows even longer. Possible customers for NK include Syria and Myanmar. Suddenly, all of SE Asia and India become possible targets! Considering the dust kicked up by Iran having nukes, I am sure Israel would never allow Syria to have a deployable nuclear weapons system.

All of this points to one conclusion... acting almost as a block, the world will put very heavy pressure on China to shut down NK's nuclear program. My guess they are feeling the pressure now. In all likelihood, their influence with crazy Kim Jong is not that great. So now, China is just waiting for Kim Jong Il to die, and then threaten a new regime to cut off all trade with NK until the nukes are dismantled.

 

[Andy]

No one knows what will happen after Kim Jong Il dies. No one knows the true, hidden power structure in North Korea. Remember the history of China after the the death of Mao - everything changed very quickly and certainly not to for the worse:

After Mao's death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping quickly wrested power from Mao's anointed successor Hua Guofeng. Although Deng never became the head of the Party or State himself, though Deng was in fact the Paramount Leader of China at that time, his influence within the Party led the country to economic reforms of significant magnitude. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens' personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China's transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by some[20] "market socialism". The PRC adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982​

With regard to NK's nuclear/ missile program, it is logical to assume only China can really put enough pressure on them to stop these destabilizing activities. It really is in China's best efforts to have a stable global trading environment. Countries like Japan and South Korea + plus many others in the world (including the US), are not going to let China play it both ways... they cannot support NK and still have all the benefits of being in the WTO. Think what an American boycott of Chinese goods would do to their economy.

If NK wants to sell its technology to other countries, then NK's list of enemies grows even longer. Possible customers for NK include Syria and Myanmar. Suddenly, all of SE Asia and India become possible targets! Considering the dust kicked up by Iran having nukes, I am sure Israel would never allow Syria to have a deployable nuclear weapons system.

All of this points to one conclusion... acting almost as a block, the world will put very heavy pressure on China to shut down NK's nuclear program. My guess they are feeling the pressure now. In all likelihood, their influence with crazy Kim Jong is not that great. So now, China is just waiting for Kim Jong Il to die, and then threaten a new regime to cut off all trade with NK until the nukes are dismantled.

Of course China may have called it "market socialism", but in fact it's free-market capitalism, which of course always works.

It's hard to tell whether China really wants N.K. to back down, or if it is just a political football to score points. But you could be right that they intend to try and make a play for political influence after Kim Jong dies. That would fit with China's overall clandestine infleunce policy they have used elsewhere.

 

[The Scotsman]

Well if you are South Korea, I would bet you are not laughing. If you are the roughly 30,000 American soldiers in the DMZ, I would bet you are not laughing. North Korea might not exactly be a "giant", but they can certainly cause a giant amount of damage.

....ah c'mon Rob, do you think they are going to march over the border guns blazing and swinging their astounding military might in face of the UN, they may scare the cleaners in the border guard houses but I think they'll probably get side tracked at the first convinience store they come across when they find out what food really is!!! The entire 1st Corp of North Korea Army patiently waiting at the checkout with their mac and fries the most chaos they'll cause is blocking the main road with abandoned machinery!!

And please don't get wound out about their pretend nukes. They are no more than fizzing holes of overhyped egos. The last thing you want to be in North Korea is a nuclear scientist as I think your career prospects are not particularly great as scientific expectations tend crash into physical reality...........

Dear Dear Leader,

I am most humbly sorry for bolloxing up that last nuclear test and using up about 10lbs of your nice valuable plutonium. I understand you may be a might miffed that I estimated in my last report a yeild of around 20KT and actually achieved a yield of less than the farts I'm doing in my shorts right now! However, if I may be so bold as to suggest, if we line up the Peoples Battalions and ask them to fart in the general direction of South Korea the resultant blast wave may well produce the same effect.......I hope!

May I humbly request we feed all the glorious soldiers of the revolution kimchi so as to have a ready supply of farts should a retaliatory strike be required!

Yours
Kim Park Lee etc. etc.
(ex-chief scientist)

........ nah mate, sabre rattling talk like they produced yesterday is some dingbats idea of a power play. Just another day in the hysterical internal meanderings of the NK power structure.

 

[PLC1]

....ah c'mon Rob, do you think they are going to march over the border guns blazing and swinging their astounding military might in face of the UN, they may scare the cleaners in the border guard houses but I think they'll probably get side tracked at the first convinience store they come across when they find out what food really is!!! The entire 1st Corp of North Korea Army patiently waiting at the checkout with their mac and fries the most chaos they'll cause is blocking the main road with abandoned machinery!!

And please don't get wound out about their pretend nukes. They are no more than fizzing holes of overhyped egos. The last thing you want to be in North Korea is a nuclear scientist as I think your career prospects are not particularly great as scientific expectations tend crash into physical reality...........

Dear Dear Leader,

I am most humbly sorry for bolloxing up that last nuclear test and using up about 10lbs of your nice valuable plutonium. I understand you may be a might miffed that I estimated in my last report a yeild of around 20KT and actually achieved a yield of less than the farts I'm doing in my shorts right now! However, if I may be so bold as to suggest, if we line up the Peoples Battalions and ask them to fart in the general direction of South Korea the resultant blast wave may well produce the same effect.......I hope!

May I humbly request we feed all the glorious soldiers of the revolution kimchi so as to have a ready supply of farts should a retaliatory strike be required!

Yours
Kim Park Lee etc. etc.
(ex-chief scientist)

........ nah mate, sabre rattling talk like they produced yesterday is some dingbats idea of a power play. Just another day in the hysterical internal meanderings of the NK power structure.

That sounds about right.

And yet, we have voices of doom here in the US saying that Obama is going to cut the military budget at a time when NK is producing nukes.

 

[BigRob]

....ah c'mon Rob, do you think they are going to march over the border guns blazing and swinging their astounding military might in face of the UN

The face of the UN? China is backing North Korea, what exactly is the UN going to do?

That said no, I do not think they are about to run across the border, but if I was South Korea or the American soldiers there I would be a little more worried about it.

And please don't get wound out about their pretend nukes.

Were the weapons that ended WWII pretend? That is about the size of the Korean weapons. While I do not think they are about to use one, should they go off the deep end (even more so than now) and detonate it around the DMZ, we are going to lose thousands of soldiers.

........ nah mate, sabre rattling talk like they produced yesterday is some dingbats idea of a power play. Just another day in the hysterical internal meanderings of the NK power structure.

Sure it is a power play, most things are. But to ignore it as such is a mistake. It could also be a power play to straight up invade the South, it just depends on the power dynamic and who is in charge.

Laughing this off is a mistake in my view. While I doubt we are about to have a war over there, we need to at least show some concern.

 

[BigRob]

That sounds about right.

Not really.

And yet, we have voices of doom here in the US saying that Obama is going to cut the military budget at a time when NK is producing nukes.

Well he is cutting the budget, most alarmingly at this point in missile defense.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

Not really.



Well he is cutting the budget, most alarmingly at this point in missile defense.

cutting the budget? if by that you mean spending more...then yes..yes some systems are loosing funds but others are making gains.

 

[PLC1]

cutting the budget? if by that you mean spending more...then yes..yes some systems are loosing funds but others are making gains.

Yes, that's how the federal government cuts the budget, by decreasing the rate of increase in spending.

 

[BigRob]

cutting the budget? if by that you mean spending more...then yes..yes some systems are loosing funds but others are making gains.

Please, read his own budget proposal. In terms of actual dollars we are seeing a slight increase that is not keeping up with inflation. In terms of dollars as a % of GDP (the real measure of spending), his own budget projects some of the lowest levels of defense spending since the Carter years.

 

[The Scotsman]

While I do not think they are about to use one, should they go off the deep end (even more so than now) and detonate it around the DMZ, we are going to lose thousands of soldiers.

couple of point on that - first is that the systems they have are not "deliverable" second is that so far all they've managed are fizzers. The last one they did apparently the yield was estimated at around 1.4-1.6KT which indicates that the whilst it seems to have initiated the bulk of the pu did'nt go critical? Pity the poor bugger who had to explain that one to the Dear Leader!!!

Laughing this off is a mistake in my view. While I doubt we are about to have a war over there, we need to at least show some concern.

....totally! I just get amused by all the hyperbole in the press. But what really hacks me off is that once again its the common people that bear the brunt of someone else's bloody madness.

 

[BigRob]

couple of point on that - first is that the systems they have are not "deliverable" second is that so far all they've managed are fizzers. The last one they did apparently the yield was estimated at around 1.4-1.6KT which indicates that the whilst it seems to have initiated the bulk of the pu did'nt go critical? Pity the poor bugger who had to explain that one to the Dear Leader!!!

Depends on what you are trying to deliver and where. In regards to their delivery systems, multiple government sources, including the Secretary of Defense, have alluded and basically stated that North Korea has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to put on medium range missiles. I would not bank on the idea that they cannot deliver a warhead should they want to.

....totally! I just get amused by all the hyperbole in the press. But what really hacks me off is that once again its the common people that bear the brunt of someone else's bloody madness.

Such is life in an authoritarian dictatorship it seems. However if I had to bet, I would bet that there are some "common" people in North Korea who flat out love their leader for what he is doing.

 

[The Scotsman]

multiple government sources, including the Secretary of Defense, have alluded and basically stated that North Korea has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to put on medium range missiles.

....... this is worrying! It indicates that they have time on their hands; politicians should not be allowed to say things to the public that have not first been tested in front of 5 year olds!

 

[BigRob]

....... this is worrying! It indicates that they have time on their hands; politicians should not be allowed to say things to the public that have not first been tested in front of 5 year olds!

Politicians do have a way of putting their feet in their mouths. All of that said, while North Korea is most likely doing a lot of posturing here, those who are directly threatened by their actions do not have the same luxury as you and I who are well out of range of any of their capabilities.