North Korea Conflict Thread

[Orson]

Some may call this premature. But with news like this....

WASHINGTON —
U.S. President Donald Trump has asked officials to give him options for removing the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Sunday.

As a U.S. Navy strike group steamed toward the Korean Peninsula to send a message to North Korea, McMaster told Fox News, "This is a rogue regime that is now a nuclear-capable regime. ... So the president has asked us to be prepared to give him a full range of options to remove that threat to the American people and our allies and partners in that region."

McMaster described the U.S. decision to send the Carl Vinson Strike Group to safeguard U.S. interests in the Western Pacific as "prudent." He said that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at their summit in Florida last week that Pyongyang's "provocative behavior" developing nuclear weapons was unacceptable.

"Presidents before and President Trump agreed this is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearization of the peninsula," McMaster said.

[Emphasis added]
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-wants-option-to-end-north-korea-threat/3802976.html

...perhaps not.

I would like people in Japan, South Korea, and China to help us parse perceptions there and understand how this plays out - in addition to the usual crowd.

Thanks.

 

[BrewDog]

I think far more Americans would have been on board with this action than bombing Syria. Kim Un has been threatening to hit LA with a nuke since he stepped into power. We know we has nukes and he has shown intent to use them. This is obviously a real threat to the safety of American citizens.

I don't like that we've now started a beef with Syria when the real threat is Kim Un. Our military is ridiculously big, but one thing at a time damnit. If Russia decides to support Syria and China decides to support Kim Un, then it's a real mess if China and Russia team up against us. If the US still can't control third world shitholes like Iraq and Afghanistan after 15 years, then I don't want to think about trying to stop a Russia/China alliance.

 

[Paracelsus]

Well, for those who came in late...

No, not this for those who came in late

...it might be worth a quick review of the status of the North Korean conflict.

Unlike most of the US's adventurism -- and like the one war the US won back in 1990 or so, albeit you'd hardly call 100 hours of bombing against an unmatched opponent a war really -- North Korea's hijinks are not just subject to the US's demands they stop, they have at least the sanction of the United Nations.

The Korean War has essentially been on hiatus since 1953. The UN's intervention, led mainly by the US, was under the authority of the UN Security Council declaration (Russia had been boycotting Security Council meetings at the time) and the two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty, only an armistice.

Russia could still piss and moan about the legalities of the declaration on the pretext that Korea is one nation, not two, but in practice North Korea breaking the armistice would certainly be a case for the UN to intervene as it did with Kuwait. On top of that, South Korea and the US have had a mutual defence treaty since 1953, so there's a number of bases on which war could be legitimately entered if North Korea strikes first.

Bear in mind there may be a lot of regional players who don't want the two Koreas reunited: per Wikipedia, a unified Korea could have great implications for the balance of power in the region, with South Korea already considered by many a regional power. Reunification would give access to cheap labor and abundant natural resources in the North, which, combined with existing technology and capital in the South, would create large economic and military growth potential. According to a 2009 study by Goldman Sachs, a unified Korea could have an economy larger than that of Japan by 2050. A unified Korean military would have the largest number of reservists as well as one of the largest numbers of military hackers.

So it wouldn't surprise me if, notwithstanding the nuclear threat, countries like Japan and China don't want the Korean War to ever end.

 

[Jameson Ranger]

Personal opinion... but I dont think this conflict goes down.

Seoul, one of the world's largest cities would be utterly pounded. No one will kick off that kind of casualty heavy war.

No country that would have to be involved, wants to be involved. That includes North Korea, fat body enjoys his internet and sweets way too much.

I served in Korea in 2003/2004. The South Korean Army is a joke. Americans aren't ready to cosign on the heavy lifting our youth would have to contribute in this conflict.

Best case scenario, china has to force the closure of NK nukes. Worst case... just another pissing contest.

Again. Just an opinion.

 

[Lunostrelki]

"The Chinese" as a blanket term doesn't account for regime infighting, which is a silent but deep-seated issue in Beijing. Xi can't rein in North Korea even if he wants to because North Korea is a fellow communist state and has a powerful lobby for it in the CCP. Xi can order sanctions; the CCP's international liaison branch can continue trading with Pyongyang all the same. If Xi makes too bold a move, he gets taken down by the rest of the Politburo for betraying the Party. Most likely this problem was discussed at Mar a Lago and the two sides came to an agreement on how to deal with Kim Jong-un. As I said in the Trump thread, the President probably ordered the Syria airstrike to show Xi that Trump means business. For what it's worth, China is usually quick to denounce all US interventions, but this time the foreign ministry said something to the effect of "we understand."

My guess is that Xi will figure out a politically acceptable way of forcing Kim Jong-un to give up his nukes, or he'll let the US send a Predator after him and then the Chinese will move in to impose suzerainty. South Korea is lacking in strong leadership and doesn't want to have to integrate 25 million impoverished new citizens. Xi gets to paint the intervention as a victory for socialism. Trump's approval rating will increase for fixing a 20-year crisis.

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Nothing will happen unless they can convince the North Korean leadership of surrendering.

North Korea can likely be taken by modern true high-tech weaponry - first blasted by a multitude of EMP bombs, some generals at the same time defecting by offering them massive deals and then a massive assault by Chinese, South Korean and American forces.

But I don't see anything like that happening anytime soon. So aside from the occasional statement you will see nothing.

 

[...]

There will no be conflict with North Korea. Trump might not be bright but he's not that dumb either. The Chinese have limited leverage, they have punished the Norkies and the Norkies have continue not to give one fuck by doing further provocations.

Predators are useless, ditto for EMPs...Kim Jong not-il has bunkers with huge lead-covered doors in case he gets nuked. Nigga is prepared for the situation.

I'll put $100 bucks on No Conflict.

 

[Arado]

Is there any reason why the U.S. and China can't make a grand bargain for North Korea?

China withdraws all economic support and stops trade with North Korea. North Korea regime collapses, or gets taken down if they lash out at the international community. South Korean forces rush in to establish a new government and seize the nukes, and we blanket the country with food and water so no one is in any danger of starving/etc and there is no massive refugee influx. The country eventually unifies under the South, short term expensive investment but massive prosperity in the long run as geopolitical risk is removed and S.K. now has access to all the mineral resources in N.K.

U.S. no longer has justification for keeping troops or THAAD missile defense in south Korea.

South Korea for thousands of years has been China's vassal and has far more in common culturally with China than the U.S. so I highly doubt that once the NK threat is removed they will continue being a yes man for the U.S.

I expect a unified Korea would be pretty neutral in the larger U.S. - China conflict, so China comes out on top. Before THAAD, Chinese people were all about Kpop, Korean soap operas, and travelling to Korea. No reason they can't do that in a unified Korea.

Why is this so unrealistic?

 

[pants]

Russia is also using nk workers to build fotball stadiums before the next world cup. This money goes off course mostly to Kim. Whatever is left after he dropped some cash on basketball tickets, goes to strengthening his military.

 

[Fast Eddie]

Is there any reason why the U.S. and China can't make a grand bargain for North Korea?

China withdraws all economic support and stops trade with North Korea. North Korea regime collapses, or gets taken down if they lash out at the international community. South Korean forces rush in to establish a new government and seize the nukes, and we blanket the country with food and water so no one is in any danger of starving/etc and there is no massive refugee influx. The country eventually unifies under the South, short term expensive investment but massive prosperity in the long run as geopolitical risk is removed and S.K. now has access to all the mineral resources in N.K.

U.S. no longer has justification for keeping troops or THAAD missile defense in south Korea.

South Korea for thousands of years has been China's vassal and has far more in common culturally with China than the U.S. so I highly doubt that once the NK threat is removed they will continue being a yes man for the U.S.

I expect a unified Korea would be pretty neutral in the larger U.S. - China conflict, so China comes out on top. Before THAAD, Chinese people were all about Kpop, Korean soap operas, and travelling to Korea. No reason they can't do that in a unified Korea.

Why is this so unrealistic?

Why is this unrealistic? Because the Chinese are not so completely retarded as to allow the Evil Empire to set up camp right on their border with North Korea. There is no way the Chinese are so stupid as to think the US would actually uphold its part of the deal once the Koreas are unified. :tard:

The Chinese are not led by Boris Yeltsin. They would never strike a deal that makes them risk everything upfront while being completely impotent to extract the payoff from the counter-party at the end. Especially when that counterparty is the United States (((government))).

 

[pants]

Compared to syria, Koreans are an actually fairly non violent culture with high intelligence.

Syria - violent islamist governed by a dictator to prevent the birth of a new islamist state.

Throwing the north Korean leadership will of course be far from easy, and even if it were done successfully it would take a couple of generations to fully integrate North Korea to Korea.

 

[BrewDog]

 

[Gmac]

Here we go... Could be posturing, but you never know. The man moves fast.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...-advisers-prepare-10197448?service=responsive

Trump orders military advisers to prepare plans to hit North Korea

It is believed that among the options are combined special forces raids and pre-emptive missile strikes

President Trump has ordered his military advisers to be ready with a list of options to smash North Korea’s nuclear threat.

One of the advisers, Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, confirmed his Commander-in-Chief has made the order as a U.S. carrier strike group heads for the region.

It is believed that among the options are combined special forces raids and pre-emptive missile strikes.

One of the problems facing an American-led operation to hit Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong-Un is the intricate tunnel network under the capital.

War-planners have had difficulty mapping out the subterranean complex and believe there are hundreds of underground artillery and airplane sites.

McMaster described the decision to redeploy the USS Carl Vinson to the Sea of Japan as ‘prudent’ given North Korea’s ‘pattern of provocative behavior.’

Speaking to Fox News, McMaster said: “It’s prudent to do it, isn’t it?

“Presidents before and President Trump agreed that that is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearization of the peninsula.

“The president has asked [us] to be prepared to give us a full range of options to remove that threat.”

The news comes after Trump launched cruise missiles against Assad in Syria last week, the first time the US has directly targeted the regime during the conflict.

North Korea denounced Trump’s attack as an act of ‘intolerable aggression’ and one that justified ‘a million times over’ its push toward a nuclear deterrent.

Meanwhile...

 

[Suits]

I served in Korea in 2003/2004. The South Korean Army is a joke.

Why do you say this?

 

[void]

Well, for those who came in late...

No, not this for those who came in late

...it might be worth a quick review of the status of the North Korean conflict.

Unlike most of the US's adventurism -- and like the one war the US won back in 1990 or so, albeit you'd hardly call 100 hours of bombing against an unmatched opponent a war really -- North Korea's hijinks are not just subject to the US's demands they stop, they have at least the sanction of the United Nations.

The Korean War has essentially been on hiatus since 1953. The UN's intervention, led mainly by the US, was under the authority of the UN Security Council declaration (Russia had been boycotting Security Council meetings at the time) and the two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty, only an armistice.

Russia could still piss and moan about the legalities of the declaration on the pretext that Korea is one nation, not two, but in practice North Korea breaking the armistice would certainly be a case for the UN to intervene as it did with Kuwait. On top of that, South Korea and the US have had a mutual defence treaty since 1953, so there's a number of bases on which war could be legitimately entered if North Korea strikes first.

Bear in mind there may be a lot of regional players who don't want the two Koreas reunited: per Wikipedia, a unified Korea could have great implications for the balance of power in the region, with South Korea already considered by many a regional power. Reunification would give access to cheap labor and abundant natural resources in the North, which, combined with existing technology and capital in the South, would create large economic and military growth potential. According to a 2009 study by Goldman Sachs, a unified Korea could have an economy larger than that of Japan by 2050. A unified Korean military would have the largest number of reservists as well as one of the largest numbers of military hackers.

So it wouldn't surprise me if, notwithstanding the nuclear threat, countries like Japan and China don't want the Korean War to ever end.

Read up on German reunification. Former Eastern Germany is mostly depopulated, brain-drained and deindustrialized by now, except the bigger cities.
Yearly estimated cost to bring it back to 1st world level "100 billion euros a year". NK would have to be transformed to a low-tax or no tax commerce zone for several decades for it to catch up. In the short to midterm, a reunified Korea will weaken South Korea.

 

[Roosh]

 

[Kona]

Do you think this is real?

https://www.infowars.com/unusual-navy-patrol-sparks-fear-of-foreign-sub-off-california-coast/

Is there a n. Korean sub 130 miles from California?

Aloha!

 

[Gmac]

This whole thing stinks... Why would all this be broadcast ahead of time? There's something more going on here...

 

[philosophical_recovery]

Do you think this is real?

https://www.infowars.com/unusual-navy-patrol-sparks-fear-of-foreign-sub-off-california-coast/

Is there a n. Korean sub 130 miles from California?

Aloha!

Even if they do, it's hard to believe that the tiny, impoverished dictatorship has the ability to do the engineering R&D to launch a missile without sinking itself. It's guaranteed that submarine is a noisy diesel without anything resembling modern tech. They probably hear the propeller, even on electrics, cavitating away from across the pacific. Oh, wait a second, they probably don't have enough power on that thing on their battery tech to do much.

Unless they had a lot of help from outsiders. But those outsiders would have to be idiots.

The US and USSR, at the peak of their cold war involvement, lost nuclear subs due to big production mistakes, like shitty post braze inspection on their high pressure saltwater piping. I cannot imagine a place like that, isolated from the rest of the world, is going to do much other than kill their own submariners and annoy everyone else.

If there's really an NK submarine there, then we know about it, and are ready to END it as soon as we hear one of their loud ordnance doors open. And their guys probably don't have evidence that we're even there. If they knew better, they'd be shitting themselves in that tin can a few hundred feet below the surface, if that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sang-O-class_submarine

 

[BrewDog]

Are these people legit? That should be happening right now.

Err... an hour ago.