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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - World Affairs/Debate - North Korea's got Nukes.....and I care, why? |
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Crashman Grizzo                     Since: 12-26-05 From: Maine Last post: 6316 days Last view: 6316 days |
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| North Korea completed a successful nuclear test earlier this week. And does anyone beyond out Psychopathic president really give a damn? So what if kim jong il has got the bomb. He is still more interested in building a bigger movie collection and his netflix subscription. For christ sakes, the guy likes to fly fish. I can't imagin that he's got his finger poised over the big red button (you know the one, the one all alone in the control pannel thats the size of a cup coaster), waiting for someone somewhere to piss him off so he can "Launch the Bomb" and start WWIII.
I worry about the real crazy people who DONT OWN A DAMN COUNTRY and who DO OWN A NUCLEAR WEAPON. Am i so wrong? (sniff) |
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Silvershield   580  Since: 11-19-05 From: Emerson, New Jersey Last post: 6292 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| Dunno about the world at large, but my own concern is more that it's counter-productive to the goal of eventual entire disarmament of all the world's nuclear weapons. Not that it'll ever happen, or at least not in the forseeable future, but North Korea just became one more nation that'll be less than willing to put down its bomb when several other nations in the world maintain that capacity.
So, yeah, I don't think they're so much of an imminent threat, just that they're somehow symbolic of the futility of any sort of disarmament treaties. |
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beneficii Broom Hatter Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6283 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| Well, according to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_2006_North_Korean_nuclear_test Condemnation has been nearly universal among the international reactions. Even China, North Korea's ally, condemned it. (edited by beneficii on 10-10-06 01:30 AM) |
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Silvershield 580 Since: 11-19-05 From: Emerson, New Jersey Last post: 6292 days Last view: 6279 days |
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Originally posted by beneficiiExcept, in a twist that I somehow find absolutely hilarious, Iran proclaims "North Korea's nuclear test was a reaction to America's threats and humiliation." That is, Iran appears to be the single nation that approves of the test. Admittedly, that quote is taken from an unidentified source speaking on the "state radio," but I still find it funny. A more official Iranian source agreed with the widespread criticism. (edited by ||bass on 10-10-06 07:40 AM) |
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Sinfjotle Lordly? No, not quite.  Since: 11-17-05 From: Kansas Last post: 6281 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| Ah... Not cool to say the least...
I doubt Nuclear War will occur, but this isn't good in any way. Nukes are pretty powerful and should really be disarmed... The only country that wins a nuclear war is the one that decides not to fire nukes... and they won't win physically. |
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Sukotto Mini Octorok Since: 10-09-06 From: New Orleans Last post: 6390 days Last view: 6390 days |
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| I don't actually believe Kim Il would actually use the weapon. He's not as crazy as people think, just highly isolated. If anything it will be used more as leverage and insurance to prevent any kinda of invasion. | |||
Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 6281 days Last view: 6280 days |
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| North Korea is pretty batshit insane, I'm not yet convinced they can be expected to behave in a rational manner even if there is a certain perverse logic to their actions. They're not a country you want to have nukes (and I'm someone who doesn't see a huge issue with Iran having nukes, for example). The good news, though, is that they're still technological minnows, even this bomb was kind of a fizzler (1 kiloton or so). They HAVE to realise, at least at the top level, that they cannot use nukes and survive. The worry is that the information apparatus in NK is so warped that they MIGHT not. I for one wouldn't want to be making any guarantees based on North Korea being sensible.
The main thing this does is to exacerbate things rather than fundamentally alter them. It makes the geopolitics of Northeast Asia even trickier and more dangerous. It ramps up the stakes for all the main players and renders North Korea much harder to deal with. The fears of them destabilising and collapsing are even more intense now that this is thrown into the mix, and this'll play heavily on the minds of everyone in the region. China and Korea in particular would rather a stable North Korea, which will likely put them at odds with nations who want heavy sanctions and so forth. Another nasty effect will be on Japanese domestic politics and geopolitics, most likely increasing the bellicose rhetoric and becoming more hawkish for rearmament, which of course will piss off their other neighbours greatly. Especially China. South Korea will likely be less worried, oddly enough, since NK's had the ability to do serious damage to them for a long time, the nuclear bogeyman doesn't add that much more danger for them. Nasty developments, more disappointing than anything. |
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Ailure Mr. Shine I just want peace...  Since: 11-17-05 From: Sweden Last post: 6279 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| The beginning of yet another cold war, where it's not the length but the amount of the phallus shaped objects you compare.
Meh, in a way i'm concerned but on the other hand considering the international reaction this smells like suicide for north korea. My country have no nuclear weapons but was considiring it during the 1960's apparently... then they probably realized they would just become a target so heh. Wang Guangya, the Chinese permanent representative to the United Nations had earlier stated that "no one is going to protect North Korea" if it engages in "bad behavior". Yep, it's goverment suicide. I guess that happens when nationalism (lolwestandupagainstamericawithnucklearwepons) blinds common sense. |
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Rom Manic Since: 12-18-05 From: Detroit, WHAT?! Last post: 6279 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| Ironic: The United States stands for freedom, but now it has no freedom to move OUT of Iraq (Because of the shitty conditions they have created in the war on terror) to go and defend themselves from a nuclear threat by North Korea.
Anyways, Here's a link to an eyeball of the apparent test site, but I wonder how long it will take the world to figure out if this was a sham or not. |
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killer7 Red Paragoomba Since: 09-20-06 Last post: 6295 days Last view: 6290 days |
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| Funny Bush probably won't do anything about it and he'll allow it happen. kim jong il looks like he wants to take the whole world and look like a major prick. His main goal to destroy little countries then the big ones and they'll destroy South Korea first. | |||
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||bass Administrator  Since: 11-17-05 From: Salem, Connecticut Last post: 6280 days Last view: 6279 days |
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Originally posted by killer7Not a chance. There is exactally a 0.000% chance of NK even attempting it. Think about it: NK has 2 neighbors. SK and China. Invasion 1: NK marches into China. I don't even want to think about this one, NK wouldn't last a week. Invasion 2: NK marches south into SK, in the process crossing one of the most heavily defended DMZ areas in the world. THEN, they march into an area that I'm fairly certain the US is still obligated by treaty to defend with the full force and fury of the military. Again, not the brightest of ideas. EDIT: Bottom line, this is suicide on the part of NK. They just pissed off the only semi-ally they had. Without Chinese support, NK doesn't have the economic capacity to last even 5 years. (edited by ||bass on 10-10-06 04:41 PM) |
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geeogree Red Cheep-cheep Since: 11-17-05 Last post: 6294 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| yeah, and in that situation.... the US would not fight a groud war.
They would bomb north korea to pieces. They would have much better access considering the layout of the Koreas vs. other more recent battlefronts. Having "the bomb" is more of a defense mechanism than an offensive weapon. Sure, they may have 1, or 10.... but in the end no one can stand against the combined volume of US nulcear bombs. It's all about having the power to say "Leave us alone or else" |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 6281 days Last view: 6280 days |
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| "Leave us alone or else" is practically the national motto of the Democratic People's Republic... | |||
Koryo Keese Since: 10-17-06 From: Michigan, USA Last post: 6290 days Last view: 6290 days |
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There has been plenty of unpleasant stuff coming out of the northern half of the Korean peninsula of late. On July 4th (purely coincidence, I’m sure), North Korea fired off several missiles in a temper tantrum show of force to gain more attention. One of these missiles was even aimed at Hawaii. This isn’t the first time North Korea has fired off missiles that threaten South Korea, Japan, and the US, not by a long shot. Here’s what I think. Kim Jong Il, or the “Dear Leader” as he prefers to be called, is a bad guy. Joseph Stalin would be proud to call KJI’s accomplishments his own. KJI has starved millions of his own people (in true communist fashion), imprisoned hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in soviet style gulags, executed thousands of so called disloyal families, and tried numerous times to reignite the Korean War. In my opinion, he has no right to rule North Korea. I get more than a little frustrated with people who insist on treating tin pot dictators as legitimate national leaders. The leaders of governments such as the US, Great Britain, Spain, Australia, and South Korea are legitimate leaders. They are leaders who represent their people, to one degree or another. KJI (like Saddam Hussein), is a thug who holds on to power by force. The only reason North Korea exists as a separate country from the South is because the USSR occupied the territory and put KJI’s father in charge. They then, along with the Chinese, supported him during the Korean War. KJI should be thought of as a gang leader. We don’t negotiate with gang leaders. We capture and or kill them. KJI has proven that he has not intention whatsoever of abiding by international treaties or diplomatic agreements. Now he has proven to the world what we already knew: he has nuclear weapons. This makes his situation rather unique among others on the list of “tin pot dictators in need of regime change”. We can’t just drive tanks across the demilitarized zone and drag KJI out of a spider hole, because he could drop a nuclear bomb on South Korea or Japan. He can’t hit the US with nuclear bombs yet, but he will be able to within a few years. For the moment, that he can nuke our friends and allies (South Korea and Japan) is reason enough for us not to invade. We should also resolve the issue before he actually can strike California. I believe that the only way to solve the problem on the Korean Peninsula is to remove KJI from power and unify the peninsula under the democratic government of the South. But how to do it? The problem with North Korea could be easily resolved if China would help, but they won’t. By that I mean the Chinese government, not the Chinese people. The Chinese government sees KJI, not as an ally, but as an enemy of their enemy. North Korea is a thorn in America’s side, and every bit of energy we expend there distracts from other dangers and problems, and weakens us in relation to China. The longer KJI stays in power, the weaker we are, and the happier the Chinese government is. President Bush claims that China cares as much about resolving the North Korean problem as we do, but that’s clearly not true. Without support from China, KJI couldn’t stay in power for long. So, what do I think we should do about it? We should make it clear to KJI (and China) that any nuclear strike on our friends and allies (Japan and South Korea) will be viewed as a nuclear attack on the United States. I would also tell China that, if they don’t stop all aid to North Korea, we will be supplying Japan with nuclear weapons. I’m not at all a fan of nuclear proliferation. In fact, it would be nice if nuclear weapons didn’t exist. But they do, so I won’t be foolish enough to suggest that good nations like the US and Great Britain should give up their nuclear weapons in the name of peace, because then the bad nations, like North Korea, would have ultimate world power. I certainly don’t want to see South Korea and Japan on one side of an East Asian arms race with China and North Korea on the other. But, I believe that the South Koreans and Japanese are innocent and peace loving people. They must be to have gone so long under the threat of Chinese and North Korean nuclear weapons without building their own, and make no mistake, South Korea and Japan could build their own nuclear weapons right now if they wanted to. If I was Japanese or South Korean, I know I’d be demanding that my government go nuclear. But the sad truth is that KJI could drop a nuclear bomb on Tokyo tomorrow, and there’s not a thing Japan could do about it. China would be very happy to see that, by the way. China would not, however, be happy to see a nuclear armed Japan, so that’s what I’d do. China will support North Korea as long as it is beneficial to them. So we should prove to them that the issue is more trouble than it’s worth. The power China will lose by no longer having a nuclear armed mad man at their side will pale in comparison to the power they will lose by having a nuclear armed Japan across the sea. It would be in their best interest to give up North Korea, and countries and people usually act in their own interest. Then, once China has cut off aid to North Korea, we must also demand that China ship all North Korean refuges down to South Korea. The North Korean people are not evil like KJI, they are just indoctrinated and deprived of knowledge of the outside world. But they are also starved and tortured, so many of them try to escape. They can’t escape into South Korea, because KJI has thousands of troops stationed on the southern border who would kill them on sight. So, many North Koreans try to escape the country by way of the Chinese/ North Korean border. Currently, China’s policy is to capture these refugees and send them back to KJI, who executes them for the unthinkable crime of trying to leave the country. This is a crime against humanity by both the Chinese and KJI. We should demand that China send these refugees to South Korea. Lastly, we should begin to support the North Korean people in a way that undermines and weakens the regime of KJI. When the USSR was starving the East Germans, we airlifted in food. Every two minutes an airplane full of food landed in East Germany to feed the poor, starving people. We should do the same in North Korea, and more. There are very few airports to land airplanes, so we should drop food parcels with parachutes. In the past, we’ve tried to give food to the North Koreans by giving the food to KJI and trusting him to distribute it generously. That is unquestionably insane. We should also put a sticker of the South Korean flag on every can and box of food. If we put US stickers on them, the North Koreans, already indoctrinated to hate the US for generations, might refuse to eat it. But they’ll be more warm to their brothers in the south. Along with the food, we should also drop papers telling the North Koreans about what has gone on in the world that they’ve been lied to about. The papers should tell the North Koreans about how good life is for the South Koreans, and how KJI is the only thing standing in their way of an equally good life. We should also South Korean “missionaries” smuggled into North Korea. Americans will stand out like a sore thumb in racially homogenous country like North Korea. These South Korean “missionaries” will spread the “gospel” of democracy and stir up dissent among the North Koreans. With KJI isolated from his Chinese supporters, he will one day fall. Perhaps KJI himself will fall. Or, perhaps, when he dies, his sons will not be viewed as legitimate leaders by the North Koreans, and then the regime will fall. There is no force more powerful than millions of unified people, and there are about 25 million North Koreans. One way or another, his regime will fall. And, when it does, America should be there to prevent Chinese interference, while the democratic government of South Korea peacefully annexes the North to form a unified Republic of Korea. During all of this, the US should stop withdrawing forces from South Korea. North Korea could invade again at any time. Foreseeing his own downfall, KJI might decide to go out in a blaze of glory rather than fade slowly. Or one of the many small hostile events on the demilitarized zone might erupt into something bigger. However it happens, if a Second Korean War begins, the US needs to be there. This would actually expedite the unification of the Korean Peninsula, because we could then remove KJI from his palace by force rather than slowly waiting for his regime to slowly crumble. I think we should do all of this because I care about the Korean people, both in the North and in the South. The South Koreans are free, peace loving, and friendly. The North Koreans are not bad, but they have been lied to and secluded for generations. There is much they don’t know. If a Second Korean War does start, we should seize the opportunity to solve the North Korean problem once and for all. We should avoid the mistake we made 50 years ago of being afraid of China. Many will say that we should back down and capitulate to KJI’s demands if he starts another war, because we don’t want to risk starting a larger war with China. I say, while a war with China would be very costly to both sides, China will not win. So they will not start a full scale (and certainly not nuclear war) right now. China will be stronger in 20 years than they are now. Time will only make them stronger as their economy continues to grow, so they will wait. No mater how much China threatens, we should not abandon the Korean people. That is my opinion. I’m sure many of you will disagree, but that's OK. |
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Rom Manic Since: 12-18-05 From: Detroit, WHAT?! Last post: 6279 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| Thank you for wasting 10 minutes of my time. All I essentially got were:
- Kim Jong Il is leader of a gang - He likes missiles more than fireworks on Independence Day - He should be removed from power because he's a good dictator in a nation torn into two pieces - America must yet again flex it's muscle (Though unknown to you, this didn't go over well with the current war) - You have no concept of what human rights really mean - You apparently don't understand the massive trade sanctions put in place over North Korea. |
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emcee Red Super Koopa Since: 11-20-05 Last post: 6279 days Last view: 6279 days |
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Originally posted by Rom Manic Kind of a slow reader, huh? |
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Koryo Keese Since: 10-17-06 From: Michigan, USA Last post: 6290 days Last view: 6290 days |
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| No one forced you to read the entire thing, Rom Manic. However, I do recommend reading the full thing before replying to it, so congratulations on that.
In reply: Originally posted by Rom Manic That�s close, but I actually said that he should be treated like a gang leader, not a legitimate head of state, such as Tony Blair or Jacques Chirac.
I didn�t say KJI is a �good� dictator, and I hope you aren�t suggesting that, either.
1: The problems in Iraq do not stem simply from America flexing its muscles. The issue is far more complex than that. 2: America would only be flexing its muscles in response to some serious flexing from China and North Korea. Why is America the only country that isn�t allowed to flex?
Really? I would like to think that wanting the Korean Peninsula unified under a democratic government, and preventing KJI from nuking South Korea and Japan would be considered pro human rights. I guess not. I guess the real human rights watchdogs are the ones who sit by while KJI brutalizes his people, while China does similar things to their own people, and while China sends North Korean refuges back to their deaths (in violation of a UN treaty they signed). I guess I�m wrong.
Massive is a bit of an overstatement. In the end, most economic sanctions hurt the people worse than the dictator, because the dictator decides how the resources are allocated within his country. Limiting those resources just means he will take a larger percentage for himself and leave less for his people. Without a strong military presence in South Korea*, without the spread of democracy into North Korea, and without an end to Chinese complicity in KJI�s crimes against humanity, the problem will not be resolved for a very, very long time. *Note that this military presence does not necessarily have to be American. However, neither Japan nor South Korea has the military muscle to stand up to North Korea, and China would sooner help North Korea than hinder it, so the American military is the only remaining alternative. I do thank you for reading the post, though. All comments are welcome, positive or negative. (edited by Koryo on 10-17-06 02:34 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 6281 days Last view: 6280 days |
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| I think, Koryo, you've got a lot of things wrong. You're essentially arguing a very idealistic and America-centric "we should do something" line derived from a very blinkered and simplistic view of Cold War politics.
Firstly. Recognition of dictators as legitimate leaders is, essentially, a matter of realism. They're the dudes with the guns, they're the ones with the flags, they're the ones you talk to. It's a regrettable but necessary feature of a Westphalian political system with national sovereignty. It's lovely to wish every country's leader was the head of a western liberal democratic republic but that simply isn't the case and won't be in the forseeable future. Moreover... US support for despots, hypocrisy, US blind eye to other odious regimes like Burma and Uzbekistan, blah blah blah you know the drill. Secondly, you've a massive overestimation of what North Korea is actually capable of:
No-one knows precisely what they have, but they're still dwarfed and outgunned by the US and well aware that the use of nukes would get them vapourised. They're cornered and impoverished. Remember, they managed to set of a very small nuke, and they've got some missiles they haven't successfully tested, but even so, this doesn't fundamentally change the situation from previously. We couldn't just "drive tanks across the demilitarized zone" even before they went nuclear because of the consequences. North Korea has a million-man army, America has 30 000 troops on the peninsula and is massively overstretched elsewhere. Very few other countries would get involved, if any. Moreover, NK already has enough conventional ordinance trained on Seoul to flatten it in a matter of hours. So related to this, the third mistake is you've massively overestimated the US's capacity to act in this situation. As well as the "overstretched" thing, there's the fact that the US simply isn't omnipotent and is still constrained in various ways. I know it's galling, but there's some stuff you just don't have much control over. There's a regional power and security dynamic that is fairly independent of the US... these are old, independent countries with their own agendas that often diverge from American wishes. At most, the US is an insurance policy, and often seen as a liability (see also, South Korean ambivalence about the American alliance). They also basically have a fairly different way of thinking about international relations. Fourth, forced unification would be a disaster. South Korea does not want to pay for it because it is too expensive and uncertain. Moreover, North Korea is in too bad a condition for them to absorb the north easily. This isn't East and West Germany, and even they had massive problems with a much better set of initial conditions. Fifth, you're misreading China's attitude. China does not want an assertive or nuclear-armed North Korea. China doesn't need the North. The North is a liability to them. They'll learn to live with it having nukes because they're an ally and they prefer stability over anything else, but they don't like it because it makes things more dangerous, it encourages Japan to go nuclear which would mean instant arms race and lead to massive tensions between Japan and China, and Japan and South Korea. I can think of few worse situations than that given their difficult relations with each other. Nobody in the region wants an assertive, increasingly nationalist, nuclear-armed Japan and that's one of the reasons China is so angry about its ally going nuclear. Your gung-ho statement "if I was Japanese or South Korean, I know I’d be demanding that my government go nuclear" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamics of the region. There's a reason neither country is talking seriously about doing so. Sixth. The refugee issue is regrettable but a hardly unique thing in our international system. Hell, even Australia's repatriated refugees knowing they're likely to be persecuted or executed. Frankly, the refugee situation is, and has to be, a very minor consideration here... moral outrage isn't a great basis for foreign policy. Seventh. The idea of a propaganda campaign. Probably already happens, but at any rate, won't work. You're not going to sow internal dissent and create a democracy "gospel" there. Meaningless gesture. Here you just fly off into wild fantasy. Maybe the regime will fall unexpectedly, but it wont be because of such idealistic external influences. Eighth, you're basically projecting America's interests onto the region and assuming everyone wants what America wants. You're assuming South Korea wants unification. You're assuming the people of SK and Japan should want to go nuclear. You think fixing NK means giving them western-style democracy. You think regional stability is less important than getting rid of a bad nasty gang man. And so on. Finally, let's address a couple of historical errors. First:
It's equally valid to say that the only reason South Korea exists as a separate country from the North is because the USA occupied the territory and put a string of military dictators in charge. Takes two to tango, and Korea was a victim of cold war politics on both sides, this "good and evil" dynamic never existed. Remember it took until the 80s for South Korea to become democratic, and it did so with no help from the United States.
No, that's wrong. The Berlin airlift went into West Berlin, an FDR enclave that was completely isolated when the DDR closed off road access to it. Crisis ensued, it was later solved when the East agreed to allow road access again. I think, from the overall tone of your post, the analogies you draw, and the misrepresentations of history you put forward, you're basically caught up in the American Cold War mythology of the US democracy-spreading good guys and the poor, starving Eastern Bloc yearning to breathe free. "US good, commies evil". The truth on the ground was a lot more subtle and complicated than that, and the same is true of this situation. Really, as I have already said, moral outrage isn't that useful a method for determining foreign policy. Acting on your ideas and suggestions would be bumbling into a region you doesn't understand very well, pissing all over the interests of its allies with barely any attention to what they want or what's good for them, it would be inflaming tensions, and all for some idealistic, hopelessly naive and unrealistic goal. Idealism is nice, but it must be tempered by pragmatism. The only thing we can really do is wait and see how things develop. There are no good options, but idealistic and gung-ho "we have to do something" thinking will result in some of the worst options. (edited by Arwon on 10-17-06 04:48 AM) |
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Koryo Keese Since: 10-17-06 From: Michigan, USA Last post: 6290 days Last view: 6290 days |
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Why is it idealistic for me to want KJI to stop brutalizing his people and threatening his neighbors? Why is it so wrong to think that everyone, even the North Koreans, desires the same freedoms that you and I take for granted? If that’s idealistic, then I’m proud to be idealistic. As for America-centric, how so? North Korea can’t directly bomb the US right now. If we wanted to, we could turn North Korea into a radioactive crater. So what if North Korea manages to land a nuke on Japan or South Korea in the process, or if the airborne radiation causes cancer in North Korea’s neighbors, so what, right? All I care about is the good old US of A, and everyone else is der untermenche. Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be suggesting containment and a slow weakening of KJI’s regime to be replaced by democracy. I’m sorry that democracy has become a detestable concept for some of you lefties, but I still think it’s the best kind of government the world has yet seen. We may invent something more perfect in the future, but that’s where we are today. If that makes me America-centric, then I guess I’m also proud to be America-centric.
You’re right. We should treat dictators with the respect due them. And not just national dictators. If a powerful mob boss manages to take control of a portion of New York City, we should treat it as a sovereign nation and subject the area to economic sanctions until the mob boss dies. Then we can poll the people of the area in question on rejoining the rest of the country. I can see you shaking your head. “That’s not the same thing, Koryo.” Yes it is. As I said, North Korea is only a separate country because Russia made it so. Technically, the Korea war never ended. We signed a cease fire, but not a peace treaty. There never was a North Korea until the USSR occupied the region and propped up a communist dictator (Kim Il Sung). Some people can be negotiated with. Other cannot. KJI has proven that he has no intention of doing what we ask. When we said “we’ll give you oil, food, and supplies if you stop building a bomb”, he built the bomb anyway. If we don’t have some way of ensuring that he doesn’t build the bomb, then it’s foolish to give him supplies in trade and blindly trust that he’ll uphold his end of the bargain.
So, because the US government (not the US people) did something wrong, I have no place to say we should do the right thing? Since the US government supports the dictators in Saudi Arabia, I can’t say that KJI is a brutal mass murder who should be removed? Because the US was at war with Great Britain in 1776 and 1812, then we should remain bitter enemies to this day? Since the US was allied with the USSR from 1941 to 1945, then we should have remained allied with them throughout the Cold War? I suppose consistency is more important than doing the right thing.
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 6281 days Last view: 6280 days |
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| Oh for fucks' sake man, pointing out the realities of the international political system and arguing for a little bit of basic realism and pragmatism does not an anti-American make.
I'm basically arguing that the US is another actor in the international system without any special aura or sanctity, that its capacity to get what it wants is constrained by other actors in a given situation, and that pushing too hard will create dire regional consequences and a security dilemma situation that will escalate an already dangerous situation. Moreover, I'm arguing that the reason you've got this view is that you've got exhibited a skewed view of international politics based on your particular perceptions of the Cold War and America's moral superiority. The "goodies vs baddies" view might play well domestically but project it abroad and it breaks down rapidly even among allies. I'm not saying you're talking solely about US self-interest... you're actually doing the opposite, and exhibiting the very American (also French, oddly) habit of universalising your own concerns and beliefs and priorities onto everyone else. That's not to say that people don't want freedom and blah blah blah, just that there's a recognition of what is and isn't possible and desirable. Having a war fought for your freedom and safety actually doesn't feel all that good, after all. At any rate, go read some Morgenthau, learn the basic tenets of political realism (the dominant theory in international relations, certainly amongst statesmen) and get back to me. For what it's worth, and I don't know whether you realise this already, but in terms of international relations theory you're arguing a textbook neo-conservative case. Unfortunately though, the whole "democratise the world" project and the whole idea of using military force to impose regime change on other countries based on idealism, is pretty badly discredited. At any rate: I have said NOTHING about anti-americanism, I have said NOTHING about evil empires or imperialism, and I have said NOTHING which isn't said by major American experts on international relations (and I do study this shit, I kind of have an idea of what I'm talking about). Hell, a lot of conservatives fucking agree with me, from a US self-interest perspective, that war with the North really needs to be avoided and that there's a limit to how hard we should push given the stakes. This isn't an "evil America" debate... this is about the security situation on the Korean peninsula and how fucking depressingly difficult it is and how an earnest desire to fix everything with force and strength isn't really the best idea. It is ridiculous for you to insinuate that because I'm pointing out that solely morality-based foreign policy is unworkable, I am somehow supporting North Korea. Ditch the uppity histrionics. I freely acknowledge that North Korea is probably the world's worst regime at the moment. I mean, there's a few other shit-holes in a bigger mess throughout Central Asia and Africa, but as far as well-organised regimes go, NK's basically a 1984 funpark with extra starvation and absent things like Pol Pot's Cambodia there ain't much worse around... I'm granting that. You're utterly misinterpreting me and misunderstanding me if you think I'm saying North Korea isn't awful. It's a terrible thing that they have nukes now, but we all knew it was coming and the sad fact is there's no actual way of stopping them. But. Conflict with North Korea is the least desirable outcome and should be avoided at all costs. It would kill many many people, create disastrous regional fallout, and it's all well and good to be so gung-ho about the potential for war from the other side of the world sitting in an untouchable superpower.... but well, you don't have to live with the consequences. Even assuming the best of intentions, and even assuming the political will, war with humanitarian motives is still notoriously tricky (we haven't really got a shining example at all, yet) and even in the best circumstances and can still fuck things up majorly. Freedom and democracy are nice and all, but starting wars is not a good idea either... and excessive aggressiveness is making war more likely. You don't have a monopoly on the moral high ground when the consequences of an excessively aggressive response are so potentially damaging. Massive destruction in South Korea, millions of refugees, the potential for a wider conflagration... this stuff isn't to be taken lightly. I'm no pacifist and I'm no anti-American. Fuck, man, I lived there for two years and I despise the excessive knee-jerk anti-Americanism in this country (though I'd point out that conservatives do it too, before you start thinking anti-Americanism is a lefty thing). It's crude and simplistic for you to accuse me of such things, and invoking Nazis and appeasement and so forth is simply insulting. I, for example, think military intervention in Zimbabwe is probably a good idea if it's well planned (huge "if" as always), but in the end you need to look at things with a cold, hard cost-benefit analysis before you decide to intervene based on morality. Politics is, after all, the art of the possible. Helping East Timor was possible in 1999, helping Tibet is not. Why? They're comparable situations of a large occupying neighbour, but basic realities of the international security system make them different. A sense of consequences, a sense that a well-meaning policy can create dire problems, a sense of fucking caution, is necessary. The claim that North Korea is likely to use nuclear weapons is wrong. For what it's worth, they've pledged a no first strike policy, but more importantly, they're still pretty much a rational actor (within the context of their fucked up little paranoid world) and aren't going to randomly attack unprovoked. It's a LEAVE US ALONE policy they're pursuing--a logical pursuit of security for the regime from where they're sitting (remember, people spent 50 years worrying about an unprovoked Soviet attack and it was never even remotely likely). Given their paranoia, it's wise not to push them any further than necessary. And your conviction that a nuclear attack wouldn't be responded to is seriously off base. The US would respond to an unprovoked act of nuclear aggression by the DPRK with nukes, and assuming they hadn't done too much to inflame the situation that led to it, I don't think anyone would really blame them too much for responding in kind... the doctrine of response to nuclear attack is well-known. Of course, they'd probably expect the US to front for a lot of the reconstruction (assuming China didn't march in and assume direct control) but then, they'd probably be right to expect this. The most likely scenario that would actually see North Korea to use its nukes is during the collapse of the regime or, hell, its entire society... or more likely, as a result of rapidly escalating tensions. Tensions that're most likely to occur if outside powers push too hard a line (that includes China, actually). It's a classic security dilemma scenario--pursuing your own security deprives others of security, and that's in play on both sides here. This is why China is angry but cautious and South Korea is shitting themselves and Japan has categorically ruled out nukes. North Korea has ramped up the tension and insecurity, and everyone's afraid other actors, obviously the US being one but China's still a wildcard, are going to ramp it up further. The North East Asian security situation is one of the most complicated and difficult situations in international relations. There's historical animosities, a rapidly rising China, a resurgent and nationalist Japan, the Taiwan question, very little in the way of regional cooperation to short-circuit tensions (unlike in South East Asia), and there's an outside hegemon projecting its own interests onto this already precarious region. Don't you think there's a reason that NO-ONE with any expertise or power is advocating invasion or anything beyond harsh sanctions? It's because it would be disastrous for all concerned. They recognise that pushing too hard is likely to reduce security, and in a nuclear world, security is paramount. ------------
No, you're still misinterpreting this. China is North Korea's only semi-friend but they're not happy. They don't want a petulant, paranoid, nuclear North Korea, and they'd really like nothing more than for it to be quiet. North Korea is a liability, albeit a necessary one in China's eyes. It sucks up aid (and steals the Chinese trains it comes in on, for gods sake) and threatens to create a huge security headache for China when all they want is peace, stability, economic growth and to avoid a confrontation with the USA. China has had harsh words for North Korea after all of this, after all. The whole situation threatens to further poison difficult relations with Japan, something which is bad for China because anti-Japanese nationalism in China has a tendency (because it comes from the new middle class, bulwarks of support for the government) to back the Chinese government into acting tougher than they'd like towards Japan... further exacerbating things. North Korea and China are semi-friends, but China is as likely to cut the North adrift or leave them to their own devices if tension increases as it is to back them. This serious question mark over how close the relationship actually is, is one of the few aspects of the situation that actually, thankfully, reduces the potential for a huge disaster. Moreover, you advocated splitting China from North Korea to isolate them. This is the wrong strategy. China already knows the cost of backing NK in terms of confronting the USA, they don't need to be told. China's influence over NK and its desire for things to just be quiet is a very useful thing, and a policy that jeopardises that is dangerous (and destabilising, since no-one wants a collapsed North Korea). ------------ Now, getting back to this collapse and reconstruction issue. Firstly, do you actually recognise that the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, while it did bring political freedom and end the Cold War, has had massive drawbacks, declines in standard of living for millions of people, lower life expectancy, all manner of social problems? How much do you actually know about the postcommunist world? I'm not saying it was a bad thing, because clearly it wasn't even if a lot of East Europeans and Russians yearn for the old days, but I'm saying its complexities and paradoxes and ambiguities must be recognised. The triumphalist cheerleader view basically only survives in sections of the West, with the benefit of distance and, basically, ignorance. And therefore, projecting a rose-tinted view of the collapse of Communism onto other situations isn't a great idea. If nothing else, just remember Yugoslavia was also a consequence of the collapse. Now, Germany. East Germany was utterly de-industrialised, reunification has cost Germany about €1.5 trillion dollars. And there was a lot of things working for Germany that won't for Korea: -West Germany was larger than East Germany with 3 times the population. In the Koreas, the populations are much closer. -West Germany's economy was stronger and larger than South Korea's and better able to foot the massive bill even given the problems it caused -East Germany was much stronger than North Korea and therefore the relative gap between the two countries was much closer than in the Koreas. The DDR was, in Eastern Bloc terms, an economic powehouse, and much more developed than North Korea is. Absorbing it was therefore easier than it would be for Korea. -North Korea actually is in such a parlous state that it is likely to collapse in ruination in a way that generates millions of refugees. This never occurred with the shitily run but still essentially functional East German republic. -Germany had the whole European Union behind it cheerleading unification, the international context was extremely amenable to reunification as a tool to cement Germany into Europe. Without the enthusiastic acceptance of people like Mitterand, Gorbachev and Thatcher, the outcome may have been very different. The Korean context is much more difficult... China does not what a capitalist, democratic, united Korea on its doorstep and would not cooperate in any way. The international context is much more fraught in the case of Korea. Korea, by and large, doesn't really want unification. They know they'd be left holding the basket. At most, if North Korea collapsed tomorrow, South Korea would be grudingly talking about a phased integration which would be long, expensive, debilitating and painful for both parties. The best scenario is waiting and observing, hoping for a gradual opening from the next leader, along the lines of other gradually economically reforming communist countries like China, Vietnam and, sort of, Cuba (having learned the lessons of rapid collapse and "shock therapy" it's obvious that gradual change is best). The question of sanctions is very difficult... they may well be very effective and crash the regime into chaos, they may do nothing, they may well simply provoke further tension. It's not a cut and dry case... I'd favour sanctions solely because it keeps up the message that nuclear proliferation has consequences for really undesirable states, but I at least recognise the multiple ways they can go badly wrong. Oh, and this:
Naw. Firstly, there was a whole coalition of counties (my great uncle was actually one of the Australians killed) under a UN banner, and the US copped only about a 20th of the overall fatalities on the allied side. The point isn't just pure military strength, though, it's stuff like reconstruction support (it'd be incredibly expensive to do anything other than just topple the government and leave them to their own devices) and also basic issues of moral credibility. Unilateralism has its drawbacks. If the US is seen to have unnecessarily provoked a war on the Korean peninsula through excessive aggressiveness, (and if this then goes nulcear), the US would cop a large share of the blame for turning a difficult situation disastrous even though it knew the risks and the costs of provoking North Korea. It would stand very isolated if it was seen to have provoked the crazy regime. It'd probably be a bigger disaster for American prestige and soft-power than the whole Iraq debacle has been. And this is even though the North Korean regime is so damn odious. That, too, is part of the equation here. (edited by Arwon on 10-18-06 09:46 AM) (edited by Arwon on 10-18-06 10:32 AM) |
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