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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I personally see very little risk from North Korea. Put simply, they know they’ll be destroyed if they lash out. They just don’t want to be invaded and deposed.

I wouldn’t doubt once they get their ICBM program up if they start improving living standards. They can then adjust their GDP allocation, and reduce their investment in their military.

To be clear, completely think their government is beyond horrible. Do not support or condone in any way. That said, I’m observing their own statements & actions, which indicate they are very defensive

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Then you agree with all sober analysts.

I mean, they basically agreed to disarmament and implemented it with nothing in return for over a decade. It took Bush tearing up the agreed framework, placing them on the axis of evil, and then the Iraq war (exemplar of what happens to states without a deterrent) for them to really reverse course on that.

Of course, that's all flushed down the toilet of history now, no such deal will be on the table again in our lifetimes.

I wouldn't hold my breath over living standards. But who knows, it's difficult to get an accurate picture of the internal situation there. Hi-res satellite pics of the garden gnomes in King Kim's garden, sure. But reliable human intelligence. Not something that that rapists, murderers and torturers at Guk-Jeong-Won (NIS) have a track record of.

"Fun" fact: both South Korea and North Korea plan on being the first to strike the other in case of a war. I'm sure you can see how that would make them more prone to take the risk.

It's also not enough to have ICBMs, they have already credibly tested those years ago, they want so many ICBMs that the US feels threatened by it (this is what deterrence means in practice), but not so many the US decides it has to do anything about it.

The distance between Pyongyang and Seoul is about 190 Km (120 Miles). Fancy a Nuclear War?

Edit: Just to clarify...I mean the distance between both is so short, a Nuclear War is absurd. There is no way to Nuke one country, without making your own country a radiation fallout zone.

The DPRK is probably planning to strike Busan or other ports where American reinforcements would be disembarking.

Do you have a source for the "fun" fact? What circumstances would ignite a war outside of striking first?

https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/08/15/south-korea-s-decap... provides this account of official ROK strategy:

> Every Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and high-explosive shells as soon as the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon.

For the DPRK the official strategy is not known as far as I know, but in 2022 they passed a new law explicitly authorising preventive nuclear strikes if "it is judged" that ROK is going to strike state leadership. See https://www.apln.network/analysis/commentaries/north-koreas-... which also links to a janky translation of the law.

Who would be "striking first" if "the North shows any signs of using a nuclear weapon"? Using a nuclear weapon would indeed be deemed an act of war. That sounds like self defense.

South Korea is explicitly aiming to striking first with the aim of entirely preventing the attack, so "any signs" should be read as "very early signs". The ROK generals are talking about striking significantly before the DPRK are clearly using a nuclear weapon, because attacking only in the case of clear use is striking in retaliation.

> I wouldn’t doubt once they get their ICBM program up if they start improving living standards. They can then adjust their GDP allocation, and reduce their investment in their military.

"Giant Evil threatens our motherland!" paranoia is very useful for keeping a closed society's dictatorship in power. Regardless of whether any Great Evil exists. Or has any interest in said motherland. Vs. over the past (say) 50 years, how many authoritarian governments have fallen, after their attempts to pivot from paranoia to more openness-and-prosperity-focused stances went wrong?

Definitely. South korea makes great use of it with sweeping and draconian national security laws, torture, spy agencies trying to rig elections, political parties being abolished, internet censorship, etc.

It's just that in the case of south korea the "giant evil" is a country with a military budget comparable to that of the LAPD, which would be "invading" (lol) over the most mountainous and well defended border in human history.

I don't think north korea will shift military budget away from defence as the region is getting more and more dangerous. The "liberal" Moon administration embarked on south koreas largest ever military buildup and Japan is re-arming and, for obvious historical reasons, is very hostile to north korea. Also, I don't think the North Korean government is all that competent.

>"Giant Evil threatens our motherland!"

Sounds a lot like the red terror propaganda you get about China, DPRK and formerly the USSR, from US media.

Or "al-Queda!" stuff during the Cheney Administration, or ...

I like your optimism.

For the rest of the world, I don't think they "will" but I don't like that they "could". And I expect we will be paying protection money accordingly...

> They just don’t want to be invaded and deposed.

It's a means of extorting food aid from, among others, South Korea without losing control over who ultimately receives it.

They're not self-sufficient in terms of agricultural output, but currently it's by design.

> I wouldn’t doubt once they get their ICBM program up if they start improving living standards

i'm not sure where this opinion comes from, i seriously doubt it myself

Yeah no doubt the global capitalist regime is licking their lips and has been licking their lips for a long time about the opportunity to open up and exploit North Korea... North Koreans want to preserve their community togetherness, which is almost stronger than any other nation in the world

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