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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

#91

Post by caf »

arcadeparade wrote: post #78
InclinedPlane wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The USA has not had nuclear weapons in South Korea since the implementation of Bush snr's Presidential Nuclear Initiative in 1991.

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

#92

Post by InclinedPlane »

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.

Because the regime has always been crazy, even as it passes through different rulers. The best case scenario of North Korea is that the world is faced with a humanitarian crises on a shocking scale that will cost tens of billions of dollars to correct. The expected lower limit of the results of foreign action working to take down the North Korean regime would be the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of South Korean civilians (in a matter of hours) due to shelling from thousands of DPRK artillery positions. The possible upper limit of badness would be the North Koreans hitting Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Taipei, Tokyo, and Seoul with nuclear and/or chemical weapons on ICBMs, IRBMs, aircraft, or smuggled onto commercial cargo ships.

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

#93

Post by Volpe »

cpleppert wrote: post #52
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…

>> You seem to think having nuclear weapons is some sort of national right or something. Well if it isn't a general principle you are defending then simply acquiring nuclear weapons is a good thing. Now if you think North Korea should have the ability to gain nuclear weapons then you certainly support any other country also getting access to nuclear weapons. >The US opened this can of worms and created an imbalance i…

The government is stable... Please show me evidence to refute that.

How many citizens are in prison in the US does that make it unstable? What a strange connection to make...

Yes the country is a mess, but the government is stable... They aren't mutually exclusive.

It doesn't matter whether nukes are going to fix the issue or not, sanctioning them for making nukes certainly isn't.

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

#94

Post by Volpe »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #82
niggler wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" 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.

It really comes down to the country's leadership. All of the other points in other comments here are certainly valid, but he feels that NK's leaders are more likely to be willing to push the button and the US is in range. What I can't say is if this belief in NK's leaders is based on actual intelligence or some sort or just his opinion. Given their willingness to take pot-shots at SK, I know I'm concerned about this.

But we're safe right? Those defence satellites worked?

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

#95

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

rooshdi wrote: post #44
yk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, thats the entire point about obtaining nuclear weapons.

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...

A big difference is that PRNK's provocations are mostly about preserving sovereignty and extracting material aid. PRNK is willing to use asymmetric tactics to their advantage, but so far this has been restricted to amassing weapons that threaten the southern population, and increasingly japan. They may be a batty and inhuman place, but their strategic behavior is largely rational self interest. PRNK wants nukes to hold as a trump threat, to then extract a rent.

Iran on the other hand has a much smaller military than PRNK, but is very active in supporting paramilitary groups (aka terrorists, insurgents) that are aligned with their interests. The fear is, they want a nuke not to hold onto, but to give away.

So aside from any domestic political considerations (read as: Israeli lobby groups), the strategic contexts are different in important ways.

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

#96

Post by Volpe »

jlgreco wrote: post #57
Volpe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NK v SK conflict is not that different to India v Pakistan. The difference is... there are US troops sitting on the border of NK/SK, so agression between those to parties involves the US. So who is the destabilising force in the region? I'm pretty sure "stability" isn't the goal (for the US) it's "Democracy".

> NK v SK conflict is not that different to India v Pakistan. Uh, maybe if you ignore the magnitude of severity?

I was talking politically... They are not too different.

Ideologically opposed nations that were once a single nation (to over simplify a bit)

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

#97

Post by InclinedPlane »

redthrowaway wrote: post #77
ISL wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 damag…

Current best estimate is about 10,000 artillery shells per minute, landing in heavily populated parts of Seoul. How long that takes to match and then exceed the death counts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an experiment which hopefully will never be carried out.

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

#98

Post by doktrin »

arcadeparade wrote: post #78
InclinedPlane wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You simply have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not even really sure where to begin in addressing your misconceptions, since practically everything you've said is incorrect.

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

#99

Post by InclinedPlane »

cpeterso wrote: post #58
mikegioia wrote: post #5

So when they did this in 2006, the UN issued weapons sanctions against North Korea[1]. Then when they did it again in 2009, the UN issued more sanctions[2] that apparently NK considered an 'act of war'. From them, the world has intercepted a whopping 6 North Korean boats and 1 North Korean airplane. Aside from "issuing even more sanctions" what options are available to the UN? Good luck trying to send in a team of pe…

What is North Korea's motivation? Given the UN's predicable past responses, North Korea must gain some political benefit from these UN responses.

Ideological zeal. One of the most dangerous motivations in all of human history.

Currently they have been using the threat of attacks as a bargaining chip to extract things like food shipments from the US and Japan.

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

#100

Post by Volpe »

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.

Maybe you should just go google about the nazis, they invaded half the world and killed 10s of millions of people.

Talk about Godwin-ing a discussion.

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