Korea

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Re: North Korea

North Korea's dictator has good timing, one has to give him his due for that.
One would have to wonder if it is a coincidence that both Iran and North Korea are making waves at this time or whether it is co-ordinated.

With 130,000 American troops bogged down in Iraq, one would also have to wonder where more troops would come from if needed for other contingencies in other parts of the world -- even in the form of a show of force.

It is no wonder the president's reponse is understated concerning the N. Korean missile(s) shoot into the ocean. (Hard to miss hitting the ocean with any kind of projectile from a beach location.)

It is strange that during a time of conflict our government is cutting taxes and increasing all kinds of other spending. Perhaps if sacrifice is to be made it will come from higher gasoline prices and much lower stock market returns.

To increase the troop strength of American forces the military has advocated the much safer increase of eligibility of its volunteers from 39 to 42 years of age rather than advocating a draft of 18 to 22 year old males.

The concern now is N. Korea, but who knows what kind of government, say, Pakistan will have five years from now? It is another crisis waiting to happen.

It was a mistake to oust Saddam: the costly adventure has proven our policy of maintaining order there is no less violent than the ways and means he used to maintain his own grip. And, really, he was well contained /boxed in for years and years, and posed no strategic threat while he was in power. Hell, gasoline prices were much lower back then; although the "food for oil" program was corrupt, atleast Iraqi oil was being sold on the world market, unlike today.

Besides that, Iraqi WMD was nothing but a fantasy, a bill of goods Saddam sold to us to his own personal hurt -- or sacrifice -- but has sucked our armed forces into a literal snake pit and have costed our taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. Saddam may hang, but geez, the sacrifice he -- it ended up -- personally made -- will be very costly in terms of ordinary and insurgent Iraqi lives and American lives, and in terms of hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars: and just look ... American armed forces will have to really stretch simply for a show of force in northeast Asia.

Plus American credibility was undermined when no WMD were found in Iraq. And how many of the "coalition of the willing" have remained there until today?

Now than N/ Korea has raised the ante, can we depend on NATO or SEATO (if that one still exists) to really pull its weight in some kind of response? Hell, chances are the Russians and Chinese would like nothing better than to see America hamstrung through all these worldwide military police actions we have gotten ourselves into.
 
Re: South Korea

I have a lot of respect for the ROKs (White Horse Brigade). They were great troops in Vietnam and were well trained killers. The Viet Cong actually feared this bunch and they earned their hard core reputation. I don't think they have anything to worry about concerning North Korea. They'll fight to defend themselves and win. We have plenty of Air Force and Navy to back them up and soften the way in. I say turn them loose and be done with it.
 
Re: North Korea

Quips said:
With 130,000 American troops bogged down in Iraq, one would also have to wonder where more troops would come from if needed for other contingencies in other parts of the world -- even in the form of a show of force.
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The Pacific fleet is a hell of a deterrant. I think we still have a few thousand troops stationed in South Korea as a "tripwire" if the North decides to invade.

It is no wonder the president's reponse is understated concerning the N. Korean missile(s) shoot into the ocean. (Hard to miss hitting the ocean with any kind of projectile from a beach location.)
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What would you have him do? NK isn't attacking anyone. They're just launching a bunch of missiles into the ocean, and their long-range one that is supposed to be a threat to us lasted just 40 seconds in flight. China won't back any sanctions or further action beyond condemnation, so that isn't an option, either - unless of course, we want to pre-emptively attack a nuclear-armed country.

It is strange that during a time of conflict our government is cutting taxes and increasing all kinds of other spending. Perhaps if sacrifice is to be made it will come from higher gasoline prices and much lower stock market returns.
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Cutting tax rates aids in economic expansion and actually leads to higher collections by the US Treasury. Our revenues are growing, but the spending is growing faster. What we need are better spending priorities and some fiscal restraint - not higher taxes that will damage economic growth going forward.

To increase the troop strength of American forces the military has advocated the much safer increase of eligibility of its volunteers from 39 to 42 years of age rather than advocating a draft of 18 to 22 year old males.
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If troop levels can be met through voluntary rather than compulsory means, I say go the voluntary route.

The concern now is N. Korea, but who knows what kind of government, say, Pakistan will have five years from now? It is another crisis waiting to happen.
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I wouldn't call what North Korea is doing a "crisis". It's sabre rattling that is typical of that regime. A Pakistani revolution would definitely qualify as a crisis, since that country is nuclear-armed and filled to the brim with Islamic fundamentalists. I believe it should be a top US priority to keep that country stable through any means necessary. If the Islamists take control there, we'd have to worry about ~50 nuclear warheads.

It was a mistake to oust Saddam: the costly adventure has proven our policy of maintaining order there is no less violent than the ways and means he used to maintain his own grip.
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He had tens of thousands killed, imprisoned, and tortured. We've made our share of mistakes there, but to somehow equate the two is ridiculous hyperbole.

And, really, he was well contained/boxed in for years and years, and posed no strategic threat while he was in power.
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Agreed on this statement... he was a menace but not a serious threat. Of course, there was the nuisance of having to maintain a military presence there to enforce the no fly zones.

Hell, gasoline prices were much lower back then; although the "food for oil" program was corrupt, atleast Iraqi oil was being sold on the world market, unlike today.
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Wrong. Iraqi oil *is* being sold on the world market - just at a reduced level. I believe it was 3 million bpd prewar and is now somewhere between 1.5-2 million bpd. If the country stabilizes, production levels will climb dramatically, particularly as outside investment comes into play and the oil fields can be developed (even under Saddam, Iraq was underachieving on their oil output). The high oil and gas prices these days are supported by far more than an oil deficit from Iraq. Tension with Iran, stronger global demand now than 2-3 years ago, and market speculation are driving prices higher.

Besides that, Iraqi WMD was nothing but a fantasy
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Various intelligence services thought they had them. Congress voted to authorize force, thinking they had them. A lot of people screwed up on this one - not just Bush. The Dems saw the same intelligence he saw. They are now trying to have it both ways by acting like he was solely responsible for them believing Iraq had WMDs. Given what the Dems think of Bush, I find it hard to believe he could sell them / snow them on anything. It's not like he has the charm / smoothness of Clinton.

American armed forces will have to really stretch simply for a show of force in northeast Asia.
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No they won't. A battle group with an aircraft carrier and a few escort ships will project plenty of power. The airpower on a single carrier trumps that of most countries' airforces.

Plus American credibility was undermined when no WMD were found in Iraq. And how many of the "coalition of the willing" have remained there until today?
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Many countries dislike us / distrust us to begin with. They don't like the fact that we are the lone superpower and are so prosperous. There's also the fact that when you get right down to it, if we want to stop a country from doing something we don't like, we have ample power to do so with or without a massive coalition. We spend more on defense than any other country - both in actual dollars as well as percentage of our federal budget. As for who was there / stayed there, Italy was there for a long time, Britain is still there (I think), as is Australia. Japan offered its support as well, and I think they're just now getting around to pulling out their resources.

Now than N/ Korea has raised the ante, can we depend on NATO or SEATO (if that one still exists) to really pull its weight in some kind of response?
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There won't be a response other than verbal condemnation because no further response is needed, unless North Korea launches something into Japanese space.
 
Re: North Korea

Why doesn't President Bush do to Kim Jong Il what President Reagan did to Khadafi? We know where he lives and a missile would send the correct message. Both South Korea and Japan are placing Patriot systems from Germany. The PDRK has sold missiles to Iran and there are presently North Koreans in Iran establishing missile bases.

There is a reason we have the Iranians covered on two sides. Force will be the only answer.
 
Re: North Korea

Jong Il is little more than a proxy of Russian and Chinese designs. The Russians haven't gotten over their fall from being one of the two world "superpowers", and western influence is ever encroaching on what it considers to be its sphere of influence in the Ukraine, southeastern Europe and maybe northeastern Europe as well.

The Chinese certainly have a great influence in N. Korea, but are largely indifferent about their foreign policy. Actions speak louder than words -- except when money talks -- and it is neither in Russian or Chinese interests to give a fig about Jong Il or what he says or does ... they are just probably enjoying the show and speculating about what he will do next.

No doubt N. Korea is as much a rogue state as Afganistan once was. And we have subs off the Korean peninsula monitoring all they can, as well as satellites in the sky gathering as much as possible. Jong Il will continue playing his cat and mouse game. He is not that stupid to start a war --intentionally anyway. Yet if a short, limited, conventional action started, it would certain rattle many nerves and financial markets, especially those in South Korea! All it would take would be a few artillery shells flying across the 49th parallel from either side.

More ominously it would happen like things are happening in Iraq: some car bomb(s) exploding in the South Korean capital. Who could prove anything by that?

Invading N. Korea would start an all out war -- something Jong Il would not want unless get got much more than financial backing from either Russia or China -- or the aid of the Iranian army invading Iraq. That is very unlikely. That is too much going for broke, and it would collapse the N. Korean state.

I can't see Jong Il taking cover in Afganistan like Osama bin Laden.

But I can see Jong Il picking his spots for some kind of outrage: shooting down a commercial airliner that strays into its air space, patrolling its territorial waters looking for Japanese fishing vessels that may stray there, provoking others navies to search its ships while in international waters and claiming its sovereignty is being violated, etc.
 
Re: South Korea

As well let's dont forget the Korean Marines,.. if they are still as well trained as the ones attached to 1st Marines in 68-69, they will surely fair well. God Bless America !!
 
Notice: This Thread was renamed "Korea" to include both South Korea and North Korea*. You may want to identify which nation you are referring to in the Title of posts. [Or a recipe containing both salt and sugar!...:blink: ] *Geographicaly in-separatable.
 
If America sells out Taiwan to mainland China, we will see things cease and desist in N. Korea and Kim Jong Il.
 
Quips said:
If America sells out Taiwan to mainland China, we will see things cease and desist in N. Korea and Kim Jong Il.
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Oh yeah, at what cost?

China takes Taiwan, a few thousand die in the conflict...
Our other allies no longer trust us for support, so they take things into their own hands...
Japan militarizes and goes nuclear, South Korea also goes nuclear...
China continues to turn up the aggression and attempts to deploy its military to seize any resource-rich area that it can...

So yeah, while North Korea is no longer front and center in this scenario, that isn't because they are suddenly placated / silenced. Instead, it's because so many other things are going wrong and are creating a situation far worse than the one we now face.

For the sake of stability (not to mention the principle of protecting free countries from tyranny), I hope we don't ever sell out Taiwan. Appeasement has NEVER worked.
 
Hmmmm

China considers Taiwan as a renegade provence.

Nothing happens in N. Korea without China's consent. What kind of "support" will the Chinese give to UN sanctions against N. Korea? Not much ... unless the UN negotiates Taiwan to the Chinese.

Doesn't matter what the Taiwanese think about that -- lots of luck. They just get sold out, er, bought out. In corporate parlence, divested? Re-organized?

It is interesting -- maybe the Chinese would consider a "united" Korea ... like Vietnam became one country. Maybe the Chinese can be talked into leaving Jong Il hung out to dry. Il wouldn't want a "hostile" China on its northern border! Il's nuclear firecrackers wouldn't put a dent into the Chinese billions.

We are talking about superpowers and empires, not countries or nations. The Chinese are our buddies now -- see how much US Treasury debt they owe!
See how they drag their feet concerning N. Korea! It is the way of superpower and empire.

It is not an original thought. But what would be Japan's cut?
 
It's not just about the N. Koreans, US, and Chinese. Japan is very much a player here, and if China is truly playing the N. Koreans off the U.S., they may have badly miscalculated. I don't think they want the Japanese to militarize again, but that's exactly what is likely to happen if the people of Japan no longer have faith in the American military umbrella that is currently protecting them. People often complain of the US being the global cop and the associated budgetary pressure that goes with the territory - but we are now going to see the fruits of years of ineffective policy and diplomacy with N. Korea: multiple nuclear-armed countries in very close proximity to one another.

Here's an article about the situation, and below the link, I have posted an exerpt from it which I believe is extremely important and is required reading for anyone following this situation.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2261782_1,00.html

So while one nation, North Korea, boasts of its nuclear weapons and the other, Iran, denies wanting them at all, the world is on edge. If the stakes are high in the nuclear terror game, they are equally high for the balance of power in Asia and thus for global prosperity.

North Korea’s aggressive behaviour and a record of kidnapping Japanese citizens have created new willpower among politicians in Tokyo to strengthen their military forces. To China, Japan’s wartime adversary, that signals a worrying change in the strategic equation. Nationalism in both countries is on the rise. Relations between the two are at their worst for decades.

One scenario is that Japan abandons its pacifist doctrine and becomes a nuclear weapons power. “The Japanese people are very angry and very worried and, right now, they will accept any government plan for the military,” said Tetsuo Maeda, professor of defence studies at Tokyo International University.

And if that wasn't enough, India just test-fired a long range missile capable of delivering a nuclear payload. China is within the missile's range. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060709/wl_sthasia_afp/indiamilitarymissile_060709182600
 
It is interesting that the Japanese are more anxious than the S. Koreans about the North's missile(s) shoot into the ocean.

You are centainly correct about the historic bad blood between the Japanese and both the Koreas as well as China.

No doubt China needs the Japanese technical know-how and investment as the Japanese needs Chinese low-cost labor.

But the Japanese do not have the leverage to prod mainland China into condemning the N. Korean missile(s) shoot. Heck, the US does not have that leverage.

The missile shots have proved that the Chinese do not keep Jong Il on a short leash; in fact the leadership in Beijing gives him plenty of rope besides financial aid.

But just as the British handed over Hong Kong to the Chinese, so will Taiwan eventually be absorbed by them; yet I do not believe that the Chinese have a similar claim on N. Korea ... or Kim Jong Il.

A Chinese grab of Taiwan would make N. Korea much less valuable to them.

If China allows N. Korea to fall, it would be good news to the Japanese in some respects. Let's say N. Korea falls to the South as East Germany fell to the West. Japan doesn't have to worry about Jong Il.

The Vietnamese would certainly be concerned by the annexation of Taiwan to the Chinese. The Japanese would be much less concerned about such a thing.

But the relationship between Japan and China would continue to grow. Again, Japan has the technology and yen, and China needs the investment to grow an economy of over one billion people. One would hope that the promise of mutual prosperity would outweigh historical/nationalist rivalries.

Ha ... it is in North Korea's interest to be recognized by the United States. It wouldn't last long without China's aid. and it is their (North Korean) insurance policy against a China that can be bought off with the annexation of Taiwan. While there is no historic animosity between N. Korea and China, I don't think there's much of a bond between them -- like the historic bond between, say Briton and the US -- since there isn't much of a bond between S. Korea and mainland China.
 
How do you like those apples? They won't likem':D

Security Council Unanimously Adopts Resolution Demanding North Korea Suspend Its Missile Program

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution Saturday condemning North Korea's recent missile tests and demanding that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program.
http://middlegeorgia.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D8ISKLG06&_action=validatearticle
 
No teeth in that resolution.

"Sticks and stones may break their bones, but names will never hurt them."
Quote unknown.
 
Well,the Koreans are a nation of people who are known to include man's best friend as a part of their diet ... so how can the UN persuade them to be politically correct about other things?

It is putting the cart before the horse -- first priority, stop eating man's best friend; second, stop shooting missiles into the ocean.

If we can persuade them from having Lassie as the main course, persuading them to quit firing missiles into the ocean should be much easier.
 
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