North Korea confirms it has nuclear weapons

Moriarty

A war against NK would be far more conventional than the sort of thing they're doing in Iraq at the moment. It would be rather foolhardy to bet against the US in any conventional war that they entered, imo.

Redleslie2

Moriarty wrote:

A war against NK would be far more conventional than the sort of thing they're doing in Iraq at the moment. It would be rather foolhardy to bet against the US in any conventional war that they entered, imo.

Pro-war people running away from an army of midgets in pyjamas after losing a bet in Saigon yesterday.

Sparks

Moriarty wrote:

A war against NK would be far more conventional than the sort of thing they're doing in Iraq at the moment. It would be rather foolhardy to bet against the US in any conventional war that they entered, imo.

Not in this case. You'd basicly have to use nukes against the DPRK to have any hope of defeating them, and you're also going to have to nuke the entire DPRK-ROK border to eliminate the estimated eight thousand artillery emplacements along the border - and you'd have to do it before they started firing, or Seoul will be looking at a ducks-eye view of a shotgun blast. Remember, the best guess out there says they can lob 300,000 shells an hour into south korea at the moment.

And don't forget, you nuke the DPRK and Bejing is going to get very antsy very fast indeed.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030208-korea01.htm

Agent Smith

sovtek wrote:

"I'm sor wronry....sor very wronry..."

i was waiting for someone to start singing that....

SkepticOne

popinfresh wrote:

Ah yeah but sure if he invades S-korea he might as well be declairing war on the US. IMO possesion of nukes offer only an insurance whereby you can fight a war with another country, but that country will not invade your own soil for fear of being nuked.

Well yes, they could invade SK. NK's possesion of Nukes really means the total destruction of NK when action is taken against them. They would have removed any other options.

Moriarty

Moriarty wrote:

Nuh-uh. They have a number of labs (usamriid being the main one) that work on biological weapon strains for defensive purposes, but the US has absolutely no offensive biological weapons program. It's been US policy since Nixon that the US will never, under any circumstances, use biological weapons.

Don't you think this is a bit naive? Its like saying that N.Korea, Iran, etc are only conducting research into WMD's for defensive purposes so its all ok. Hell, the invasion of Iraq occured apparently because Saddam had WMD's and was continuing research into them.

If any nation is researching biological weapons, it means that they need to create new strains to find out how to defend against them. Problem is, that there will always be some in power that view those strains of Virus to be a great weapon. The US still remains the power with the largest amount of money being invested in WMD reserach, including that of Biological weapons.

Thing is, though. Nixon is no longer in power. Other presidents have come in since then. And Bush has stated that he will consider the use of Nukes should he believe that the US is under threat. Just like the invasion of Iraq. Iraq was a threat to US security so was removed. Usage of these weapons, is not as remote a possibility anymore.

bbbaldy

The US still manufacture land mines.
Biological weapons.
Nuclear weapons.
Use cluster bombs in civilian areas.
Commit torture.
Kidnap.
Prison Without Trial.
Ignore the geneva conventions and the international court of human rights.

Hey but this is ok coz they are on our side.

Moriarty

Sparks wrote:

Not in this case. You'd basicly have to use nukes against the DPRK to have any hope of defeating them, and you're also going to have to nuke the entire DPRK-ROK border to eliminate the estimated eight thousand artillery emplacements along the border - and you'd have to do it before they started firing, or Seoul will be looking at a ducks-eye view of a shotgun blast. Remember, the best guess out there says they can lob 300,000 shells an hour into south korea at the moment.

And don't forget, you nuke the DPRK and Bejing is going to get very antsy very fast indeed.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030208-korea01.htm

I'm not saying war would be fun or a great idea, I'm saying that I'd fancy the US/ROK's chances if it eventually went that way. It'd obviously be a complete mess, but north korea only have an advantage in weight of numbers.. and in the recent past that's proved to be of little advantage when opposing technologically superior combined forces the likes of which the US/ROK can field.

Deleted User wrote:

Don't you think this is a bit naive? Its like saying that N.Korea, Iran, etc are only conducting research into WMD's for defensive purposes so its all ok.

If you put the same amount of credability into the regiemes of Iran or North Korea that you put into the US government and all it's agencies, fair enough. I don't subscribe to that thought process. There's massive differences between them, but they're ok to sweep aside if it suits an anti-US/government/whatever position I guess.

Deleted User wrote:

If any nation is researching biological weapons, it means that they need to create new strains to find out how to defend against them. Problem is, that there will always be some in power that view those strains of Virus to be a great weapon.

US research into offensive biological weapons wasn't halted for purely moral or ethical reasons (although they were a factor). Biological weapons are poor substitues for other weapons (be it nuclear or conventional) due to unpredictability and unforseen problems created because of their use. No one would _want_ to use them to battle an enemy with.

Deleted User wrote:

The US still remains the power with the largest amount of money being invested in WMD reserach, including that of Biological weapons.

Source?

Deleted User wrote:

Thing is, though. Nixon is no longer in power. Other presidents have come in since then. And Bush has stated that he will consider the use of Nukes should he believe that the US is under threat.

An arsenal of nuclear weapons isn't of much use if you publicly say you'll never use them, now are they?

bbbaldy wrote:

The US still manufacture <..>
Biological weapons.
<..>
Hey but this is ok coz they are on our side.

Source?

If you put the same amount of credability into the regiemes of Iran or North Korea that you put into the US government and all it's agencies, fair enough. I don't subscribe to that thought process. There's massive
differences between them, but they're ok to sweep aside if it suits an anti-US/government/whatever position I guess.

This is what gets me. If you mention anything at all, that would put the US in a dodgy light, your opinions are labelled as being anti-US/government/whatever position. Is it possible to be critical of the US without these comments? [In hindsight, I may be a bit defensive here].

You see, I look at the US. The worlds only superpower. A decent reputation for decades, with a good few grey areas. However, Sept 11, came along and all that changed. Since then they've invaded two countries, and their reputationat least in my eyes, is hardly reputable.

Then you have N.Korea. A despicable government, who have not invaded any other nations borders, but keeps all its misery inside its own borders, with a few moves (and more often than not just posturing) towards S.Korea.

So in relation of holding WMD's, i am putting them on semi-equal ground. The US is more responsible than N.Korea, but the chances of the US using the weapons in its arsenal have become alot more likely than prior to Sept 11. And they are the only nation to use a nuke in a military action.

As for Iran, it has no credibility at all with me. But then again, I don't view them with any particular distrust.

US research into offensive biological weapons wasn't halted for purely moral or ethical reasons (although they were a factor). Biological weapons are poor substitues for other weapons (be it nuclear or conventional) due to unpredictability and unforseen problems created because of their use. No one would _want_ to use them to battle an enemy with.

http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/7_1Germ%20Warfare%20Biological%20Weapons.htm [Supports your comment]

I agree that biological weapons are poor subsitutes for other weapons, especially conventional weapons. However,the use of research into biological weapons for defensive purposes, will automatically generate a library of information and strains that can be used for offensive purposes.

And I must admit, I'm somewhat suspicious, since the US have so many "secret" projects in the pipeline that biological research for weaponry has been dropped completely. But I have no links to say that my suspicion is correct.

Source?

Re: US military spending, http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp#USMilitarySpending

Re, Biological weapons, I don't have any specific supporting links. Sorry. In fact I was totally wrong, and it seems the US is dismantling their arsenal of Biological weapon.

The United States said it does not maintain a stockpile of biological weapons although it does pursue defensive biological research. It has what it is believed to be the world's second largest stockpile of chemical weapons, which it has committed to destroying by 2004
Source: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/biochem.weapons/

Some details on the destruction of the Biological stockpiles,
http://www.stimson.org/pub.cfm?ID=107

I couldn't find anything that says that they've met their targets, but they were well on their way, by the reports I've read today (admittedly dated over the last 2-3 years).

An arsenal of nuclear weapons isn't of much use if you publicly say you'll never use them, now are they?

Right. So when the US says they'll use Nukes to defend themselves, and N.Korea say they've got nukes to defend themselves, You'll belive N.Korea are the only one of the two that will actually do so.... ok....

Moriarty

Deleted User wrote:

This is what gets me. If you mention anything at all, that would put the US in a dodgy light, your opinions are labelled as being anti-US/government/whatever position. Is it possible to be critical of the US without these comments? [In hindsight, I may be a bit defensive here].

I make a note of not throwing around 'anti-american', 'anti-democracy' or for that matter 'anti-toiletpaper' labels for the fun of it. That doesn't preclude me from pointing out that your position as you've outlined it is specifically hostile to the american government.

Deleted User wrote:

You see, I look at the US. The worlds only superpower. A decent reputation for decades, with a good few grey areas. However, Sept 11, came along and all that changed. Since then they've invaded two countries, and their reputationat least in my eyes, is hardly reputable.

Then you have N.Korea. A despicable government, who have not invaded any other nations borders, but keeps all its misery inside its own borders, with a few moves (and more often than not just posturing) towards S.Korea.

So in relation of holding WMD's, i am putting them on semi-equal ground. The US is more responsible than N.Korea, but the chances of the US using the weapons in its arsenal have become alot more likely than prior to Sept 11.

And that's what I have a problem with. You're taking specific acts which you don't agree with, and then applying your feelings on those to the much larger picture without also taking into account numerous other factors. That's a fallacy imo.

Deleted User wrote:

And they are the only nation to use a nuke in a military action.

If you're actually being serious in saying that the US using nuclear weapons in world war 2 has anything to do with the present day, you need to go away and have a long hard think.

Deleted User wrote:

I agree that biological weapons are poor subsitutes for other weapons, especially conventional weapons. However,the use of research into biological weapons for defensive purposes, will automatically generate a library of information and strains that can be used for offensive purposes.

There's much, much more to biological weapons than the actual biological toxin. That's the easy part. The hard part is devising methods of effectively weaponising and delivering the stuff (ie. offensive biological weapons research).

Deleted User wrote:

And I must admit, I'm somewhat suspicious, since the US have so many "secret" projects in the pipeline that biological research for weaponry has been dropped completely. But I have no links to say that my suspicion is correct.

If you want to take that point of view, fine.. but you then can't expect to be taken seriously.

Klaz wrote:

and it seems the US is dismantling their arsenal of [strike]Biological[/strike]Chemical weapons.

.. is, I presume, what you meant to say. The US completely destroyed their biological weapons arsenal decades ago.

Klaz wrote:

Right. So when the US says they'll use Nukes to defend themselves, and N.Korea say they've got nukes to defend themselves, You'll belive N.Korea are the only one of the two that will actually do so.... ok....

Yes, I will believe the US when they say that. One government is credible to me(on this issue), the other isn't.

pete

Moriarty wrote:

There's much, much more to biological weapons than the actual biological toxin. That's the easy part. The hard part is devising methods of effectively weaponising and delivering the stuff (ie. offensive biological weapons research).

US Army Patents Biological Weapons Delivery System :eek: :eek: :eek: :rolleyes:


note: i have no idea who / what the "sunshine project" is.

Moriarty

That was brought up the last time we had this debate, and iirc they withdrew 'biological' from the patent when somone noticed the gaff and drew their attention to it.. or something along those lines anyway.

Sparks

iirc they withdrew 'biological' from the patent when somone noticed the gaff and drew their attention to it

"Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile? Oh no, someone's mixed up the patent name. This is a Lawn Sprinkler. No, seriously. Yes, it sprinkles the lawn from orbit, some of our customers want their garden taken care of while they're at work. Well, we ship overseas, you know."

:rolleyes:

Moriarty

You're right up there with redleslie2 on good contributing posts sparks. Well done.

SkepticOne

Moriarty wrote:

US research into offensive biological weapons wasn't halted for purely moral or ethical reasons (although they were a factor). Biological weapons are poor substitues for other weapons (be it nuclear or conventional) due to unpredictability and unforseen problems created because of their use. No one would _want_ to use them to battle an enemy with.

They could still be handy for covert use. Give the enemy a bout of the flu (or probably something worse) in advance of an invasion having inoculated your own troops of that strain. Still a bit risky though.

jman0

MeatProduct wrote:

I'm sure there's a really obvious answer to this but why can't North Korea have WMD? The US has them, why should'nt anyone else have them? Please forgive me if this is a very stupid question.

Nick

PS: I know that "rogue" nations shouldn't have WMD but imo the US is a bit of a rogue nation.

The reason is: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It's not just that USA is this rogue bully that wants to be the only one carrying a big stick, but i think it's partly legitimized (US bully) in that some of these "roge nations" are actually signatories of this treaty, the stipulations of which prohibit them from developing nukes. But please do not intrepret my post as defending USA in any way. I just personally think the media doesn't do a good job informing the public about this treaty and its signatories.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/text/npt3.htm