NK Claims it has six nukes

[TillEulenspiegel]

Interesting view Rob.
If I were Kim I would make a very public display of my nuclear saber. Do what I call the "Pakistani Gambit" . I.E. even If You only have 1 nuke blow the thing up and do a press release about the glorious triumph of Islam (socialism in NK's case ). There's still a question as to whether Pakistan detonated a low yield nuke or packed a cave full of TNT. The object lesson is that appearance is everything. If the world BELIEVES you have nukes , it's all but the same thing as having them.

I can only hope that the US military has plans and Bush will follow their advice this time around.

 

[Hutch]

BPSCG, you have read history books, so you know that part of the reason for the Japanese attakcs in 41-42 (not the total reason, fo course, Japan's military knew that sooner or later they would have to confront the United States) was the US cutting off Iron and Oil trade with the Japanese, which to their military minds meant that the only way to sustain the Japanese war machine was by taking the East Indies--and to do that they felt they had to neutralize the US. Hence came Pearl Harbor.

I think we are in the same situation now. Cutting off trade (and I have serious doubts that China and S. Korea, who have the most at stake, would ever go along) and trying to enforce a boycott-(which, as described by another poster here, would in effect be a blockade and a recognized act of war) would leave the People's Repubic with litterally nothing left to lose. Invasion of South Korea would be next, followed by possible nuclear attack on Japan, leading to US-led retaliation (and unlike ed, I doubt it would be nuclear unless it directly hit us--China would be the big stumbling block here) and the final ending of North Korea--but at a cost of probably several million lives, mostly Korean and Japanese rather than American, a rather serious dislocation of the world's economy, and an environmental problem several decades long. Not to mention the budget.

So I think Bush (like presidents before him and presidents after) will be content to throw the Mad Dog a bone, lest he become to famished and slip out of his kennel to attack the nearest target.

Not satisfactory at all, but this is a very high-stakes poker game, with the Suicide King wild, not the simple card game of 'War' you, Rik, and ed seem to be wanting to play.

IMHO, as always.

 

[Rob Lister]

Interesting view Rob.
If I were Kim I would make a very public display of my nuclear saber. Do what I call the "Pakistani Gambit" . I.E. even If You only have 1 nuke blow the thing up and do a press release about the glorious triumph of Islam (socialism in NK's case ). There's still a question as to whether Pakistan detonated a low yield nuke or packed a cave full of TNT. The object lesson is that appearance is everything. If the world BELIEVES you have nukes , it's all but the same thing as having them.

I can only hope that the US military has plans and Bush will follow their advice this time around.

Interesting view right back at you TillEulenspiegel. I've not read/heard that their (Pakistin's test) might have been faked. Any references would be nice but not required. Still, even if they had then I feel confident (>95%) that NSA would know the difference (WMD mistake' brings it down from 99%) but would likely not state publicly that knowledge. Was theirs Uranium or Plutonium?

 

[Ziggurat]

I think we are in the same situation now. Cutting off trade (and I have serious doubts that China and S. Korea, who have the most at stake, would ever go along) and trying to enforce a boycott-(which, as described by another poster here, would in effect be a blockade and a recognized act of war) would leave the People's Repubic with litterally nothing left to lose.

I don't think that's quite true. A blockade puts them in serious jeapordy, but we can tighten the screws without it being a complete death spiral for them. You could stop any ocean-going trade, but still permit some trade through the China-North Korea land border, for instance. Let them have food, restrict fuel shipments, and don't permit anything else - they can't survive that indefinitely, but they can last long enough to realize they've got to give ground. But if they were to attack, it would be death to their regime rather quickly. Even without using nuclear weapons, we can paralyze the country with ease from the air. Their road infrastructure is almost non-existent, they rely completely on railroads. Bomb those in key locations in the mountains, where it's hard to get repair crews to, and you shut down everything in North Korea, including the military. They aren't stupid, they know this. They're counting on the cost to South Korea from the artillery bombardment to keep us from attacking, but should war ever break out, they (at least the military brass) are quite well aware that they will lose badly, in a very short span of time.

Invasion of South Korea would be next, followed by possible nuclear attack on Japan, leading to US-led retaliation (and unlike ed, I doubt it would be nuclear unless it directly hit us--China would be the big stumbling block here) and the final ending of North Korea--but at a cost of probably several million lives, mostly Korean and Japanese rather than American, a rather serious dislocation of the world's economy, and an environmental problem several decades long. Not to mention the budget.

They cannot invade South Korea , all they can do is pummel it from across the DMZ. The South Korean army is much smaller in terms of man power, but it's also much better equipped, and can repulse any attempted invasion. As for Japan, well, chances are that they aren't able to fit their nuclear weapons (which, as pointed out, have never been tested) onto a ballistic missile. And there's no way in hell they can get a bomber over a major Japanese city. So striking Japan with nukes is probably out of the question (it's also not necessary, since South Korea has enough targets).

 

[Rob Lister]

As for Japan, well, chances are that they aren't able to fit their nuclear weapons (which, as pointed out, have never been tested) onto a ballistic missile. And there's no way in hell they can get a bomber over a major Japanese city. So striking Japan with nukes is probably out of the question (it's also not necessary, since South Korea has enough targets).

I know you're speaking specifically of NK here but when I first read it I thought you were speaking about Japan's Nuclear Weapons (which they presumably do not have). That realization of my misinterpretation also make me realize that Japan probably has several nuclear weapons (which undoubtedly work well whether tested or not). After all, if you were them then wouldn't you have a few, or more than a few? Sorry for the derail. Perhaps I shall start a thread.

 

[Ziggurat]

I know you're speaking specifically of NK here but when I first read it I thought you were speaking about Japan's Nuclear Weapons (which they presumably do not have). That realization of my misinterpretation also make me realize that Japan probably has several nuclear weapons (which undoubtedly work well whether tested or not). After all, if you were them then wouldn't you have a few, or more than a few? Sorry for the derail. Perhaps I shall start a thread.

If I were Japan, I would have everything on hand to assemble a nuclear weapons arsenal on short notice (as in a few weeks at most), but not actually assemble bombs. For rather understandable domestic reasons, actually crossing that threshold is something they can only do under the most dire of circumstances.

 

[varwoche]

If I were Japan, I would have everything on hand to assemble a nuclear weapons arsenal on short notice (as in a few weeks at most), but not actually assemble bombs. For rather understandable domestic reasons, actually crossing that threshold is something they can only do under the most dire of circumstances.

It's not my impression that it works that way -- that nukes are readily assembled by a country not known to have a program.

 

[BPSCG]

BPSCG, you have read history books, so you know that part of the reason for the Japanese attakcs in 41-42 (not the total reason, fo course, Japan's military knew that sooner or later they would have to confront the United States) was the US cutting off Iron and Oil trade with the Japanese, which to their military minds meant that the only way to sustain the Japanese war machine was by taking the East Indies--and to do that they felt they had to neutralize the US. Hence came Pearl Harbor.

"To the wicked, everything serves as pretext." - Voltaire.

What you're saying is that Japan had no choice but to launch a war that resulted in their own destruction. Or, to put it another way, they started a war to destroy themselves, for their own good.

I think we are in the same situation now.

NK will launch a war that can only result in its utter annihilation for its own good?

There's been a lot of loose talk here about NK and/or Kim Jong Il being insane. I think you have to consider what Rikzilla's been saying in other threads about Nathan Sharansky's thesis that tyrannies are based on fear, and that fear needs an external bogeyman to survive. Let's suppose that Kim/NK is utterly sane. If so, then their actions up to now make perfect sense from the point of view of a tyranny:

1) Demand negotiations to stall for time while you work for your perceived advantage.
2) Bluster about your strength to the rest of the world, to make them pause and discuss/quarrel among themselves about what to do about you;
3) Preach to your subjects about the evil of your/their enemy to keep them united behind you and maximize the number of "true believers."
4) Back off whenever expedient.

Kim's actions may appear insane to those of us who live in liberal democracies. But they are the classic moves of a tyrant with his boot on the throat of his own people. By dismissing him as being simply insane, we run the risk of underestimating him - alwys fatal when dealing with a dangerous opponent.

I think the big danger from NK is not that they'll blow up L.A. and ensure their own destruction, but rather that they'll sell the stuff to blow up L.A. with to someone else, thereby getting good hard cash while someone else gets a visit from the B-1 bombers.

 

[varwoche]

Japan probably has several nuclear weapons (which undoubtedly work well whether tested or not).

Why do you say so? I've never even heard this speculatively.

 

[Reager]

Again, what would you have had the Bush administration do? In the absence of a suggestion to that effect, what we did or did not do with regards to Iraq is kind of beside the point. Did our invasion of Iraq prevent us from doing what we should have done with North Korea? Well, to answer that you'd have to actually put forward a suggestion as to what we should have done. You haven't. All you've said is you're unhappy with what we have done. Real easy to say when you don't have an alternative on offer. So let's out with it: do you have a better suggestion, or are you just heckling?

Huh? Who made up that rule? Criticisms are only valid if alternatives are put forward? In what reality?

We probably could have done any number of things wrt NK during the Iraq War and its aftermath (short of invade them, I suppose). But the invasion of Iraq has seriously undermined our ability to fight nuclear proliferation. Lost credibility, lost manpower, lost money. All to invade a country that had NO WMDs. Again, I find it incredible how many people are perfectly willing to give Bush a pass on taking us to war over this "minor" error.

Here you're actually rather missing the big picture. Ten years down the line, if a nuke goes off in New York, or DC, or whatever, we can be fairly confident it came from the Norkers. That being the case, we wipe them off the face of the earth. They know this. It's called a deterent. If, however, Saddam had been around, with us still not knowing his WMD capability (and you can complain all you want to about this point, but we really had no way of knowing he DIDN'T have a program, and he fooled us before), and Libya still keeping their nuclear program under wraps (they gave it up because of our invasion of Iraq), it becomes much harder to guess who did it. And unless we strike out all our enemies (a much more difficult task), we can't depend on getting the guilty party. Which means that our enemies can contemplate striking at us and possibly getting away with it. Deterence drops quickly once more than one possible source exists.

You may be willing to accept a policy that increases the likelihood millions of American will die from nuclear terrorism, I would prefer one that minimizes such a likelihood. I don't know for certain what that policy is, several alternatives have been put forward. But what I do know (at least, what I have read consistently) is that the invasion of Iraq has increased the threat of nuclear terrorism. To me, that is an unacceptable policy.

Here you're falling for the fallacy that just spending money will fix the problem. It won't. There has to be infrastructure there to handle the influx of dollars, and that's a hard problem. It also depends rather crucially on cooperation from the Russians. That program cannot move forward any faster than the Russians make it move forward. I'd love to see more progress on this front, but to pretend we're ignoring it, or that dollar sums are the primary metric to measure our effort or success, is really simplistic and inaccurate.

Ah yes...it's those pesky Russians..if only they'd get their act in gear. What a pathetic excuse for Bush's failure to safeguard his countrymen from those Russian stockpiles. They are the most likely source of loose nukes...so shouldn't they be somewhere near our #1 priority? Why hasn't our president shown some actual leadership and get something significant done on this front?

Mike

 

[TillEulenspiegel]

Ah , but Ziggy what makes You think that it not the case already?

The Japanese have one modus operandi, that Being it takes much time to reach consensus but once done all ascribe..
They are a careful studied society RE every aspect of life. WW2 was not an aberration as it was a mis-calculation. Maybe not even that.
No, I'm sure the Japanese have thought out the various scenarios and have a plan of action.

That plan may run against the imposed constitution dictated by MacArthur but I'm sure they have their ass's covered and we know it with a nod and a wink.

 

[demon]

I`ve been noting again that `neutral' reporting as far as Iran is concerned ends up in fact echoing lies with next to no serious challenge.
Unless it involves reporting the lies of 'official enemies' - in which case opposing views are sought out to challenge what's being said.
Blair says "it depends what the evidence base is." This man is a total fanatic - he has an infinite capacity for deception. Given the chance, he may well simply repeat the whole "evidence"-based charade of Iraq.

I've read the BBC News Online story "Don't hinder peace, Iran is told" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4246517.stm), about Tony Blair's parroting of the Bush administration's claims about Iran's nuclear programme.

The Prime Minister's claim that "[Iran] certainly does sponsor terrorism, there is no doubt about that at all," is certainly a cause for concern, given that he made exactly the same claim about the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. However, his admission that "it depends what the evidence base is" gives some grounds for reassurance, assuming the British news media are prepared to take him at his word.

Given Blair`s record of discretion and veracity over Iraq, and given that the BBC, in their own words "cannot carry reports based on speculation and expressing fears that are not founded on hard evidence", one would think that the BBC will be pro-active in its pursuit of any evidence the Prime Minister says he has, and thorough in its research as to its reliability.

Some chance.

 

[Skeptic]

Huh? Who made up that rule? Criticisms are only valid if alternatives are put forward? In what reality?

In Immanuel Kant's reality.

As he put it, in ethics, "ought implies can": you can only criticize an agent for things which were in the agent's power to change.

If you criticize the US for the fact that NK has nuclear weapons, you must give us a plausible alternative to how it was in the US's power to stop this in the first place.

If, however, NK was going to get nukes in any case regarldess of any plausible US action, there isn't much point to the criticism since it was not in the US's power to stop it in the first place.

 

[Ziggurat]

Huh? Who made up that rule? Criticisms are only valid if alternatives are put forward? In what reality?

What I'm saying is that without some prefered course of action, you aren't so much criticising as harping. And that's rather useless. This isn't a rule, it's an observation about reality.

We probably could have done any number of things wrt NK during the Iraq War and its aftermath (short of invade them, I suppose).

And yet you can't name one. Go figure.

But the invasion of Iraq has seriously undermined our ability to fight nuclear proliferation. Lost credibility, lost manpower, lost money. All to invade a country that had NO WMDs. Again, I find it incredible how many people are perfectly willing to give Bush a pass on taking us to war over this "minor" error.

Hardly. The Iraq invasion is what convinced Libya to give up its weapons program, a program the IAEA said didn't exist. That led to cracking open the AQ Khan network, perhaps the biggest problem for nuclear proliferation we faced.

As for North Korea, have you ever heard of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)? It's a multilateral cooperation to help prevent the spread of nuclear and ballistic missile technology, primarily from North Korea. Funnily enough, we've gotten a lot of cooperation from other countries involved in the PSI, including (quite significantly) Russia. These other countries aren't idiots, they may not like what we did in Iraq but they know damn well (better than you evidently) that their own interests lie in cooperation on non-proliferation efforts.

But what I do know (at least, what I have read consistently) is that the invasion of Iraq has increased the threat of nuclear terrorism. To me, that is an unacceptable policy.

Wait... let me get this straight. You read that the Iraq invasion has made us more vulnerable to nuclear terrorism? You haven't followed the logic through yourself, examined the facts before you, and come to your own conclusion, rather that's what you keep reading so you just figure it's true? Sorry, buddy, but you only come to a conclusion like that if your sources are narrow. You'll have to do better than that for an argument.

Ah yes...it's those pesky Russians..if only they'd get their act in gear. What a pathetic excuse for Bush's failure to safeguard his countrymen from those Russian stockpiles. They are the most likely source of loose nukes...so shouldn't they be somewhere near our #1 priority? Why hasn't our president shown some actual leadership and get something significant done on this front?

Mike

Do you know what the issues are with regards to securing Russian nuclear material? Do you know how it's done? Do you know how much time it takes, and what steps we could be doing to make it go faster? I doubt you do, and you have given no indication otherwise. In the absence of such knowlege, your criticism is meaningless. Yes, I'd like it to happen faster too. But unlike you, I'm not so presumptuous as to assume I know who's to blame that it isn't. My view of world politics extends a little further than my presidential candidate's sound bites during the debates.

 

[Ziggurat]

Ah , but Ziggy what makes You think that it not the case already?

The Japanese have one modus operandi, that Being it takes much time to reach consensus but once done all ascribe..
They are a careful studied society RE every aspect of life. WW2 was not an aberration as it was a mis-calculation. Maybe not even that.
No, I'm sure the Japanese have thought out the various scenarios and have a plan of action.

I'm sure they do too, which is why I think they're probably ready to cross that red line on short notice (it takes a lot of planning to do even that, BTW). But the political costs, both domestically and internationally, of actually crossing that line are HUGE. And the benefits of actually crossing that line now (rather than creeping up to the edge and getting ready for a leap) aren't nearly high enough. As long as they don't cross that line, they can deny and excuse things if it ever became public, but not so once they've taken those last steps to make a nuclear weapon. So they won't until they feel they have to, and when they feel they have to, they will do so VERY quickly.

 

[LW]

What you're saying is that Japan had no choice but to launch a war that resulted in their own destruction. Or, to put it another way, they started a war to destroy themselves, for their own good.

Obviously, the highest-ranking Japanese leaders believed that they had a good chance of succeeding: hitting the US so hard that they wouldn't dare to resist while the Japanese captured East India.

We know now that the attempt was doomed from start. A number of Japanese officers realized the futility of the war from the start but were not in a position to do anything about the decision. (And a lot larger number were truly enthuastic about the war believing that the samurai spirit would allow them to crush the weak enemies).

In 1941 the Japanese government was given a choice of either relinquishing their dream of becoming a major world power and withdrawing from China, or starting the war against just about everybody in the vicinity. By hindsight it is clear that they should have withdrawn. At the time it should have be clear also for the Japanese government. But they still choose war. (One factor that should not be underestimated is the young officers' habit of assasinating politicians who they felt were cowards).

NK will launch a war that can only result in its utter annihilation for its own good?

You are supposing that the NK leaders have a realistic view on the capabilities of their own army and that of their opponents. The Japanese leaders didn't have. I don't know what they think, but I think it is just possible that they are deluded enough to believe that they have a chance.

 

[a_unique_person]

Huh? Who made up that rule? Criticisms are only valid if alternatives are put forward? In what reality?

In Immanuel Kant's reality.

Ah, Kant, the philosopher who proved that 'strawman' type argument was logically valid, and not a logical fallacy has most people believed. I'm surprised more people haven't heard of that fact.

 

[Rob Lister]

Why do you say so? I've never even heard this speculatively.

Now you have!

 

[BPSCG]

Ah, Kant, the philosopher who proved that 'strawman' type argument was logically valid, and not a logical fallacy has most people believed. I'm surprised more people haven't heard of that fact.

AUP, welcome back! Several of us have been speculating on the reasons for your silence on this topic which you yourself had initiated. Would you believe that there are those here - the usual suspects - who are suggesting that your condemnation of the U.S. for not doing anything about North Korea smacks of hypocrisy?

So it's good to see you back and ready to defend your position. Now, when we last heard from you, you were about to answer the following question:

Are you suggesting we should have invaded North Korea, instead?

 

[Ed]

AUP, welcome back! Several of us have been speculating on the reasons for your silence on this topic which you yourself had initiated. Would you believe that there are those here - the usual suspects - who are suggesting that your condemnation of the U.S. for not doing anything about North Korea smacks of hypocrisy?

So it's good to see you back and ready to defend your position. Now, when we last heard from you, you were about to answer the following question:

Are you suggesting we should have invaded North Korea, instead?

I might add this question. If invasion is out, shall we sanction NK a la Iraq? Or will the terrible impact on the civilian population preclude this?