Threat from the DPRK (North Korea)

[Eric the Green]

(09-21-2017, 09:42 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-20-2017, 09:09 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The problem Mr. Horn, is that Kim is rational.  There is no "western sense" to whether one is rational or not.  In fact I would say that all three have been particularly cold and calculating in their world wide actions.  Kim Jong-Il and Kim Jong-Un in particular.  Il-Sung mostly lived on foreign aid from the USSR and China.

I spent enough time in the far east to know that western philosophy and eastern philosophy are dramatically different.  The DPRK exists because the PRC entered the Korean War en masse.  We were tired and far away, so we left an armistice in place expecting it to resolve in time.  Time, in the eastern sense, is a much longer horizon than it is in the western sense.  So here we are.

In the meantime, the Kims decided that we were weak (their view of our decision to accept the armistice), and have tested our patience time and again.  What they fail to understand is a product of their philosophy: western patience is as short as our view of time.  If we actually decide that enough is enough, this will get very ugly very fast.

Kinser Wrote:As for shelling Seoul, I say let him.  It means the ROK will have no choice but to fight, and eventually reunify the peninsula.  They don't have much interest in doing that right now because modernizing the North would be a huge drag on their economy much like Germany experienced in their reunification.

So you're cheering on the idea of a land war in Asia then?  Do you honestly feel this makes any sense at all?

Kinser Wrote:Vietnam not so much.  Neither the south or the north were particularly developed at the time.

The Vietnam War was a meat grinder.  Spend some time watching Ken Burns series on the subject.

Indeed. It is very likely that if the USA attacked North Korea preemptively, China would back NK and support them, and that NK would attack South Korea. They have a huge army ready to fight, and our side does not. The risk of a quagmire is large. The USA is acting proud and unwilling to make a deal that would stop NK testing. Just offer to stop our war exercises near North Korea. We lose nothing in such an agreement, but the USA it seems would rather wratchet up the tensions even to the possibility of attempting to preemptively "wipe NK off the map" with "fire and fury." So much for the idea that Daddy Drump is not a neo-con.