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Comment by Volpe | Hacker News Reader

> You seem to think having nuclear weapons is some sort of national right or something.

No, I don't think that.

> Nobody wants an unstable, belligerent, nasty dictatorship to have the ability to nuke other countries.

The US opened this can of worms and created an imbalance in the world. North Korea is surrounded by nuclear enabled countries (China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan).

As an aside:

What exactly is 'unstable' about North Korea... it's been the same ruling family for 50 years... I realise propaganda has permeated all of our views and it's difficult to see through the fog of misinformation but think about the words you use as you write them.

North Korea (from all credible reports) is a mess, and quite horrible for A LOT of people, THAT needs to change. I would not rate it any more "belligerent" than the US. It is definitely not unstable and its Nastiness extends only as far as its borders...

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The US... what? How?

The North started the Korean war, not the US.

US troops maintain a balance of power in the region, which has allowed South Korea and Japan to develop into wealthy, stable industrialised democracies.

Regardless of the longevity of the Kim family, North Korea has an unsustainable and fragile economic and political system which is widely suspected to be susceptible to imminent collapse, with unknown consequences. They have also frequently staged unprovoked fatal military attacks on Southern territory in the last few years. They were caught trying to smuggle probable nuclear components to Burma. They were caught trying to smuggle an enormous shipload of drugs into Australia.

They are not in any way equivalent to the US in terms of odious behaviour in the region.

'The US opened this can of worms' No it was Germany, and specifically Japan. US didn't decide out of the blue to build nukes.

US was expecting 0.5 to 4 MILLION casualties (just on US side) to invade japan as WW2 was nearing the end. Casualty on Japan would be many times bigger (most of them civilians).

The 200,000 deaths (mostly civilian), however regrettable, by the 2 nukes was considered a 'deal' compared to what an actual invasion of japan would've been.

> ... and specifically Japan. US didn't decide out of the blue to build nukes.

Seems a little unfair to Japan.

As FDR approved a project to investigate the Military Application of Uranium Detonation in October 1941. This was 2 months prior to the December 1941 Pearl Harbour attack. It seems unlikely that Japan, specifically, prompted the R&D that led to ...

In July 1945 the end result of the MAUD project came about in the Trinity tests of the first nuclear weapon, this was two months after the May 1945 German surrender, leaving the US with a weapon that needed testing and a Soviet frenemy that needed impressing.

As for the need to use nuclear weapons on Japan, well, the post war FDR FUD on that matter has obfuscated the extensive saturation bombing, using a mix of incendiaries and high explosives to burn Japanese cities to the ground that was already at play - from the Japanese perspective Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just another two cities levelled to the ground by the US, just two among the many others similarly destroyed.

There's an argument to made, and it's one for the historians, that the decisive factor for the Japanese was the fact that the Soviets were now free to invade Japanese territories. This is usually not part of the post WWII US narrative.

>> You seem to think having nuclear weapons is some sort of national right or something.

Well if it isn't a general principle you are defending then simply acquiring nuclear weapons is a good thing. Now if you think North Korea should have the ability to gain nuclear weapons then you certainly support any other country also getting access to nuclear weapons.

>The US opened this can of worms and created an imbalance in the world. North Korea is surrounded by nuclear enabled countries (China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan).

Hardly. Multiple states were developing nuclear weapons at the same time and the US developed them first.

>>What exactly is 'unstable' about North Korea...

A country that keeps 200,000 of its own citizens in camps doesn't exactly seem to scream stability. Now given that China is worried about a collapse of the North Korean economy and political structure your assertion is flatly ridiculous.

>>North Korea (from all credible reports) is a mess

so it is a 'mess' yet also not unstable. Countries that can't provide basic resources to their own citizens seem to be also be unstable. I wonder why that is...

>>and quite horrible for A LOT of people, THAT needs to change.

I'm not sure how getting nuclear weapons fixes that issue. In fact, North Korea spends upwards of 50% of its GDP on the military including its nuclear program.

The government is stable... Please show me evidence to refute that.

How many citizens are in prison in the US does that make it unstable? What a strange connection to make...

Yes the country is a mess, but the government is stable... They aren't mutually exclusive.

It doesn't matter whether nukes are going to fix the issue or not, sanctioning them for making nukes certainly isn't.

and its Nastiness extends only as far as its borders...

This is not strictly true - for example in recent years there has been the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.

Not quite so recent (ended in the 1980s) - kidnapping Japanese citizens from within Japan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Japa...

Okay, I'll qualify that with: and its borders are disputed.

That's just totally ridiculous. You believe that this view of North Korean belligerence is due to propaganda. Wow. Why don't you tell that to some refugees; that's just incredible. I think you're letting some sort of cultural relativism cloud your judgment.

It is unstable not in the sense of "who is going to rule the country." It is unstable in the sense of they behave irrationally, have irrational beliefs and motivations. The same way that we, mostly, don't think that a paranoid schizophrenic should have unlimited access to assault rifles, any sane, knowledgeable person, would not want North Korea to have nuclear weapons. Wow, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

> That's just totally ridiculous. You believe that this view of North Korean belligerence is due to propaganda. That isn't what I said. I said that they are no MORE belligerent than the US, I wasn't saying they are not belligerent. Please reread.

> It is unstable not in the sense of "who is going to rule the country." It is unstable in the sense of they behave irrationally, have irrational beliefs and motivations.

Oh sure, if we redefine what "unstable" means in the context of government, then sure, you are completely correct.

> Wow, that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Jerk.

I think that's a perfectly fine use of the word "unstable" in the context of government.

The US opened this can of worms and created an imbalance in the world. North Korea is surrounded by nuclear enabled countries (China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan).

That's irrelevant. NK gaining nukes would clearly be a negative development.

Also, did you just call Japan a nuclear power? Or are you just talking about nuclear power?

This manner of moral equivocating is disturbing. Even insinuating that the US is somehow on par with North Korea on the whole "regional destabilizing" scale is frankly a little insane.

Really, you don't think the US is a destabilising element in Asia?

They were involved in 2 wars that had no relevance to US security, purely for ideological reasons... They are still involved in one of those wars... They lost the other one...

Great stabiliser!

What do you think would happen if the West adopted an isolationist policy and stayed out of Asian affairs?

Maybe something like this won't happen:

http://costsofwar.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vietnam_War_casual...

I wasn't suggesting that... Only that Vietnam and South Korean War were anything but "stabilising" and their approach could have been different.

But I like your attempt at hyperbole.

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