DonQuixote99
pfm Member
Go ahead, eat just one, Dear Leader! It's wafer thin! OK, it's not so thin, but it's light as air!
Jonathan Ribee
Unavailable at present
I would have thought that producing biscuits showing an imperialist capitalist iconography would get you a trip to the Gulag where they starve you about the same amount as they do normally, but you have to use an avacado coloured bathroom - showcasing the worst of the capitalist decadence.
Or it is from back when the leadership pocketed millions of dollars to accept aid from the South and ran factories for the imperialist swine to further morally corrupt them.
Or it is from back when the leadership pocketed millions of dollars to accept aid from the South and ran factories for the imperialist swine to further morally corrupt them.
Jonathan Ribee
Unavailable at present
Irony time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine
Poor fluffy bunnies being bullied by everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine
Poor fluffy bunnies being bullied by everyone.
TPA
Trade: Tiger Paw
^ But that is the whole point of their nuclear programme; to have more clout at the table. It seems to me his hand is stronger than ever.
The community might call for cessation but he can reject it on the basis that the games changed, and now what about lifting the sanctions or do you want to face the consequences?
This all suits China imo, they keep their barrier state, the time for regime change is long gone and would never have been countenanced by them anyway, far too much fall out.
I don't think anyone, anywhere really has the stomach for military involvement. It sickens me to say it, but I think KJU has played it all out to his probable advantage. Everyone now wants to 'talk' and China is saying sanctions won't work.
The community might call for cessation but he can reject it on the basis that the games changed, and now what about lifting the sanctions or do you want to face the consequences?
This all suits China imo, they keep their barrier state, the time for regime change is long gone and would never have been countenanced by them anyway, far too much fall out.
I don't think anyone, anywhere really has the stomach for military involvement. It sickens me to say it, but I think KJU has played it all out to his probable advantage. Everyone now wants to 'talk' and China is saying sanctions won't work.
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
2 conclusions so far:
- The Donald looks ineffectual, huffing and puffing and tweeting to no avail. He has been no more successful on this one than his predecessors. Weak. Ah yes, "No one could imagine Korea was so tough"...
- For a country which likes to throw its weight about the region and aspires to global leadership, China emerges from all this as weak, weak. Can't even keep its own backyard in order, gets pushed around by Kim. Not good for Xi, but like Trump, what can he do about it?
- The Donald looks ineffectual, huffing and puffing and tweeting to no avail. He has been no more successful on this one than his predecessors. Weak. Ah yes, "No one could imagine Korea was so tough"...
- For a country which likes to throw its weight about the region and aspires to global leadership, China emerges from all this as weak, weak. Can't even keep its own backyard in order, gets pushed around by Kim. Not good for Xi, but like Trump, what can he do about it?
What realistic alternative is there ? Regime change is throughly discredited after Iraq and Libya. The vast majority of North Koreans are misinformed and have no influence over their dictator. How many millions should die of NK's 25m and SK's 50m before Donald looks effectual ?
Obama got it right: kick it (quietly) down the road.
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
The problem for China is that it knows how precariously weak the economy of NK is and does not want to tip it over the edge into a humanitarian disaster. China has seen what happened in Syria and the millions who became international refugees. It has it's own problems and doesn't want emaciated multitudes of NK refugees flooding over its border seeking aid.
gassor
There may be more posts after this.
I don't know why Putin thinks, at present, NK wants to negotiate with anyone. They wants to develop a fully functional inter-continental nuclear missile delivery system that much is clear, whatever the cost. What they will look for then we can only guess.
My feeling is that the world is a much less safe place with Kim's finger on a nuclear trigger.
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
The problems for China, the US, South Korea, Japan are clear. The biggest economies and armies in the world, and they have all been played by the Kims. It just shows how a focused strategy backed by absolute bloody mindedness and a ruthless disregard for one's population can go a long, long way. Triumph des Willens.
Trump was very critical of his predecessors, but he has not done any better despite spouting a lot more rubbish. His rhetoric is being cruelly exposed by KJU as hollow. Thank God for the generals in the WH for preventing him from losing it totally.
China probably thought it was being clever with Korea 30 or even 10 years ago, but having Mr Kim on the doorstep with nukes and ICBMs can't be rated as a policy success for them. The Kims have done to the Chinese what Mao did to Stalin in the 40s. China should have done something ages ago, and now it's probably too late. China's economy is literally about 1000 times the size of North Korea's. The Chinese could afford to feed the place for years if they wanted to, and policing a border is something they know how to do.
Trump was very critical of his predecessors, but he has not done any better despite spouting a lot more rubbish. His rhetoric is being cruelly exposed by KJU as hollow. Thank God for the generals in the WH for preventing him from losing it totally.
China probably thought it was being clever with Korea 30 or even 10 years ago, but having Mr Kim on the doorstep with nukes and ICBMs can't be rated as a policy success for them. The Kims have done to the Chinese what Mao did to Stalin in the 40s. China should have done something ages ago, and now it's probably too late. China's economy is literally about 1000 times the size of North Korea's. The Chinese could afford to feed the place for years if they wanted to, and policing a border is something they know how to do.
PsB
Citizen of Nowhere™
You misread me, vuk. I am not advocating bombing anything. It's toooo late to do anything sensible. Just pointing out that the people who set out their stall under the "tough" banner (e.g. Trump, Bush 2) have failed just as miserably as the people they vociferously denounced as "weak" (Obama, Clinton, Bush 1) and the people who are supposed to be "clever" (the Chinese). Result: one more nuclear power, and one that makes Pakistan look predictable. You can bet KJU will use the threat of his new capabilities to gain concessions from everybody: SK, China, Japan, and of course the US.
The Chinese case is particularly interesting (almost everybody has figured out by now that Trump is a buffoon). China is not democratic but it's at least supposed to be led by super-competent mandarins. It aspires to be the local hegemon in Asia. How is that compatible with sharing a land border with a rogue nuclear power, even one that you enabled? Imagine if Mexico was taken over by a dictatorship, secretly developed nukes and ICBMs, then tested them, and the US would do nothing because at least "they help to keep those bad boys in Cuba and Venezuela under control" and "we don't want a wave of Mexican refugees". The Chinese have now been played by 3 generations of Kims now. The young 'un is doing particularly well. Japan, SK and the US now have the perfect rationale for deploying missile interceptors to the region, something the Chinese have been hell bent on preventing. It will be either that or developing their own nukes.
The correct strategy IMV would have been for the Chinese to get tough with NK about 15 years ago: press for an end to the NK weapons program, and be prepared to cut the flow of oil, goods etc. and cooperate with the US where necessary to achieve this. But no, they thought they would be clever and use NK against the rest.
The only realistic course of action now is to attempt containment and develop some form of coexistence, Cold War style. But this will be very difficult (it has failed until now) and you can bet KJU will:
a) demand security guarantees for his regime (fair enough, I hear you say)
b) obtain guaranteed supplies of xyz (ditto; who would want to starve those poor Koreans who have suffered enough?)
c) push for the withdrawal of the US umbrella over SK ("they threaten me")
d) prevent any sort of rapprochement between the Chinese and the Americans over the matter of the Korean peninsular
e) engineer border incidents (with SK at least) as often as necessary to secure additional concessions when needed.
All a direct consequence of China failing to keep their vassal under control, of what the US did to Saddam in 2003 and of what France, the UK and the US did to Qadhafi more recently. Chickens now home, roosting.
The Chinese case is particularly interesting (almost everybody has figured out by now that Trump is a buffoon). China is not democratic but it's at least supposed to be led by super-competent mandarins. It aspires to be the local hegemon in Asia. How is that compatible with sharing a land border with a rogue nuclear power, even one that you enabled? Imagine if Mexico was taken over by a dictatorship, secretly developed nukes and ICBMs, then tested them, and the US would do nothing because at least "they help to keep those bad boys in Cuba and Venezuela under control" and "we don't want a wave of Mexican refugees". The Chinese have now been played by 3 generations of Kims now. The young 'un is doing particularly well. Japan, SK and the US now have the perfect rationale for deploying missile interceptors to the region, something the Chinese have been hell bent on preventing. It will be either that or developing their own nukes.
The correct strategy IMV would have been for the Chinese to get tough with NK about 15 years ago: press for an end to the NK weapons program, and be prepared to cut the flow of oil, goods etc. and cooperate with the US where necessary to achieve this. But no, they thought they would be clever and use NK against the rest.
The only realistic course of action now is to attempt containment and develop some form of coexistence, Cold War style. But this will be very difficult (it has failed until now) and you can bet KJU will:
a) demand security guarantees for his regime (fair enough, I hear you say)
b) obtain guaranteed supplies of xyz (ditto; who would want to starve those poor Koreans who have suffered enough?)
c) push for the withdrawal of the US umbrella over SK ("they threaten me")
d) prevent any sort of rapprochement between the Chinese and the Americans over the matter of the Korean peninsular
e) engineer border incidents (with SK at least) as often as necessary to secure additional concessions when needed.
All a direct consequence of China failing to keep their vassal under control, of what the US did to Saddam in 2003 and of what France, the UK and the US did to Qadhafi more recently. Chickens now home, roosting.
DonQuixote99
pfm Member
Some good points in here, if you discount the finger-pointing: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-brought-the-north-korea-crisis-on-themselves
...in summary: nations are blatantly ignoring the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), so a case of pot kettle black when it comes to North Korea.
Additionally, and it's not a flippant question: who do we think poses the biggest threat to world stability & peace: North Korea or the USA?
...in summary: nations are blatantly ignoring the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), so a case of pot kettle black when it comes to North Korea.
Additionally, and it's not a flippant question: who do we think poses the biggest threat to world stability & peace: North Korea or the USA?