North Korea is enabled by China; without China, North Korea government will never be able to get all the technologies/parts/fuels it need to survive. It would have collapsed.
We (US) and the world enable China by allowing manufacturing to be offshored to China, an authoritarian government which has horrific track record of censorship, human rights abuse, pollution, etc.
We need to stop, and punish China for supporting North Korea.
Gradual nuclear proliferation continues to bring us closer to hell on earth. Can we please ban nuclear weapons before this happens?
We've banned chemical and biological weapons. Why not nuclear? They post a much greater threat to humanity, and that threat is growing as states like North Korea improve their capability.
Nuclear weapons are the greatest instruments of world peace ever conceived. Don't you think we'd have had another set of massive industrial total wars in the 20th century had it not been for MAD? As it is, we've had only a few occasional brush fires. There is practically zero risk of an actual nuclear exchange.
If you waved a magic wand and eradicated all nuclear weapons and other forms of mass destruction, you'd return us to a world of bloodshed and horror. It's counter-intuitive, but it's true.
North Korea has been making peace offers for a while, South Korea has been in discussions with them, the US has turned them down without much consideration.
North Korea, China and Russia all think Trump's bellicose attitude towards North Korea has been unhelpful. This test is a quite rational response to the pressures that are being turned up on North Korea.
I know there are lots of outrages going on today, but put in perspective, the situation with North Korea is far and away the gravest concern.
We are talking about literally millions of lives at stake -- perhaps many more if it gets out of control and becomes a war involving both China and the US.
I don't have a solution, but I think we need to be prepared for tough choices. It may be that no good outcome is possible at this point.
Which lives do you mean, exactly? North Korean, or others?
IMHO, KJU has nothing to gain and everything to lose by provoking other powers into a forceful response. The erratic behavior of him and his government is the defensive tactic itself. The ability to cause destruction overseas is of secondary concern, and it would seem to be a negligible one in the face of a potential response.
Trump employs something similar--act unpredictably and people keep their distance. Create the next sensationalist headline and people will 1) stop and think about what exactly is going on and 2) stay their distance. Do this enough times, often enough, and you're relatively shielded from serious threats to your power.
Of course, there is a limit, but so far they both are acting within tolerances.
"The ability to cause destruction overseas is of secondary concern"
No, that's my primary concern.
If your calculation is off, and they do attack, or scare someone else enough to attack them, the result will be horrific.
And you seem to assume the situation there is stable and KJU will behave rationally. If domestic politics in NK get complicated or KJU gets too paranoid, there's no telling what he will do.
I meant that, for KJU, he is less concerned about the ability to cause destruction than he is about preserving his seat of power. I believe KJU is more rational than he broadcasts, in that his motivations for acting the way he does comes from a plan to keep everyone at arm's (or rocket's) length and not out of some crazed all-or-nothing brigade. It doesn't seem sustainable in the long run, I agree. It's a matter of time until something off-the-wall happens.
I also find it hard to believe that the US, China, and Russia don't all have sophisticated countermeasures in place in case a rocket is launched with a trajectory toward something important. It may still cause horrific damage, but not on the level of a megacity.
Your primary concern is not his. That is my wager. Let's hope my optimism wins out...
It's a great symbol for socialism really, the whole country is starving to death whilst the literal fat man at the top makes some nukes to threaten America with. Great success!
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 51.6 ms ] threadhttp://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41139445
We (US) and the world enable China by allowing manufacturing to be offshored to China, an authoritarian government which has horrific track record of censorship, human rights abuse, pollution, etc.
We need to stop, and punish China for supporting North Korea.
How?
We've banned chemical and biological weapons. Why not nuclear? They post a much greater threat to humanity, and that threat is growing as states like North Korea improve their capability.
If you waved a magic wand and eradicated all nuclear weapons and other forms of mass destruction, you'd return us to a world of bloodshed and horror. It's counter-intuitive, but it's true.
The threat still is and always has been a real nuclear power loosing off their arsenal either in anger or by mistake - that's how you end the world.
North Korea, China and Russia all think Trump's bellicose attitude towards North Korea has been unhelpful. This test is a quite rational response to the pressures that are being turned up on North Korea.
We are talking about literally millions of lives at stake -- perhaps many more if it gets out of control and becomes a war involving both China and the US.
I don't have a solution, but I think we need to be prepared for tough choices. It may be that no good outcome is possible at this point.
IMHO, KJU has nothing to gain and everything to lose by provoking other powers into a forceful response. The erratic behavior of him and his government is the defensive tactic itself. The ability to cause destruction overseas is of secondary concern, and it would seem to be a negligible one in the face of a potential response.
Trump employs something similar--act unpredictably and people keep their distance. Create the next sensationalist headline and people will 1) stop and think about what exactly is going on and 2) stay their distance. Do this enough times, often enough, and you're relatively shielded from serious threats to your power.
Of course, there is a limit, but so far they both are acting within tolerances.
No, that's my primary concern.
If your calculation is off, and they do attack, or scare someone else enough to attack them, the result will be horrific.
And you seem to assume the situation there is stable and KJU will behave rationally. If domestic politics in NK get complicated or KJU gets too paranoid, there's no telling what he will do.
I also find it hard to believe that the US, China, and Russia don't all have sophisticated countermeasures in place in case a rocket is launched with a trajectory toward something important. It may still cause horrific damage, but not on the level of a megacity.
Your primary concern is not his. That is my wager. Let's hope my optimism wins out...
There are some pretty big and serious reasons for being specific about this.