[HN Gopher] North Korean missiles land in Japanese waters
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North Korean missiles land in Japanese waters
Author : mikhael
Score : 106 points
Date : 2021-09-15 19:39 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.japantimes.co.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.japantimes.co.jp)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Does China authorize them to test ballistic missiles?
| colechristensen wrote:
| Who knows what actually goes on in those meetings but it's
| pretty clear that China sets the boundaries for NK, Kim
| wouldn't alienate his lifeline too much. Doubtless China knows
| about them before they happen.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| I wonder how quickly North Korea's nuke problem would be solved,
| if the US quietly let China know that if NK stays nuclear, the US
| will support Japan and Taiwan developing nuclear weapons.
|
| With Japan and Taiwan's industrial sector and precision
| machinery, how long before they could develop nuclear bombs and
| ICBMs, maybe a few months?
| Sebguer wrote:
| Do you want WW3? Because this is how you get WW3.
| the-dude wrote:
| This is the most stupid idea I have read in a while.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > With Japan and Taiwan's industrial sector and precision
| machinery, how long before they could develop nuclear bombs and
| ICBMs, maybe a few months?
|
| Longer than the conventional invasion of Taiwan and destruction
| of its regime would take.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I believe they call this the "beheading" scenario - a small
| group of PRC ninjas could infiltrate ROC and surgically
| remove the government, causing the nation to de-exist, after
| which a swift invasion takes place. It won't take a full week
| and they won't last weeks afterwards. Only protection against
| that is American presence in the region.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Only protection against that is American presence in the
| region.
|
| No, the only protection is Chinese belief that the US is
| willing to engage in full-scale war to protect Taiwan;
| "presence in the region" but not specifically at risk in
| Taiwan doesn't necessarily acheive that (ask Ukraine!)
| Chris2048 wrote:
| What did conventional wisdom say about how well the US would
| do in Afghanistan? Or Vietnam?
|
| Plus, it the US supported the development of nuclear weapons,
| why not the loan of nuclear weapons?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The end result is that Taiwan would become a Chinese colony,
| Japan would get nukes to no appreciable geostrategic gain, and
| the entire economy would absolutely crater, killing millions of
| people.
| krapp wrote:
| Japan getting nukes would actually make their political
| situation much worse.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > Taiwan would become a Chinese colony
|
| If that's the case, why isn't it already?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Because of economic issues that would arise, as I touched
| on in the end. There's no reason for China not to wait 30
| years to be in an even better position and create reliable
| enough supply chains and allies so that their economy
| cannot be rattled significantly by the US.
| soheil wrote:
| > I wonder how quickly North Korea's nuke problem would be
| solved, if the US quietly let China know that if NK stays
| nuclear, the US will support Japan and Taiwan developing
| nuclear weapons.
|
| You're describing a nightmarish nuclear arms race scenario [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race
| FpUser wrote:
| >""I wonder how quickly North Korea's nuke problem would be
| solved, if the US quietly let China know that if NK stays
| nuclear, the US will support Japan and Taiwan developing
| nuclear weapons."
|
| Agile approach to solving world's problems?
| adventured wrote:
| If you were going to give/allow Taiwan nuclear weapons to
| protect itself, you'd have wanted to do it decades ago. And you
| wouldn't support them in developing nuclear weapons, you'd want
| to have quietly slipped nukes into Taiwan several decades ago.
| China was far less advanced in the 1980s and 1990s, it might
| have been possible to arm Taiwan with nukes back then, before
| China could stop it. Today if China found out Taiwan were
| attempting to develop nuclear weapons, they'd either invade and
| conquer the island in rapid fashion (at whatever cost
| necessary), or potentially glass it entirely (that's a serious
| consideration for China, and a good reason not to give Taiwan
| nukes at this point).
| Symmetry wrote:
| If you want to understand more about the current situation with
| North Korea and its strategic forces I highly recommend the Arms
| Control Wonk podcast. Also lots of cool info about open source
| intelligence!
|
| https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1213259/boiling-fish...
|
| I assume they'll have a cast on this test coming out pretty soon.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| They have one out about the 1500 km cruise missile test on
| Sunday now: https://armscontrolwonk.libsyn.com/not-lackin-lacms
| toufka wrote:
| And they often provide technical walkthroughs for how they go
| from satellite imagery (often from Planet) to their
| geopolitical conclusions.
|
| https://www.planet.com/
| yongjik wrote:
| North Korea makes nice sound bites, but I won't be surprised if
| Japan is secretly more worried about South Korea. The same day,
| South Korea successfully tested SLBM[1].
|
| These days, NK is pretty much a convenient excuse for South Korea
| and Japan to beef up their military. Of course there's very
| little chance they'll fight in near future (the US will never
| allow it), but either country will still want to have enough
| firepower as bargaining chip: even at the best of days, you can
| never completely rely on the US being your benevolent protector.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/skorea-
| su...
| travisporter wrote:
| Please admonish me for an ignorant question if needed, but what
| are the tensions between South Korea and Japan?
| numpad0 wrote:
| None of the East Asian countries are friendly like US and
| Canada are. Different ancestries, history of invasions,
| colonial rules, "liberation", etc.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93South_Korea_re.
| ..
| yongjik wrote:
| I wouldn't say there's a _military_ tension - well, other
| than the island of Dokdo (aka Takeshima) that 's stupidly
| blown out of proportion, but I hope nobody's stupid enough to
| go to war over it.
|
| However the two countries don't exactly have an amicable
| history. I hope we get along well with each other (and we
| kind of do, more or less), but Japan still has many right-
| wing politicians who downplay their past war crimes. On our
| side, some South Korean politicians love to use Japan as a
| convenient scapegoat and blame Korea's every social problem
| on past Japanese occupation.
|
| It's less about direct military conflict between the two, and
| more about who gets a larger voice in any kind of issues.
| With the two Koreas, China, Russia, and Japan crammed in such
| a small area, East Asia is a tough place. You need to be seen
| as someone others cannot ignore.
| michael1999 wrote:
| Japan ruled Korea 1910 to 1945 with all the brutality typical
| of imperial Japan. I'm not Korean, but I might bear a grudge
| if my grandfather had been worked to death in slavery, and my
| grandmother raped endlessly.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule
| nemo44x wrote:
| I was at a park in Seoul that had a mural running around it
| that illustrated very graphically this history. It was a
| very old mural. I think it becomes less an issue if it's
| your great grandfather and less and less each generation
| removed.
| jhj wrote:
| Despite the historical enmity, it seems that the public
| viewpoint towards Japan is shifting in SK though:
|
| > Political elites here are usually careful not to antagonize
| China, the country's largest trading partner. But Mr. Yoon's
| blunt rhetoric reflected a new phenomenon: a growing antipathy
| toward Beijing among South Koreans, particularly young voters
| whom conservative politicians are eager to win over.
|
| > Anti-Chinese sentiment has grown so much this year that China
| has replaced Japan -- the former colonial ruler -- as the
| country regarded most unfavorably in South Korea, according to
| a joint survey by the polling company Hankook Research and the
| Korean newsmagazine SisaIN. In the same survey, South Koreans
| said they favored the United States over China six to one.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/world/asia/korea-china-el...
| nemo44x wrote:
| You have to figure as the generations that were most affected
| by Japanese rule have died and are dying off, the new people
| see it as a historical thing that isn't relevant. Look at
| Europe for example - people hit over their ancestors
| grievances.
|
| The world turns and life goes on. People just want
| prosperity.
| the-dude wrote:
| I am obviously not a sailor : EEZ,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone
| hwers wrote:
| I always find NK as a threat such a silly idea. The moment things
| escalated to anything real they'd be wiped out or even if they
| did manage to put up a fight they seem so resource constrained
| that it'd be over within weeks. I can only imagine the reason it
| keeps being hovered over our head is because the US needs an
| enemy and russia and china are too powerful to put in that
| position anymore (but what do I know I'm just speculating).
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| NK has a very complex relationship with China and I'm fairly
| sure they would not be "wiped out" immediately.
|
| Even in the extreme case of North Korea nuking Japan, it would
| still lead to an extremely complex international situation. The
| US retaliating for Japan with a nuclear strike or any similar
| situation of extreme force would be a far too risky of a move.
|
| Not only is NK important to China strategically as a buffer
| between themselves and the US friendly South Korea, but the
| Chinese people feel a kinship with the people of NK, not
| entirely dissimilar to the way the US views Canada culturally.
| Aggressive retaliation would unquestionably make China an
| aggressive and active enemy of the US (or whoever decided it
| was their job to retaliate).
|
| North Korea's proximity to China, not just physically but
| culturally as well, makes the issue far more complex than if a
| rogue nation where make similar threats.
| Symmetry wrote:
| North Korea is currently hoping that their ICBMs mean they
| can toss around nukes in their back yard while not having to
| worry about the US nuking them back. If they can take out
| enemy seaports and air bases they might possibly have a
| chance against the conventional forces already arrayed
| against them in the Korean peninsula. It's, well, it's a
| terrible plan but maybe credible enough to dissuade the West
| from thoughts of regime change.
| contravariant wrote:
| Their main threat is that they can start a war that's
| incredibly prone to escalate.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's because even though North Korea would be destroyed, that
| wouldn't prevent millions of South Koreans dying before that
| happened.
| ketzu wrote:
| I thought for a long time that the north korean government acts
| so "crazy" is to hide this fact. If they were acting "sane",
| they wouldn't be taken seriously because of the massive power
| imbalance and the extreme retribution problem regarding nukes.
| tkojames wrote:
| China wants a buffer zone between them and south Korea. USA
| tells china make sure NK does not do anything to crazy. And yes
| if NK attacked south Korea they could kill lots of people.. but
| after that the USA would carpet bomb them until nothing was
| left. One of the above comments is very accurate. Basically NK
| Will not attack. And NK Will exist for as long as china sees
| value in it.
| soheil wrote:
| You realize NK is basically an offshoot of China, right?
|
| "They have a close special relationship and China is often
| considered to be North Korea's closest ally. China and North
| Korea have a mutual aid and co-operation treaty, which is
| currently the only defense treaty either country has with any
| nation." [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93North_Korea_rel
| a....
| soheil wrote:
| I feel like most people don't realize how close China and NK are.
| This is probably because the media doesn't discuss this link
| much. China would never let NK attack another country let alone
| launch nuclear missiles any more than the US allowing a Nato
| state to randomly attack another country it didn't like.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| what can NATO + Japan do? Sanctions don't work, scorn doesn't
| work, diplomacy doesn't work, and China isn't going to allow a
| military response
|
| basically NATO + Japan can pound sand and little else
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| War. War is the only thing that could still work. Of course,
| advocating _for_ war, even against a country as dangerous as
| North Korea, is a huge taboo in our public discourse. But it is
| the only solution left to the North Korean problem.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Since WWII, US never fought a war with the stated goal of
| winning at all costs. Modern wars are limited scale conflicts
| designed to have soft outcomes (e.g regime changes) rather
| than hard outcomes (annihilation of your adversary).
| SonicScrub wrote:
| This "solution" means Tokyo and/or Seoul gets nuked. That's
| hardly a solution.
| monocasa wrote:
| Or even if it happens before NK is a credible nuclear
| threat, Seoul is in range of thousands of heavy artillery
| emplacements that'll get at least one shot off. There's not
| really a counter to artillery shells like you can use for
| rockets like the iron dome, so Seoul would be pretty much
| guaranteed to be leveled, with countless dead.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"War. War is the only thing that could still work."
|
| Yeah, let web developers decide our future.
| adventured wrote:
| > what can NATO + Japan do?
|
| There is a solution to North Korea as it stands today. Chaos
| will take care of the regime eventually. Chaos is undefeated
| when it comes to wiping out totalitarian systems (quick, name a
| couple dozen 100-300 year old totalitarian regimes that are
| thriving today). That system won't stand forever. Plan as best
| as possible for what to do whenever the Kim dynasty finally
| implodes, whenever it inevitably gets toppled from within.
|
| The primary concern is a Myanmar style military junta, backed
| by China, taking over. Then you're more or less just back to
| square one. Unfortunately that's by far the most likely
| scenario. China has zero interest in seeing a unified Korea, in
| the model of South Korea, on its border - they will not allow
| it, and they have the capability to easily prevent it.
| dmurray wrote:
| > (quick, name a couple dozen 100-300 year old totalitarian
| regimes that are thriving today)
|
| That seems an unfair bar to set. There aren't dozens of
| liberal democracies with that long a history, either.
|
| The flagship oldest democracies (Athens, Revolutionary
| France) didn't last any longer than that. Arguably the USA is
| doing the best at 250-ish years.
|
| I don't dispute that NK's juche seems less likely to be
| stable in the long term than, say, Switzerland, but this
| seems the wrong way to go about the argument.
| ssijak wrote:
| Well, I would not call US before 13th amendment a democracy
| and that was 150 years ago. But to your point, liberal
| democracies are a new phenomenon.
| yongjik wrote:
| It's unclear that NATO + Japan _need_ to do anything. What is
| North Korea going to do, hit Tokyo? That would be the surest
| way to get Pyongyang "liberated" ASAP ...
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Let's say they don't attack with nukes but just shoot small
| conventional warheads every now on then, like Israel and
| Gaza. It's not enough justification to go for an all out war,
| being that NK have nukes.
| yongjik wrote:
| The thing is, North Korea is right next to South Korea, so
| they don't need fancy missile to stir up trouble. Simple
| artillery is enough, as they actually did in 2010:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Yeonpyeong
|
| And, contrary to some popular theories, actually attacking
| your neighbor is not that useful for bargaining. All it
| does is to make other countries very angry and call for
| more hardline policies. So the best NK can do is keep its
| madman shtick, not actually use the missiles, and demand
| larger concessions. But other countries would want, in
| turn, some semblance of promise that NK will stop being so
| crazy if it gets economic aid. So we're back to stalemate.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Israel and Gaza et al is a civil war, an internal matter
| much different from sovereign nations from different global
| treaties attacking each other.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Not a civil war at all. Gazans aren't citizens of Israel,
| they have their own elections and government. But if you
| insist, you can switch "Gaza" to "Lebanon" which fires
| missiles at Israel every now and then as a nuisance (just
| did a few weeks ago).
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's a struggle for sovereignty over disputed land which
| has largely been under both sides at one point or another
| in recent history. "What about <pedantry>" doesn't need
| to apply here. The definitions and situation is fuzzy.
| The point is that it is a vastly different situation than
| China-supported DPRK firing missiles at Japanese
| population centers.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Gaza gets invaded now and then. I'm pretty confident that
| when the first conventional warheads land in Tokyo, it will
| be all out war.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Seoul is like 35mi from NK borders, or like 1.5 tiles in
| Civilization hexmap. It's actually too far for IRL
| howitzers to set up and bombard the city but not
| comfortably. So it's not a good idea to set them off when
| retaliation is expected.
| jjk166 wrote:
| With rocket assisted projectiles (RAP), North Korea's
| Koksan self propelled guns have a demonstrated range of
| 37 miles. Note that this is based on the performance of
| the guns observed during the Iran-Iraq war, and it is
| entirely possible that further improvements to range have
| been made in the past 30 years.
|
| Also, it's 35 miles from the DMZ to the center of Seoul,
| but Seoul is a big city. There are parts of Seoul proper
| less than 25 miles from the DMZ, and the metropolitan
| area extends much closer still. Hundreds of thousands of
| people in South Korea live within comfortable artillery
| range of North Korea.
| tasogare wrote:
| Yes, it's funny how there is a lot of fear about a country
| that attacked noone since the Korea War (and that didn't
| commit massacres during it unlike their opponent), especially
| when those people are from a country that have a carte
| blanche to attack other countries and do it on a regular
| basis.
|
| NK rulers aren't idiots, they have access to the West (media
| and travel) and they know about the relative military
| strength and probably aren't to keen to have Democracy(tm)
| being forcefully implemented on them.
| 7952 wrote:
| Give the N Korean leadership some assurance that the next
| president isn't going to do a u turn on a peace deal. N Korea
| just wants to survive. And America is an unreliable partner in
| peace.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| That's the point that is never spoken about in complaints
| about NK's "belligerence". And that's how every country that
| did away with an WMD program that wasn't in the pocket of the
| West eventually became the target of Western aggression.
| Libya, Syria, Iraq all had some sort of nuclear weapons
| programs. And all were eventually attacked by the West
| because nuclear backed sovereignty is the only sovereignty
| respected by the West.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Lots of Korean missile activity lately, going back about a week
| you have:
|
| 2 DPRK KN23 launches
|
| 1 DPRK GLCM
|
| 1 ROK Hyunmoo-4-4 (-2B derrived) SLBM
|
| 1 ROK Supersonic AShCM
|
| 1 ROK Hyunmoo-4 SRBM
|
| 1 ROK ALCM Test
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| It is time!
| junon wrote:
| I feel like we're inching our way toward waking up one morning to
| find North Korea wiped off the planet. Perhaps not as drastic but
| I can't imagine they're going to withstand a barrage of
| counterattacks.
|
| But I'm not a military person whatsoever so what do I know.
| droptablemain wrote:
| People say things like this and then wonder why DPRK clings so
| tightly to its nuclear program.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| Especially after what happened to Gaddafi.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Right. What NK is doing is rational and in their best
| interests to maintain their regime.
|
| At this point I'd say it's time to forget the post WW2
| world and just recognize it makes no sense today to have
| the types of agencies and structures we've built in that
| world.
|
| Normalize relations with them, open up trade, and try and
| build trust. It's literally a pointless policy today. We do
| business with communists. We do business with despots.
| openasocket wrote:
| North Korea's military strategy is built around retribution. If
| South Korea and the US were to launch an attack on North Korea
| they would eventually win, but the costs in military and
| civilian (both North and South Korean) casualties would be so
| extreme as to make it not worthwhile. As an example: North
| Korea has thousands of artillery pieces positioned near the
| border, which are capable of striking targets fairly deep in
| South Korean territory. A number of them can strike into Seoul.
| And they are situated in tunnels in the side of mountains, well
| stocked with plenty of ammunition. The artillery pieces stay in
| the tunnels, pop out to fire a round, and roll back in to be
| reloaded. They can fire into high population areas and can hit
| a number of important military installations near the border.
| Plus, North Korea is able to produce chemical weapons, and is
| believed to have chemical artillery rounds stockpiled.
| Estimates are that it would take a South Korean-Japanese-US
| combined air force weeks to find and neutralize all those
| positions. You also have some fairly rough terrain in North
| Korea, which is not very suitable to large-scale armored and
| mechanized assaults. Any invasion would also have to face a
| population that has been indoctrinated for generations to hate
| and fear South Koreans, Japanese, and Americans. Long range
| cruise missiles like these give the North Koreans additional
| options for retribution against such an attack. There's even
| speculation that North Korea may implement nuclear landmines,
| essentially placing nuclear warheads near the border to be
| detonated if an invasion were to overrun that position.
|
| In short, any potential invasion or regime change of North
| Korea would be a very long and very bloody affair, unless there
| are some serious changes in the status quo. Which is exactly
| what Kim Jung Un wants. He doesn't have any real ambitions to
| re-unite the Korean peninsula, or to liberalize the nation and
| re-enter the world stage. His only goal is maintaining power,
| which is exactly what this is.
| supercanuck wrote:
| you'd think if the US was good enough to fake the moon landing
| and hide the fact the world is flat, they'd be able to make
| North Korea disappear without anyone realizing it
| junon wrote:
| I legitimately cannot figure out your stance from this
| comment.
| colechristensen wrote:
| We're really not, it's just saber rattling. A leashed NK acting
| aggressively is politically useful for various actors, actual
| action is not.
| kklisura wrote:
| Would it be moral to invest in defense/military contractor
| companies (Lockheed, Boing, Raytheon, etc.) to profit from such
| events?
| SonicScrub wrote:
| The goal of North Korea is not to build a self-defense that
| could withstand US/NATO invasion. It's to pose a credible
| enough retaliation so any outside invasion attempts would never
| be worth the cost. Demonstrations such as this are just North
| Korea declaring "we can nuke Tokyo if we want, are we really
| worth that?". Thereby North Korea's ruling class are insulated
| from being externally overthrown, and can focus all their
| efforts on suppressing internal threats. Unless something
| dramatic changes, North Korea is not going to be "wiped off the
| planet" anytime soon.
| sigzero wrote:
| Yeah, I don't doubt someone is going to try "regime change"
| there.
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| Controversial opinion: the United States and South Korea should
| have gone to war with North Korea during the 1990s, when North
| Korea was at its weakest, after the dissolution of the Soviet
| Union. North Korea did not have nuclear weapons then. Doing so
| might have cost the lives of thousands of South Korean civilians,
| but North Korea would not have nuclear weapons today, or an army
| of cyber criminals, and the future peril of war with a nuclear
| armed North Korea would have been staved off forever. The US and
| SK could have handed over NK to China as an industrial colony for
| all we care, as long as NK ceased having a national government
| and armed forces of its own. Most reasonable people will agree
| that having one fewer nuclear power would be a gift for global
| peace and stability.
|
| They say to give peace a chance. Maybe, in some situations, it is
| war that should be given a chance.
| Spellman wrote:
| But what about China backing the sovereignty of NK? Or if they
| decided once we left to just reestablish a sovereign power
| within NK?
| axpy906 wrote:
| China fought the UN in Korea:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
| Spellman wrote:
| Exactly
| soperj wrote:
| How did those wars started in the early 2000s go?
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| Initially? Successfully. Coalition forces overthrew the
| Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's baathist
| government in Iraq. It was the subsequent occupation and
| nation-building stage where things became hairy.
|
| Which is why I suggested to hand off North Korea to China
| once its government has been defeated. China will use the
| cheap labor and vast mineral resources of the country, NK's
| citizens will see major improvements in their quality of
| life.
| soperj wrote:
| That Saddam Hussein seems like a very bad man. We should
| prosecute all those who helped him come to power, and keep
| him there, supplying him with weapons etc. Same with the
| Taliban.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| To overthrow the Taliban means destroying them. They only
| retreated. You declared victory foolishly way too early.
| You didn't realize this was a decades struggle and, of
| course, lost that conflict.
|
| You also lost Iraq considering you killed 200,000 innocent
| men, women, and children, setup a terrible government, and
| a military that conceded so much, ISIS took over large
| parts of the country and neighboring countries. You had to
| start yet another war to clean up and now are just awaiting
| the next ISIS-like event because you destabilized an entire
| region.
|
| These wars were total and utter disasters and crimes
| against humanity. Stop defending them.
| adventured wrote:
| The US did not lose in Iraq and it didn't kill hundreds
| of thousands of civilians.
|
| Iraq today is a free-standing nation, capable of charting
| their own path, courtesy of their significant oil
| revenues. The US is no longer required to prop them up
| and the US does not dictate their policies nor does it
| occupy the nation.
|
| The civilian deaths you're referring to were the result
| of a civil war between the Iraqi people. They were
| killing each other. The long oppressed Shia majority and
| the Sunni minority. That's not uncommon throughout
| history, see: US, Russian, French civil wars, to name a
| few prominent examples. The US also butchered itself in a
| civil war, we were no better in our internal conflict.
| The French, British and other European powers were not
| morally responsible for those deaths, despite the
| elaborate roles the European empires played in helping to
| cause the US civil war (eg European slavery), as well as
| influencing or shaping the US colonies and infant US
| nation.
|
| It took many decades for the US to organize itself
| properly after its founding, it was a very messy process.
| And even then, it ended up in a bloody civil war, before
| a greater degree of stability was achieved. Why should
| Iraq be held to the absurd expectation of instantaneous,
| miraculous stability so soon after regaining their
| independence from Saddam's dictatorship and then the
| chaotic US & allied forces occupation? Iraq is commonly
| treated quite unfairly in judgment when it comes to a
| political process that can take a long time under the
| best of circumstances; they're held to an unreasonable
| standard that just about no nation could live up to,
| especially given the context.
| alangibson wrote:
| >The civilian deaths you're referring to were the result
| of a civil war between the Iraqi people.
|
| If I set a house on fire, any deaths that result from
| people trampling each other or jumping out of windows are
| my fault. If I claimed they liked each other or committed
| suicide, I'd be laughed out of court and (rightly) into
| prison.
| COGlory wrote:
| Not when that house is in the middle of an oilfield,
| waiting to go up at any moment. At that point, it's the
| fault of the person who built it there.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Our initial goal in Afghanistan was to get Osama bin Laden,
| leader of Al-Qaeda. We did succeed at that 10 years later
| in a different country.
|
| The Taliban did not plan or take part in the 9/11 attacks.
|
| Oh, how quickly people forget.
| adventured wrote:
| > Doing so might have cost the lives of thousands of South
| Korean civilians
|
| It would have been closer to hundreds of thousands. And it
| would have cost tens of thousands of American lives as well. To
| defeat and pacify North Korea you'd have to occupy the nation
| with an enormous military force, upwards of a million total
| soldiers or more. That's assuming China tolerated it, which is
| very unlikely. The terrain in North Korea is almost ideal for
| guerilla fighters, and it would present a brutal challenge to
| any occupying forces.
|
| China was significantly responsible for making North Korea what
| it is today. They like having North Korea as a stick to poke
| the US, South Korea and Japan with. North Korea is a wildcard
| that makes the region very complicated and dangerous for the
| anti-China alliance. They have very little interest in seeing
| it dismantled. If China had wanted North Korea, they would have
| taken it a long time ago; it's a rather trivial bit of land
| next to China; but in its present use, North Korea can be
| exceptionally useful to China, it's a net positive asset in its
| present form. They're already a quasi vassal of China, they're
| hyper dependent on China for almost everything. China gets a
| lot of upside from the arrangement, with few downsides.
|
| > The US and SK could have handed over NK to China as an
| industrial colony for all we care
|
| Absolutely not. That's among the worst things the US and South
| Korea could have done. Assisting China in territorial
| expansion, de facto helping China to conquer another part of
| Asia, would be grotesque.
|
| There's no moral argument for claiming other nations have a
| right to dictate to the North Korean people that they are not
| to have their own nation. The two Koreas have been separate for
| a long time now, it's not like that separation just happened a
| few decades ago. If they want to unite with South Korea, then
| they should be allowed to. If they don't want to, that should
| be respected as well. Forcibly handing them off to China and
| dissolving their nation without their input would be an extreme
| violation of human rights.
|
| North Korea as a nation belongs, properly, to the people of
| North Korea. Not to China. Not to the US. Not to South Korea.
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| I might buy the self-determination point of view if the
| ordinary people of North Korea had any input on their
| governance, which they hardly do. North Korea is ruled by the
| Kim family like a monarchy. There are no elections, no
| referendums, no multiparty system.
| themagicalyang wrote:
| It does not matter. The people have to figure it out.
| Opposition and subsequent toppling of the authoritarian
| government should be a natural course without any external
| influence.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's very Kissinger-like behavior to not even care about the
| extra millions of North Koreans that would have killed during
| the North Korean Famine.
| adriancr wrote:
| US was pretty close to a preemptive strike in the 90s.
|
| There were estimates of massive SK casualties just via
| artillery strikes. (1M+, Seoul destroyed, ...). NK also had
| chemical/biological weapons...
|
| There was also always a threat of nuclear escalation via China
| if US went too far...
|
| > The US and SK could have handed over NK to China as an
| industrial colony for all we care
|
| China wants what is currently in place, it's doubtful they
| would have not intervened as they did in Korean war after which
| war becomes one of attrition and keeping the Chinese out of
| SK...
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Yeah. Living in South Korea with the threat from North Korea
| in the 90s was probably the closest I'll come to (well,
| hopefully the closest I'll come to) to understanding what it
| was like for my parents' generation (Baby Boomers) growing up
| with the constant threat (real or perceived) of nuclear war.
|
| NK was almost certainly not going to initiate a war, but they
| had everything in place to decimate SK if one began by the
| 90s at least.
| justicezyx wrote:
| Yep, you got it.
|
| The joke is: "when US claimed you have wmd, you better
| actually have it"...
|
| NK has been behaving quite bad comparing to some other
| countries that got US invasion. The reason that they were not
| invaded, is mostly that they indeed have the stuff that can
| scare away US.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| War was give a chance and the North won, with of course China
| threatening to move in on the action as well as the Soviet
| Union. UN forces continuing to fight in that region over the
| long debunked "domino theory" would have led to WWWIII, perhaps
| even a nuclear holocaust for what? Some peninsula? Same with
| Vietnam which the US lost? Its not worth it.
|
| Revising that was decades later would have been political
| impossible, ethically evil, and set off the same China/SU
| hostility chain that leads to WWIII.
|
| We are constantly giving war a chance. The problem is we rarely
| give peace a chance. Imagine if instead of blowing up children
| and women in Afghanistan for two decades we asked the Taliban
| to the parliamentary table and built a government with them?
| They'd be the most powerful party, but it would have saved tens
| of thousands of innocent civilians lives and literally
| everything would be better off today there. but instead we
| listened to people like you, fought a foolish war, put in a
| "democracy" that, of course, failed within weeks. The same way
| it would have in NK, assuming a second NK conflict wouldn't
| lead to WWIII, which it most likely would.
|
| Remember when you say go to war, you're asking the West to
| murder hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children.
| America is happy to do that and calls its "democracy" but they
| are simply crimes against humanity writ large. The war on
| terror has at least 380,000 innocent civilians killed. Stop
| killing people. Stop making war the default goto. Give peace
| chance. Its not your job to be the world police or tell China
| or NK what to do. You're just a bloodthirsty keyboard commando
| who wants to contribute to crimes against humanity. If I was
| you I'd reflect on what you've written today and think about
| why you're carrying water for the mass murder and human rights
| violation machine we call the US military.
| coryrc wrote:
| Is it better for 5 people to die and 5 people to have all of
| the UN Human Rights, or for 5 to be slaves and 5 to be
| subjects of a despot?
|
| There's no wholly good answer here. There's a valid argument
| for both; you're making the latter, if I may be so
| presumptuous.
| bllguo wrote:
| what a false dichotomy. 1. why does the US get to make this
| choice for others, and 2. the actual outcomes are nothing
| like this, name the countries the US destabilized that are
| now bastions of human rights. the track record is
| horrendous and the only reason we have not been rightfully
| forbidden from meddling is brute force.
| gjs278 wrote:
| we should have nuked every single country besides the united
| states after we did japan. including our allies.
| droptablemain wrote:
| Username checks out.
| axpy906 wrote:
| Did anyone else click on this thinking the missle landed _in
| Japan_ and not the "Sea of Japan"?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Where else would they shoot them to test them? They have to test
| them to be safe. They don't want to be an other Afganistan...
| phtrivier wrote:
| YouTube Channel Polymater had a video about how NK would
| basically follow a' eternal cycle of "firing missiles to annoy
| everyone" / "get sanctionned" / "negociate with the Us by
| promising to stop launching missiles" / "get sanctions lifted" /
| rinse and repeat.
|
| The cycle would go on forever, as long as China would not ditch
| support for NK. And of course, China would never get rid of such
| a powerful way to annoy everyone else.
|
| NK would never actually attack, as it would kill their bluff and
| give everyone a good reason to convince China to wipe them out.
|
| So this would be yet another episode. It's not "Mutually Assured
| Destruction", but "Perpetually Assured Annoyance".
| vmception wrote:
| Sorry, whats the downside of turning them into the biggest
| glass exporter here?
| COGlory wrote:
| The deaths of a lot of innocent people.
| Redoubts wrote:
| A bunch of artillery pointed at Seoul, on a hair trigger.
| Brave-Steak wrote:
| > China would never get rid of such a powerful way to annoy
| everyone else
|
| It's not just this. China doesn't want a unified, Western-
| friendly Korea directly on its border. They also don't want the
| mass refugees if NK fails.
| kbenson wrote:
| I don't think they were necessarily referring to getting rid
| of NK as much as NK's tactic of firing missiles. China could
| presumably influence to NK to not launch missiles at
| neighbors while still supporting it as a separate state, it's
| just not in their interest to do that either.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Maybe that influence could take the form of not supplying
| them with fuel and materials and technology?
| michael1999 wrote:
| A guard dog needs teeth.
| pasabagi wrote:
| >China could presumably influence to NK to not launch
| missiles at neighbors.
|
| Very questionable. If you read about the Rangoon bombing[0]
| the short of it is the Chinese passed on a note from the
| NKs to the Americans requesting trilateral talks,
| essentially vouching for them, just prior to the bombing.
| Apparently, Deng Xaiping said afterwards he'd never let
| 'that motherfucker' (Kim Jong Il) set foot on chinese soil
| as long as he lived, and apparently, KJI never did.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangoon_bombing
| nostrademons wrote:
| I've heard North Korea described as "A small country with just
| one export: fear."
| fleaaaa wrote:
| It's been like this for 6 decades, also worth noting that one
| of the major party in SK relies on this behavior for its co-
| dependent "prosperity".. Once, it even paid NK to bluff like
| this just before the presidential election for the sake of
| power consolidation. It was a huge and messy scandal.
|
| I find that relationship basically a parasite and host, and now
| they're likely going to win for election in next year.
| digianarchist wrote:
| What worries me is an accidental strike that kicks off a new
| Cold War.
| bserge wrote:
| Aka "Time for the regular aid request". Either from China for
| being a good pe(s)t or the UN and US for promising to stop
| nuclear tests.
|
| The fact that their population suffers famine nearly every
| goddamn year is just unbelievably sad.
|
| How those people put up with it, I don't understand. They
| really managed to create a feudal country in a modern world.
| Could others do the same if left unchecked?
| trhway wrote:
| >How those people put up with it, I don't understand.
|
| People en masse are willfully gullible when it comes for
| propaganda. Just look at the vaccine mandates.
|
| I myself is from USSR, and when i see photos from NK i see
| that my past, and i really don't know how they today (or we
| back then) could get out of that situation until the system
| crumbles on its own.
|
| >Could others do the same if left unchecked?
|
| Do you see any other way for Afghanistan for example?
| [deleted]
| polote wrote:
| > YouTube Channel Polymater had a video about how NK would
| basically follow a' eternal cycle ...
|
| Tips of the day, don't put too much trust into Youtube videos.
| There are just random dudes/girls who are good with a video
| editor. And most of the content they produce is either from
| Wikipedia or their own random opinion.
|
| And for something as serious are NK I wouldn't trust anything
| that is said by a youtube video
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| > China would never get rid of such a powerful way to annoy
| everyone else.
|
| I've mentioned this in another comment, but you're severely
| underestimating the real relationship between North Korea and
| China. For the government, maybe it is only a strategic
| relationship, but if you talk to anyone who grew up in China
| there is a real feeling of kinship with the people that live in
| NK.
|
| For a long time there has been a lot of cultural exchange
| between the nations and many Chinese near the border are
| indistinguishable culturally from North Koreans.
|
| An attack on North Korea, even if a justifiable retaliation,
| would feel like an attack on the Chinese people for a great
| many everyday people in China.
|
| The closest analog to the US would be Canada. Most American's,
| especially in the North, feel that Canadians are very
| culturally similar. Many people in far Northern states have
| friends and family in Canada. Overall the bond is much closer
| than with Mexico, which has more culture, ethnic and linguistic
| differences.
|
| Imagine if Canada were ruled by a despot, who then irrationally
| launched a nuclear strike on another country. Even if
| American's were to feel that that was wrong, we would also
| still likely strongly defend Canadian people from aggressive
| retaliation. And this analogy is far from perfect, the sense
| I've gotten in conversations with Chinese about North Korea is
| that they're much closer.
| livindub wrote:
| Not to mention the free worker slaves that NK provides for
| China and Russia.
| temp8964 wrote:
| No. Chinese people don't have strong or any empathy towards
| North Koreans. Old generations (70+ years old) maybe, for
| young people this is laughable.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Ehhhh, maybe this is true but I think you're overselling in
| the other direction.
|
| North Koreans don't speak Mandarin, they would be loath to
| consider themselves as Han, they have a totally unique food
| culture, etc.
|
| I honestly think it's closer to US / Taiwan style connection
| than what you claim.
|
| To go even further on the Han point: https://en.m.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/Four_Commanderies_of_Han#His...
| dfsegoat wrote:
| And China has a history of returning North Korean defectors
| to NK, where they await death by labor camp, etc:
|
| https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/03/china-redoubling-
| crackdo...
|
| I've seen this mentioned in a documentary about people
| fleeing North Korea via China and Thailand as well, and
| they need to hide themselves from the Chinese as much as
| they do the DPRK border guards.
| temp8964 wrote:
| That's Chinese government, no Chinese people want North
| Koreans defectors return to NK.
| theklub wrote:
| No, they just want to keep them as sex slaves...
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMK1KEk5OdU
| qeternity wrote:
| > An attack on North Korea, even if a justifiable
| retaliation, would feel like an attack on the Chinese people
| for a great many everyday people in China.
|
| I lived in Beijing for a while and I can't say I agree with
| this. For sure, China is an enormous country with much
| cultural surface area, so I could be wrong.
|
| But this does not strike me as an obvious conclusion.
| arcanon wrote:
| The Korean War:
|
| USA afraid of communisms spread. Sends MacArthur to Korea.
| He crushes the Korean communists. USA believes it to be a
| clean sweep. Mao surprise s USA with massive army
| encirclement of USA forces. USA forced to flee south and
| hold the line that became demarcation between north and
| south.
|
| There is a 0% chance China would allow the USA to take NK.
|
| They also love provoking Japan. Their entire origin story
| is about fighting against the Japanese in the 30s.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure that lessons from 70 years ago are
| strictly applicable today. Sure, there is some memetic
| carryover, but all the people in charge then are dead
| now.
|
| If NK actually launches an attack on a "western" country,
| full war will begin. If China decides to get involved,
| that's really on them. I wish it were otherwise, but
| that's how it is.
| arcanon wrote:
| Here is a movie from 2020 in China that did equivalent of
| $173 million in RMB:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacrifice_(2020_film)
|
| It is not stale in their psyche.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Here's a movie that grossed $482.3 million, and was the
| highest grossing film in the US that year:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Private_Ryan
|
| Yet I don't think anyone here is interested in war with
| Germany.
| qeternity wrote:
| > There is a 0% chance China would allow the USA to take
| NK.
|
| Agreed. This, however, was not the substance of my
| comment.
|
| The US would not tolerate an attack on
| Israel/Taiwan/others. That doesn't mean that if China
| attacked Taiwan, the average American would feel like
| they had been attacked.
| jchonphoenix wrote:
| You're way overselling this. This commentary is true maybe
| for the northern part of China close to the Korean peninsula.
| Southern China doesn't give a rats ass what happens to Korea.
| arcanon wrote:
| Nope.
|
| See Korean War.
| elefanten wrote:
| I don't think the delicate feelings of Chinese nationalists
| would hold much sway if NK struck someone.
|
| And they damn well shouldn't.
| Redoubts wrote:
| > For a long time there has been a lot of cultural exchange
| between the nations
|
| Thats one way to call it...
| labster wrote:
| As an American, I'm absolutely sure the Canadians would greet
| us as liberators. They'll finally be free to listen to great
| American musicians like Justin Beiber and Neil Young!
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