US considering Preemptive Strike against North Korea.

4068ac1elhodqr

All is well, some folks today only went and made a really big peace sign, then rushed to the nearest gn-toilets, after far too many flapachinos

BillyBobBS

Evie Big Troop wrote: »

All is well, some folks today only went and made a really big peace sign, then rushed to the nearest gn-toilets, after far too many flapachinos

Well that's that then. Crisis averted.

BillyBobBS

BillyBobBS wrote: »

A U.S. official has just said NK is preparing a missile test.

The way things are at the moment, they're always preparing for another missile test.
So this isn't really news!

It's where they're proposing to test it that is the question.

BillyBobBS

Deleted User wrote: »

The way things are at the moment, they're always preparing for another missile test.
So this isn't really news!

It's where they're proposing to test it that is the question.

Yes the world is on the brink of a nuclear war and the fact NK is preparing a missile test isn't news. Come on.

Evie Big Troop

Evie Big Troop wrote: »

, then rushed to the nearest gn-toilets, after far too many flapachinos

Did they also claim the record for the largest gathering of Gender unspecified as well. :pac:

4068ac1elhodqr

To be fair to the NK public they seem to do protest marches with calm dignity, matching red ties and uniform haircuts.



Just imagine what what happen if punk music and all that goes with it (fashion, attitude, expression) suddenly became popular (somewhat unlikely).
Have a spare 'Sex Pistols greatest hits CD' somewhere available to post out, could be a more potent tool than any big stick waving.

Gatling

Evie Big Troop wrote: »

To be fair to the NK public they seem to do protest marches with calm dignity, matching red ties and uniform haircuts.



Just imagine what what happen if punk music and all that goes with it (fashion, attitude, expression) suddenly became popular (somewhat unlikely).
Have a spare 'Sex Pistols greatest hits CD' somewhere available to post out, could be a more potent tool than any big stick waving.

There all wearing Donalds favorite red tie ,

seiphil

Think it's been proven that the US haven't a clue about NK regards their missiles and their capablities. If they did the US would have attacked long ago.

Kim is toying with them. They haven't a clue where he is or where his missiles are going to come from.

Reason they don't know..North Korea is basically a country underground. Not just a few meter's underground but miles and miles.

Only way this de-escalates is if the US withdraw from South Korea. Which we know they wont.

flaneur

This is actually starting to escalate very rapidly.

flaneur

flaneur wrote: »

This is actually starting to escalate very rapidly.

No , just the usual megaphone diplomacy in action, just think of two old gits shouting over the fence, neither one has the guts to jump over it to kick the shjít out of the other.

flaneur

I don't see much evidence of diplomacy.

flaneur

flaneur wrote: »

I don't see much evidence of diplomacy.

Diplomacy has many facets, ranging from "the ferrero rocher" ambassadors reception to shouting obscenities from the sides of battleships.

We are very close to the latter at this stage!

The main thing is that it is still jaww jaww rather than warr warr!

Gatling

flaneur wrote: »

I don't see much evidence of diplomacy.

No bombs falling through.

Cheerful Spring

BillyBobBS wrote: »

Yes the world is on the brink of a nuclear war and the fact NK is preparing a missile test isn't news. Come on.

I think Kim messed up when his ambassador said they might detonate a nuke over or on the Pacific. How is the Americans and Japanese going to know now if this missile is fake or the real thing? North Korea by saying this has increased the potential the missile will be shoot down.

Cheerful Spring

seiphil wrote: »

Think it's been proven that the US haven't a clue about NK regards their missiles and their capablities. If they did the US would have attacked long ago.

Kim is toying with them. They haven't a clue where he is or where his missiles are going to come from.

Reason they don't know..North Korea is basically a country underground. Not just a few meter's underground but miles and miles.

Only way this de-escalates is if the US withdraw from South Korea. Which we know they wont.

I agree they claimed the North Koreans would not have ICBM capability till 2020. Their calculation was wrong. It hard to see a diplomatic solution to this crisis. America obviously will flatten North Korea, if it went Nuclear, but the North is not going to just sit there and take it. NK Missiles will hit Seoul, Japan, Bases in the Pacific. They may also hit US cities but this remains to be seen?

Cheerful Spring

BillyBobBS wrote: »

A U.S. official has just said NK is preparing a missile test.

Have you a source? Don't see anything online about this?

BoatMad

My own view is Trumps outpourings , are like most of what he says , largely meaningless nonsense largely aimed at his cult like domestic supporters.

The reality is Americas options on NK are significantly limited by SK , which would be drawn into a devastating war and China, that would be forced to take sides.

Hence there are two positive things I can see from this, (a) china , in order to prevent conflict , reins in NK and ( b) Kelly and Mattis, break every mobile phone trump owns and write all his speeches on tiny post it notes using only words from the ABC book of reading " run Jane run "

TotalReality

America is done for.
They made absolute fools out of themselves in Syria(and still are).
The only hope is to compromise with China,ask them for help and Trump to get down on his knees with the begging bowl.
The US has lost all say in world geo-politics,they just dont have the sway they used to.

Saudis scrambling round to do deals with Russia.
Israel,once realised Syria was a lost cause,Netanyahu was on the 1st flight to Moscow of all places.
Turkey is buying Russian air defence missiles.
Even the Germans are investigating illegal activity from the US in one of their own airbases.

Is it any wonder Kim thinks he can get away with all his testing.

BillyBobBS

Deleted User wrote: »

No , just the usual megaphone diplomacy in action, just think of two old gits shouting over the fence, neither one has the guts to jump over it to kick the shjít out of the other.

Wish you where right but you are very wide of the mark.

BillyBobBS

TotalReality wrote: »

America is done for.
They made absolute fools out of themselves in Syria(and still are).
The only hope is to compromise with China,ask them for help and Trump to get down on his knees with the begging bowl.
The US has lost all say in world geo-politics,they just dont have the sway they used to.

Saudis scrambling round to do deals with Russia.
Israel,once realised Syria was a lost cause,Netanyahu was on the 1st flight to Moscow of all places.
Turkey is buying Russian air defence missiles.
Even the Germans are investigating illegal activity from the US in one of their own airbases.

Is it any wonder Kim thinks he can get away with all his testing.

Great story man.

BillyBobBS

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Have you a source? Don't see anything online about this?

Was on Reuters news website last night.

ilkhanid

Gringo180 wrote: »

I dont want to see any country with Nuclear bombs. But when a country has been destroyed before and are been constantly poked and threatened by the biggest military super power in the world is there any wonder why they try to gain Nuclear capabilities. Isnt that why Israel has them because there country feels threatened by there neighbours.

History tells us that over the decades it's been the North Koreans who are constantly poking the South (and Japan). No point in detailing the instances yet again,they're here for those who bother to look at post #2976.

Cheerful Spring

ilkhanid wrote: »

History tells us that over the decades it's been the North Koreans who are constantly poking the South (and Japan). No point in detailing the instances yet again,they're here for those who bother to look at post #2976.

Rubbish, you pointing out one side flaws.. You Ignoring the Americans have imposed an economic blockade on North Korea since the first Korean war ended. An economic blockade is also a hostile act and has never stopped. What about the military drills South Korea and America do ever every year on the border? Both sides are just as bad as each other.

ilkhanid

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Rubbish, you pointing out one side flaws.. You Ignoring the Americans have imposed an economic blockade on North Korea since the first Korean war ended. An economic blockade is also a hostile act and has never stopped.

The Americans? Everybody has assented to the sanctions, even their supposed ally, China. I guess the whole world is engaging in hostile acts against the DPRK. If the whole world is against you, then you must be really pi1ssing everybody off. Maybe it's time to change the bad attitude and rejoin the world.

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

What about the military drills South Korea and America do ever every year on the border? Both sides are just as bad as each other.

No. they're not. If you imagine that a drill is the same thing as actually attacking and killing people then you've a peculiur mind. The Russians are in the midst of war exercises at this very moment in Western Russia. NATO doesn't like it but it's a long way from actually engaging in overt aggressive acts. But somehow I bet you've no objections to the Russian exercises.
South Korea would be out of it's mind to lower it's vigilance for one second against an enemy that has signalled its hostile intentions again and again by murder and conspiracy. The fact is, North korea has never, for one moment, ceased to be a threat to its southern cousin. It has never accepted its defeat in the war. We know now that when Kim Il-Sung visited Beijing in 1975 he tried to get's Mao's support for a renewed war against the South. Mao, who for all his faults, decided that the new rapprochement with the US was more important than indulging his warmongering neighnour, rebuffed him.
The Kims don't like the drills? Tough! Then ,they should'nt have tried to murder the Korean government. They should'nt have attacked the Southern submarine. They should'nt have dug those tunnels. They should'nt have fired shells into Southern territory.
You make your bed, you lie on it.

Cheerful Spring

ilkhanid wrote: »

The Americans? Everybody has assented to the sanctions, even their supposed ally, China. I guess the whole world is engaging in hostile acts against the DPRK. If the whole world is against you, then you must be really pi1ssing everybody off. Maybe it's time to change the bad attitude and rejoin the world.



No. they're not. If you imagine that a drill is the same thing as actually attacking and killing people then you've a peculiur mind. The Russians are in the midst of war exercises at this very moment in Western Russia. NATO doesn't like it but it's a long way from actually engaging in overt aggressive acts. But somehow I bet you've no objections to the Russian exercises.
South Korea would be out of it's mind to lower it's vigilance for one second against an enemy that has signalled its hostile intentions again and again by murder and conspiracy. It doesn't like the drills? Tough! Then ,it should'nt have tried to murder the Korean government. It should'nt have attacked the Southern submarine. It should'nt have dug those tunnels. It should'nt have fired shells into Southern territory.
You make your bed, you lie on it.

China and Russia only agree to watered down new sanctions against North Korea. And there is evidence, Russia and China, don't care about the sanctions implemented at the UN. The only sign up for sanctions to protect their own interests. America has forced sanctions on Russia and is threatening to do so against China, so i have my doubts, they are doing this as they dislike what NK is doing? I would not be surprised, if they are helping NK behind the scenes, and boosting NK ability to defend itself.

You don't seem to understand economic sanctions against a country is a hostile act even a declaration of war. North Koreans have done many bad things since the Korean War ended, i do agree. Hypothetically: If England imposed on economic blockade on Ireland for 50 years, would you pick up arms to defend your country, or would you be a person to just sit there and take it?

ilkhanid

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

America has forced sanctions on Russia and is threatening to do so against China, so i have my doubts, they are doing this as they dislike what NK is doing?

Poor Russia and China! I thought the USA was a declining, impotent power, and now we hear that it's able to bend China and Russia to it's will. Whatever next!

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

You don't seem to understand economic sanctions against a country is a hostile act even a declaration of war. North Koreans have done many bad things since the Korean War ended, i do agree. Hypothetically: If England imposed on economic blockade on Ireland for 50 years, would you pick up arms to defend your country, or would you be a person to just sit there and take it?

No, I'd put out the government that kept harassing the English and threatening them, wasting our money on a huge army and doing those-at least you admit it-bad things. But that's not an option that the people of North Korea have. They do as they're told.
The solution is simple. 1.Stop building missiles. 2. Listen to the Chinese. 3. Rejoin the world and dump this Juche nonsense. But that's not an option because there is no solution acceptable to everybody else that doesn't have a bad outcome for the Kims regime. Their existence depends on keeping their people terrified, ignorant slaves completely cut off from the outside world, believing that they are a superior people and that the rest of the world is hostile, poverty-stricken and inferior. No light can be allowed into this Plato's cave.
People are still under the impression that this is a normal regime. It's not. It's not even like other dictatorships. The hereditary nature of the Kim regime means that a relapse into normal behaviour is precluded from the start. People make clueless comparisons to places like Vietnam, claiming that north Korea could become like that, but they're drawing the wrong lessons. Even psychotic regimes like Stalin's Russia or Mao's China changed because there was a cohort of people at the highest level that saw change as desirable when the despot died. Those regimes were so terrifying, so unpredictable that nobody, even-especially-those in the elite felt safe. A dialling down of terror and a loosening of the reins not only brought relief to the high Party members but made the general public more grateful and tractable. Regimes like Vietnam and Laos were a mixture of nationalists and ideologues-but not totally blind ones. There was no hereditary elite. When the world changed the regime took note and altered it's course. The Kims, the ideology and the state are one. Juche was originated by and is inseperable from the Kims. Any attempt to adapt to changing times would have detrimential consequences for the Kim regime which wants total, unchallenged power. This is what it hopes for from normalization: a guarantee of it's continued existence, regular dollops of aid and otherwise for everything to go on as before.

aloyisious

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Rubbish, you pointing out one side flaws.. You Ignoring the Americans have imposed an economic blockade on North Korea since the first Korean war ended. An economic blockade is also a hostile act and has never stopped. What about the military drills South Korea and America do ever every year on the border? Both sides are just as bad as each other.

On that basis, you must include the UN, Russia and China as enemies of NK as well

Manic Moran

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

You don't seem to understand economic sanctions against a country is a hostile act even a declaration of war. North Koreans have done many bad things since the Korean War ended, i do agree. Hypothetically: If England imposed on economic blockade on Ireland for 50 years, would you pick up arms to defend your country, or would you be a person to just sit there and take it?

The armistice was an agreement by the militaries to stop shooting at each other until further notice pending further discussions, it was not an agreement between governments to be nice to each other. That cessation of armed hostilities has been broken only by one side. The war the North started continues on, and thus continues to have repercussions on the North because an agreement for peace has not been reached. And, for the record, the North has said it would fail to follow that armsistice several times in the last 20 years. I would argue that the continued state of war probably takes away the moral argument that 'economic sanctions are an act of war' given they are already in one.

Infini

They're putting out threat's now but I honestly dont think NK will continue to exist within the next decade at the current pace of things. Looking at the history of the state it was sung who thought he could pull a fast one by invading the south. They were the ones who attacked first regardless of the instability as historical files from Russia after the fall of the USSR showed it was sung looking for the nod off Stalin to take the south. Regardless of the the destruction the North suffered it was brought on by their agression and only the chinese bailed them out at the time because they had only recently won their Civil war and were trying to shake off a century of humiliation from other powers at the time.

The problem with this state begins after the First Korean War as sung basically eliminated all opposition and consolidating all power and Stalinist cult of personality through purges and turned the place into a giant prison camp. Those in the protest there the other day I would say a good chunk are only there to keep up appearances and stay alive. Testimony from defectors show what they had to do just to keep under the radar from the kim's. Even high level defectors had to be careful because they would punish their family's if they left. North Korea has also instigated numerous provocations over the years like shooting down an American spy plane, the USS Pueblo, The sinking of the Chenoen and the shelling of a south Korean island.

What's interesting is that both North Korea and South Korea were relatively matched until the 80's. It's only at that point that the south took off economically and began to surpass them severely in conventional military strength. They also suffered heavily with the fall of the USSR as their free money got cut off and they were hit with a famine. The nukes are essentially their last desperate roll of the dice but they're a double edged sword: They draw economic sanctions and international isolation not to mention that they're not simply for "defence" but to threaten and strongarm.

The problem here is that were getting to the stage where NK are moving to the point where they're a serious threat to EVERYONE not just America. China isnt weak on the issue but they've walked themselves into a bind: by supporting NK for so long saying they've little influence over past actions they've found they've actually lost influence for real. Kim also getting overconfident and reckless and is heading towards making the same mistake his grandfather did 70 years ago by trying to force things militarily especially by constantly provoking Japan, South Korea and the US who have a presidential troll in office (you know what they say about arguing with them!)

As thing's stand this is a tinderbox situation which could go hot at any moment. All it would take is a miscalculation and the whole thing will snowball quickly. North Korea pursues nukes but is playing the wrong game of chicken as they're not a large country so don't have the protection of MAD unlike a Russia v US scenario. Not only that but they're threatened and blustered for so long that the US is taking them as a serious threat that might require military solutions. They want "respect" but are instead demanding the attention of bigger power's to sort them out permanently.

Not only that but they're slowly alienating their only friend China with their carry-on and that could be the game changer here: If things get bad would they still support a regime that caused the situation through reckless provocation or would THEY invade out of sheer need to protect their own country?

snotboogie

ilkhanid wrote: »

Poor Russia and China! I thought the USA was a declining, impotent power, and now we hear that it's able to bend China and Russia to it's will. Whatever next!



No, I'd put out the government that kept harassing the English and threatening them, wasting our money on a huge army and doing those-at least you admit it-bad things. But that's not an option that the people of North Korea have. They do as they're told.
The solution is simple. 1.Stop building missiles. 2. Listen to the Chinese. 3. Rejoin the world and dump this Juche nonsense. But that's not an option because their is no solution acceptable to everybody else that doesn't have a bad outcome for the Kims regime. Their existence depends on keeping their people terrified, ignorant slaves completely cut off from the outside world, believing that they are a superior people and that the rest of the world is hostile, poverty-stricken and inferior. No light can be allowed into this Plato's cave.
People are still under the impression that this is a normal regime. It's not. It's not even like other dictatorships. The hereditary nature of the Kim regime means that a relapse into normal behaviour is precluded from the start. People make clueless comparisons to places like Vietnam, claiming that north Korea could become like that, but they're drawing the wrong lessons. Even psychotic regimes like Stalin's Russia or Mao's China changed because there was a cohort of people at the highest level that saw change as desirable when the despot died. Those regimes were so terrifying, so unpredictable that nobody, even-especially those-in the elite felt safe. A dialling down of terror and a loosening of the reins not only brought relief to the high Party members but made the general public more grateful and tractable. Regimes like Vietnam and Laos were a mixture of nationalists and ideologues-but not totally blind ones. There was no hereditary elite. When the world changed the regime took note and altered it's course. The Kims, the ideology and the state are one. Juche was originated by and is inseperable from the Kims. Any attempt to adapt to changing times would have detrimential consequences for the Kim regime which wants total, unchallenged power. This is what it hopes for from normalization: a guarantee of it's continued existence, regular dollops of aid and otherwise for everything to go on as before.

There is no way out for the Kim's and the rest of the elites in North Korea, this is it. If they stop building missiles and relax their external threats, it won't be long before US, Southern and Japanese backed rebels are sticking bayonets up their arse in the street, the Kim's saw the Arab spring. Listen to China and it won't be long before they find somebody else in North Korea who will do exactly as they say, why do you think they murdered Macau based and CCP protected Kim Jong Nam? Open up and they leave themselves vulnerable to all sorts of espionage, assassination attempts and foreign powers backing disgruntled opposition, the world won't forget the last 70 years and the Kim's will never be forgiven, best case scenario they end up before The Hague, worst case they end up tortured to death by some rebels. The stakes are high and the only way to protect the North Korean elites is Nuclear weapons.