Threat from the DPRK (North Korea)

[Kinser79]

(09-25-2017, 01:36 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-23-2017, 10:46 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Not really, you would need to have had a point first.  You didn't.  Your claim was that Western rationality and Eastern rationality are somehow different, whereas game theory indicates quite differently.

As to LBJ, I may or may not be wrong.  I wasn't alive then and I really don't want to think much about a third rate president who died before I was even born.  That being said you are right in that Kim won't negotiate regardless the amount of pain, which is why the only solution is the absolute and utter destruction of North Korea and Korean Unification.

In many ways it is time to finish unfinished business.

First, game theory is just that, theory.  It applies where it does, and doesn't in this case.  

Gravity is also a theory but it is the basis of all modern physics. Evolution is a theory but it is also the basis of all modern biology. Are you planning on brushing those aside as "just a theory" too?

Quote:Second, you are pretty free with taking risks that others might suffer.  We're still safe here in our distant continent, but the South Koreans and Japanese, not so much.

The South Koreans and Japanese are likely to suffer if we do nothing as much as if we do something. I don't see what they have to lose by neutralizing a existential threat to both states. As as been pointed out elsewhere, in order for the Norks to not be totally obliterated in a war with the ROK-US-Japan alliance either the PRC has to back them (Russia would have severe logistical problems doing so even if they wanted to, and it isn't clear that they do) or would have to overwhelm ROK and US forces in a human wave.

I do not think the Norks can possibly win a conventional war, even with PRC assistance. Their technology is dated, their military and population is starving and in short the maths just aren't on their side.

(09-25-2017, 01:38 PM)David Horn Wrote: A post where we mostly agree.  Great!

Be sure to mark it on your calendar as having happened.