ANALYSIS: North Korea as a Nuclear Power

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

ANALYSIS: North Korea as a Nation of Starving People

I honestly don't get the point of this comment.

I thought I recalled past news of North Koreans suffering from repeated famines.
Surely they're not doing much better?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Evil Knevil
True, but I'd think you could get the UN and Europe on board for this....

1) What could the UN do that it isn't already doing?

2) How would Europe be able to help when the RoK and China are the two countries have the closest relationship with the DPRK?

[Drake Tungsten]

I thought I recalled past news of North Koreans suffering from repeated famines.

Surely they're not doing much better?

True, but what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Eli
How good is NKs conventional military? What do they have?

4th largest army in the world, tens of thousands of artillery pieces aimed right at downtown Seoul: Their army is better rained and mroe disciplined than the Iraqis: they don;t have much armor or aipower, but the terrain of Korea does not make that a great disadvantage. IN a war against the US and SK North Korea looses, but such a war, even non-nuclear, would kill hundreads of thousands.

One reason I think the S Koreans are not that eager to confront NK harshly is that if N Korea colla[pese, you get one KOrea, but NK is a dump, and the South would for decades have to bear costs of hundreads of billions to bring it up to S korean living standards. They know that whatevere happens, they swallow the whole bill of making N Korea a modern place, not the US, China, or Japan. Plus the Koreans are probalby more distrustufull of their erzats allies in Japan than they are about "brothers" in the North, or the Chinese.

As for Taiwain..I still don;t see how a nuclear NK might matter to them: If everyone in the area starts going nuclear, perhaps, but I can not see how the Chinese might take that, and for a while they might be very tempted at a first strike to destroy all Taiwanese nuclear facilities and possible locations for any weapons, and that they can do.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

I thought I recalled past news of North Koreans suffering from repeated famines.

Surely they're not doing much better?

True, but what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

Can someone tell him what spam is?

I was just bored, so I thought I would add another thread title within the thread.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Eli
How good is NKs conventional military? What do they have?

I read the CIA extimates that they put 70% of GDP in to the military. Most of their stuff is older Soviet Designs but old artillery will still do a bang up job if given a chance.

[Odin]

Scary sh!t!!!

[PLATO]

War with DPRK is inevitable IMO. They rarely compromise, always demand more, and seldom keep their word. They already sell heavy duty missles to anyone with cash. Why do want to believe that they will do any different with nukes? They, like ROK, want an eventual reunification...with thei vision being a head of state named Kim. Every year they come closer to being ready to try again. With nukes they may feel the urge. We simply cannot allow them to wreck havoc on ROK and Japan. Does anybody have any idea how much of our economy is based on these two places? This is a classic example of the appeasement process when you are dealing with a regime that has no desire for the compromise. Start prepositioning stuff in the Pacific now 'cause it won't be that long.

[mrmitchell]

Pakistan and India have nukes too....the best thing we can do is let them know about his old Cold War-era tactic called "MAD".

(It might not be as effective on them though when they find out theirs are brand new and ours are old sh1t)

[PLATO]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Pakistan and India have nukes too....the best thing we can do is let them know about his old Cold War-era tactic called "MAD".

(It might not be as effective on them though when they find out theirs are brand new and ours are old sh1t)

I don't believe that MAD will work with Kim. He tends to react on the side of confrontation when opposed with force, not on the side of survival.

[Cruddy]

I would place a little more faith in the common sense of the leaders of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan not to develop nukes.;

For the simple reason - they are under the US umbrella anyway. Any aggressor launches a nuclear attack against those territories will themselves be destroyed.

In short - an NK could be considered a threat only if led by a suicidal nut. Kim Il Jong has many traits - self destruction is not one of them.

As for NK distributing nuclear weapons to others - any ship in international waters with nuclear materials on board is subject to IAE inspection. They wouldn't get far.

They might declare war over it - and if they do that, again they die.

Only way out of this mess for Kim Il Jong is to build his nukes, keep the border with SK, and gradually fade away. Any other course will lead to the destruction of NK.

And they know it.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I read the CIA extimates that they put 70% of GDP in to the military. Most of their stuff is older Soviet Designs but old artillery will still do a bang up job if given a chance.

25%

[Odin]

I say we do a preemptive strike to distroy the artillery aimed at Seoul and then go knock the SH!T out of monkey-face Kim BEFORE they get nukes. I think preemptive strikes are not morally right but it is better than mushroom clouds over Tokyo, Taipei, and Anchorage.

Cruddy, Kim has no common sense, he is a psycho, not an evil genius like his dad.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Odin
I say we do a preemptive strike to distroy the artillery aimed at Seoul and then go knock the SH!T out of monkey-face Kim BEFORE they get nukes. I think preemptive strikes are not morally right but it is better than mushroom clouds over Tokyo, Taipei, and Anchorage.

Cruddy, Kim has no common sense, he is a psycho, not an evil genius like his dad.

I have enough doubts about the ability of the US military to blast the artillery before it levels Seoul that this is probably not an attractive option to residents of SK.

[KrazyHorse]

And it's very close to being too late for this. NK's first priority seems to be that of developing both true ICBMs and nukes.

Which puts Seattle and LA on the front lines.

Anyhow, the Chinese wouldn't react too well to that.