American Illusions and Korean Realities: Preventing Conflict on Korean Peninsula
38north.org
38north.org
The top article says that the "Trump administration’s policy (...) has significantly increased the risk of a disastrous war", but has it? Who would actually start a war over that policy? The author himself says that the DPKR is trying to defuse tensions, so who else?
Except for a few sleepless nights for the citizens in range of a NK ICBM, the results of the current "crisis" seem mostly positive.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/the-madness-behin...
It doesn't look like. They did what they wanted to do (test their nukes and ballistic missiles) and now they're offering the carrot of better relations with their south counterpart. Trump has been substantially ignored.
Apparently someone managed to explain to Trump that he has no military options and that nobody in the region appreciated his crazy talk.
Three of China's top 5 trading partners are the US, Japan, and South Korea - it's economy has thrived for the last decade+ because of those nations most impacted by North Korean threats. China may not have that much leverage, but they know where their bread is buttered. More importantly, China wants to be a global power. The US government policies while directly failures vis-a-vis North Korea, also highlight China's impotence to other players on the world stage. To take that final global power stride, they will need to deal with North Korea at some point.
Bigger picture, I feel like whenever these kind of analytical pieces surfaced in the past, they rightly always included a point about proliferation, something that seems missing these days. If the world moves on and grudgingly accepts North Korean nukes, what stops Japan from getting one? How about Taiwan or South Korea? Same concern goes with Iran's program - what stops Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Egypt from getting one?
It is a slippery slope argument, but the consequences of the number of nuclear powers doubling are pretty dang grave, maybe it is one slope we can keep an eye on.
They're a key manufacturer and exporter in the world economy, are making inroads in terms of military prowess, and has some of the biggest influence in their region and probably soon, via the soft power infrastructure projects, in Africa as well. The US and Russia are still playing games in the Middle East but there's not a day that goes by that you don't see some news out of China.
https://medium.com/p/ebf86a16ebee?source=linkShare-c2fa2c34f...
I like how he dismisses the potential horrific consequences to the SK population with the argument "well, they should have moved when we told them". Fuck this guy, frankly.
Now back to that if.
The current regime in NK is rational and interested in self-preservation above most else. That is generally agreed upon. So it is not likely they would attack first. So Seoul vs American City is not probably a real choice.
That said, they have no wish to integrate into the international order, frequently make threats of mass destruction, and seem likely o try to use nuke capability/threats to make demands on their neighbors. They are flying missiles over Japan. Then there is the fact that the regime is genuinely evil to their people, which makes political upheaval more likely given any weakness, sudden events, etc. And frankly, I do not like the threat of nuclear exchanges that can reach my family and friends from an actor as irresponsible, immoral, and backasswards as NK. It is already a tragedy that the largest countries have nukes, but proliferation is very dangerous.
"there is no sign that North Korea is contemplating an imminent launch which would make it a preemptive strike"
Other than Kim's direct threats to do so?
Edit: on further reading, I strike my first sentence. The author's credentials and site sponsors seem legit. Disagree with the thrust of the article though.
So no, not DPRK propaganda, but also not the US propaganda you may be attuned to. AFAIK it’s one of the most respected and non-partisan sources for information on the peninsula.
Did he actually [relatively recently] state something along that line that was not conditioned on the violation of North Korea's sovereignty or something similar, i.e. an offensive attack?
> A telling blow should be dealt to them who have not yet come to senses after the launch of our ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) over the Japanese archipelago
> Let’s reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness. Let’s vent our spite with mobilization of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now
> [The U.S. should be] beaten to death like a rabid dog
> The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us
It was not conditional. These were in response to support of UN security counsel sanctions following the ICBM launched over Japan.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/22/pakistan.usa
>It was not conditional. These were in response to support of UN security counsel sanctions following the ICMB launched over Japan.
If they were in response, they sure sound like conditional then.
Their playing with fire and pissing match with Islam (including pissing whole populations, funding rogue groups, and their favorite regimes in the region) has already costs all of us dearly, including in Europe. Heck, we still have an influx of desperate peoples from every country they destabilized in the past 10-15 years.
Say what you want about colonial European powers, but scum as it were, it still managed to control 2/3rds of the globe with much more nuance and diplomacy than the barbarians at the other side of the Atlantic.
>Well, maybe you will have some empathy if after america falls, North Korea decides to target europe with russia.
I also don't read many fairy tales presented as political analysis.
Plus, an action like an embargo or sanction can be devastating to a country while still being "non-military". That old BS embargo on Iraq has claimed hundreds of thousands lives for example [1].
In fact, what we do have now is that "non-military" action happening, and no counter-response. So, it's more like them sucking up and taking it, with some verbal threats added to save face.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7...
Maybe. Irrelevant to the evidence you asked for though.
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/22/pakistan.usa
(1) That was actually conditional on future Pakistani decisions. (2) That was a remark by an assistant secretary of state, and the president rejected it.
> If they were in response, they sure sound like conditional then.
Everything governments ever do is conditional by that standard.
Not really, the more shameless governments can do stuff that's entirely unprovoked, and that concerns stuff thousands of miles away from their borders.
The colonial conquest of India, for example, wasn't conditioned on some threat or action from India against the UK.
Let me know if you find it.
Because it doesn't go well with the yellow "serious" media and official "experts" that shape 99% of the narrative?
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/24/news/economy/treasury-north-...
ANALYSIS: North Korea would fall without oil support
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-13/sanctions...
But what do you expect from dicatorships in China and Russia. It's a good thing we already are sanctioning Russia, and we're starting to impose tariffs on China (solar panels, washing machines, soon steel and aluminum) and fines on China (forced tech transfers from US companies to Chinese government). China is starting to falter economically, with labor cost rising, middle income trap, massive debt, capital outflow, factories moving out of China to SEA or back to the states. We need to put more pressure on China, or else North Korea will be the puppet that sends a nuclear missile straight into Silicon Valley
What? What is the logic behind this conclusion?