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'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

theaustralian.com.au

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Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#71

Post by Spooky23 »

dba7dba wrote: post #50
rooshdi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting logic. The government is willing to go to war to obstruct Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, yet not when North Korea is actually testing and threatening to "target" the U.S.: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/world/asia/north-korea-vow...

If Paris/London/Berlin were somehow within 30 miles of Iran's border, nobody would think about going to war with Iran so easily. If any major city of western allies was a few dozen miles from Iraq, nobody would've gone to war with Iraq. Yes, S Korea's not very lucky in the geography department. Actually the whole Korean peninsula.

Huh? Have you ever heard of the Soviet Union?

The US had a brigade of soldiers stationed in West Berlin whose survival time was ~72 hours in the event of hostilities with the Soviets.

We almost went to war multiple times over things like geese flying over radars. Both the US and Soviets played little games like parking ballistic missiles in Turkey and Cuba to measure the reaction.

Iran has the ability to control the Straight of Hormuz. Iraq had the ability to harass shipping traffic in the Gulf. That waterway is far more important to the US (and Japan, and to a lesser extent, China) than Paris, London and Berlin.

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#72

Post by Pkeod »

zensavona wrote: post #63

These kinds of "you guys can't have nukes because they're bad, but we'll keep some on hand because we're responsible" disputes that the USA seems to love force me think "where are all the adults?"

Some nations having nukes stops industrial scale war. There is no way to go to before there were nukes... it's necessary for enough of the power players to have control of them but not all of the players.

The adults are the non-nationalist people who see the world as a global community. These people are rare in politics it seems.

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#73

Post by untog »

zensavona wrote: post #63

These kinds of "you guys can't have nukes because they're bad, but we'll keep some on hand because we're responsible" disputes that the USA seems to love force me think "where are all the adults?"

This kind of thinking is disappointing. North Korea is a dictatorship that is irrational enough to starve it's citizens- if it has that little care for it's people, why wouldn't it launch some nukes?

Is the US perfect? No. Is it a democratic, accountable country? Largely, yes. There is no perfect system of government, and people should stop pretending that everyone is on the same moral level.

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#74

Post by defrost »

dba7dba wrote: post #55
Volpe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You seem to think having nuclear weapons is some sort of national right or something. No, I don't think that. > Nobody wants an unstable, belligerent, nasty dictatorship to have the ability to nuke other countries. The US opened this can of worms and created an imbalance in the world. North Korea is surrounded by nuclear enabled countries (China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan). As an aside: What exactly is 'unstab…

'The US opened this can of worms' No it was Germany, and specifically Japan. US didn't decide out of the blue to build nukes. US was expecting 0.5 to 4 MILLION casualties (just on US side) to invade japan as WW2 was nearing the end. Casualty on Japan would be many times bigger (most of them civilians). The 200,000 deaths (mostly civilian), however regrettable, by the 2 nukes was considered a 'deal' compared to what a…

> ... and specifically Japan. US didn't decide out of the blue to build nukes.

Seems a little unfair to Japan.

As FDR approved a project to investigate the Military Application of Uranium Detonation in October 1941. This was 2 months prior to the December 1941 Pearl Harbour attack. It seems unlikely that Japan, specifically, prompted the R&D that led to ...

In July 1945 the end result of the MAUD project came about in the Trinity tests of the first nuclear weapon, this was two months after the May 1945 German surrender, leaving the US with a weapon that needed testing and a Soviet frenemy that needed impressing.

As for the need to use nuclear weapons on Japan, well, the post war FDR FUD on that matter has obfuscated the extensive saturation bombing, using a mix of incendiaries and high explosives to burn Japanese cities to the ground that was already at play - from the Japanese perspective Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just another two cities levelled to the ground by the US, just two among the many others similarly destroyed.

There's an argument to made, and it's one for the historians, that the decisive factor for the Japanese was the fact that the Soviets were now free to invade Japanese territories. This is usually not part of the post WWII US narrative.

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#75

Post by dba7dba »

Meanwhile the S Korean themselves could care less about N Korea's nuke tests.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/02/08/2013...

Favorite part in the article ################################################ "Conservatives are miffed. "The so-called leaders of progressive groups vehemently oppose the use of nuclear energy and condemn domestic nuclear power plants citing environmental concerns, but they are silent when it comes to North Korean nuclear facilities,"

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#77

Post by redthrowaway »

ISL wrote: post #46
rooshdi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the U.S. would react any differently if Iran had conducted these same tests.

Iran is not presently capable of flattening a city the size of Seoul on a few moments' notice. Different situation, different response.

Neither is NK. They could wreak some havok with conventional weapons, but their last two nuclear tests were 1 & 2 kt, respectively. That's enough to take out a couple city blocks, with a fireball about 100 ft across. Couple that with the fact they can barely get a missile to go into the sky without blowing up, let alone land where they want it to, and NK's nuclear threat is pretty minimal. They'd cause far more damage with conventional weaponry.

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#78

Post by arcadeparade »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #36
Volpe wrote: post #6

Why is it wrong that NK do Nuclear testing? I agree NK has some human rights issues, that should be addressed, but testing nuclear weapons is no different to Pakistan or India, and there are no sanctions against them.

Are you kidding me? The DPRK is one of the most horrific regimes in the last 2 centuries, and that includes the Nazis and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Of all the regimes that can't be trusted with nuclear weapons they are pretty much at the top of the list.

The USA has nuclear weapons in South Korea, and they are the only country to actually use them. If they withdrew then maybe the two Koreas could negotiate peace.

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#79

Post by malandrew »

refurb wrote: post #53
rooshdi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting logic. The government is willing to go to war to obstruct Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, yet not when North Korea is actually testing and threatening to "target" the U.S.: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/world/asia/north-korea-vow...

I think you answered your own question. It's a lot easier to prevent a country from developing nuclear weapons that it is to confront one that already has them. Also, different countries and different geopolitical situations. Iran has a few allies among the superpowers (Russia, China), but they aren't very strong allies. NK has pretty strong backing by the Chinese and the US also has to deal with it's allies in Japan…

I think there is also the issue that Iran is more likely to fight asymmetrically than North Korea would. I imagine that North Korea has all their nuclear weapons mounted on ballistic missiles. Iran on the other hand probably support an asymmetrical war where nuclear weapons are brought into the country by "stateless" terrorists and then deny involvement.

I would also venture that Iran, being a "non-secular" government where the more fundamentalist members see US influence as a threat to their religion and way of life, is more likely to foster radicalists that would try to enter the US with a suitcase bomb. North Korea has completely isolated itself and its people from US influence. Iran on the other hand has "porous" borders that permit western media and western culture to permeate. The permeation of western culture is seen by some as a threat to be stopped.

Edit: can the downvoter, please explain their down vote?

Re: 'Artificial' earthquake detected in North Korea may be nuclear test

#80

Post by mayneack »

niggler wrote: post #70
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #18

My father-in-law was a VP in Northrop Grumman's space and satellite division. The kinds of projects he worked on were space defense satellites. When he looked at all the uncertainty in the world (much caused at least indirectly by the US), his biggest fear was and continues to be North Korea. Given the types of people I know he met with, this test does not fill me with warm fuzzies.

" his biggest fear was and continues to be North Korea." Can you go into why? The sentiment runs at odds with Bush's obsession with Iraq/Iran.

Not really an ideal frame of reference
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