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Comment by drdrek | Hacker News Reader

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This is just domestic politics, not related to international events as far as I can tell. Even the North Korea sympathizer line from the President seems forced.

> This is just domestic politics, not related to international events as far as I can tell

Korea is the largest shipbuilder in America's system of alliances [1]. Seoul would be critical in a war in the Pacific [2]. Korea flipping from democracy to conservative autocracy has geopolitical implications.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_shipbuildi...

[2] https://www.voanews.com/a/us-navy-looking-to-s-korean-japane...

But conservative autocracies have traditionally been America's allies, like, erm, South Korea during the cold war. So same old, same old?

I guess it might piss off China though if they do go truly looney.

> conservative autocracies have traditionally been America's allies, like, erm, South Korea during the cold war. So same old, same old?

"President Yoon has taken an overwhelmingly pro-US policy compared to previous presidents," and his "PPP is fiercely anti-communist and advocates a hawkish policy against North Korea" [1].

On the other hand, "conservatives in South Korea place more importance on economic pragmatism than liberals, so they try to avoid friction with China on Cross-Strait relations, Korean culture and Korean history" (Id.).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Power_Party_(South_Kore...

That may be the case, but the reason for the coup seems to be domestically motivated and claims of foreign influence seem to be made up to create an "enemy within" scenario to justify the coup.

This is very likely done for his own domestic reasons, unrelated to NK.

Ask me in 200 years when I can look back in history and see how this turned out. It could be either, or just another case of something happening that didn't mean anything long term. Only time will tell.

Of course in 200 years we will both be dead so you can't actually ask. Depending on how long you live you might be able to look back and state something conclusive. However nothing should be stated at all for 10 years, and until 20 years have passed all statements are very low confidence.

A few years ago I accompanied a friend to a talk by an academic historian, for other academic historians, about the period between the world wars. The presenter made a joke like "it's hard to say when precisely world war 2 broke out, but we know world war 3 began in 1914."

It took me a minute to get it but the audience responded very well! There was professionally appropriate chortling but a lot of nodding also.

We aren't even 100 years out from WW2 and the amount of revisionism and outright denial of events is discouraging, I'm not sure 200 years past will be any more accurate.

Another commentor mentioned Orwell and I'm reminded of the brouhaha over chat-gpt refusing to say a certain person's name. How will the past be accurately represented if chatbots used by future students can be manipulated like that?

WW2 seems to be on that optimum age for peak disinformation campaign. Nobody remembers it anymore, but it is still relevant enough that people have an emotional response to it.

-zhou enlai

Neither, it's entirely about domestic politics. Everything about NK is an excuse for what's just a power grab.

Well the North Koreans are fighting in Ukraine, so if instability in South Korea that may take some pressure off if NK is preoccupied at home.

Probably not, given the lack of actual evidence of this.

We ARE in WW3's prologue if not in the war itself, even if nothing major kicks off right now. The world's seeing this major power shuffle - US losing its grip while China keeps gaining ground. Both the US and Russia are trying to tear down the international system the US built after WWII, while China and Europe are holding onto it like a life raft. Even if today's tensions fade, this fundamental clash isn't going anywhere. We have a major war in Europe right now.

A reminder: World War II had different start dates for different nations - July 7, 1937 for Japan (invasion of China), September 1, 1939 for Europe (German invasion of Poland), and June 22, 1941 for Russia (Operation Barbarossa). Similarly, World War III may mark different start dates - for Ukraine, it will be 2022.

I think WW3 has already started, it's just not evenly distributed yet.

We've been in the prologue to Version 3 since the end of WWII.

It's the nature of what we, the citizenry, have allowed to happen with our governments and multinational corps: destruction of the environment, subjugation of the people, and arming themselves to the teeth instead of prioritizing peace and prosperity for one and all.

Compassion is the only viable step forward, and its manifestation requires stopping the brutal oppressors of the world in their tracks, because unseating them from entrenched power gets messier by the day.

George Carlin's bit about his family's views on tolerance are gospel. While presented in a comic way, they are bang-on, and align with the truly foundational truth of the Paradox of Tolerance.

The Long Road to War, a recent documentary about ww1 opened my eyes regarding geopolitics. The gist is that conflict was bound to happen, the spark that started was just the first domino to fall to set everything in motion. The way the leaders and top level brass think is in terms of opportunity. Country x is weaker now, they will be superior in 10-15 years, let's attack now while we have an advantage. Or in the opposite case, lets wait until we build canals, railroads, weapons and so on. The reasons for war can be fabricated with a false flag operation or expedited with provocations. Also in the meantime countries can keep smaller war zones active, this is to ensure the readiness of troops, they can have direct battlefield experience and know-how.

We always have to contend with the lowest common denominator. Maybe there is a certain percentage of progressive compassionate people that are interested in everyone's prosperity, but the rest are easily swayed and mobilized, so when the shit hits the fans we are all forced to choose sides and fight to survive. Another issue is that there always comes an easily impressionable generation that hasn't seen war and is eager and ready to go and fight for national ideals and reclaim those mythical glory days.

All of what you say is true, but the overarching fact remains that all those problems are caused by selfish justification of one party's benefit at the expense of others. While a good people must prepare for war when their neighbor demonstrates oppressive intentions, the overall state of the world is one of competition over cooperation, selfishness or selflessness, greedy hoarding over generous sharing, and callous disregard over empathetic compassion.

And, yes, the unfortunate fact is that compassionate, awakened-to-a-better-way-is-possible folks are thin on the ground, indeed. As with all things human, we each have the choice to learn how to be better, and the power to do it. It is our human potential, so sadly denied as even possible by the vast majority, to our collective misery.

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