101–110 of 120 posts
It's funny how North Korea's open threats against South Korea and the US are met with basically rolling of eyes, while veiled threats from Iran against Israel and the US are met with massive fear and warmongering.
It's funny how North Korea's open threats against South Korea and the US are met with basically rolling of eyes, while veiled threats from Iran against Israel and the US are met with massive fear and warmongering.
Iran doesn't have China on its side.
DRPK's military is still stuck in the 1950's. Our military got caught with its pants down when going up against a military that was trained in the hills of Afghanistan in the 1980's...and responded by combining its perfected 1950's style warfare with a 2010's style drone warfare, and fairly quickly learned its lesson with the 1980's style warfare. I can't imagine what it would be like to go up against a military that…
I don't think we got caught with our pants down at all. Guerrilla war in Afghanistan always has to be assumed. I personally don't know anybody that thought a prolonged occupation of Afghanistan was going to go well, and I'm talking about laypersons. The powers that be might have thought they could handle it, but that's not the same as getting caught with your pants down.
I'd argue the US got caught with its pants down radically more so in Iraq than Afghanistan (specifically post the initial invasion).
It's funny how North Korea's open threats against South Korea and the US are met with basically rolling of eyes, while veiled threats from Iran against Israel and the US are met with massive fear and warmongering.
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I don't believe there's any advantage to being irrational or having a temper. Sooner or later someone is going to call your bluff. If you initiate violence, you might get your ass kicked by someone stronger. If you flip out irrationally, they can simply laugh at you as you flail about, or begin ignoring you / avoiding you. When someone calls your bluff, it's game over. Everything changes from that point forward. Eith…
Do you or any of your family members live in Seoul?
If you were just asking to be nice, I have a few old friends in South Korea (in the military, teaching, and local) but no family.
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Not if the aim is retaining permanent power for Kim Jong-un and the military junta that actually runs North Korea.
There is probably a Pareto improvement that could be made by agreeing to hand Kim and the other leaders almost any amount of material wealth in exchange for them stepping down and allowing South Korea to govern North Korea. It would have to be better to live in a first world nation with hundreds of millions / billions of dollars than to be the Great Leader of North Korea. I guess the fact that this doesn't happen jus…
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That's about the most silly analysis I've ever seen. There isn't a chance in hell Russia and China end their entire existence just to defend a war against North Korea that the North also happened to start. How do I know that? Tons of historical evidence says it would never happen. Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the original Korean War. There have been countless proxy skirmishes over the decades. None of the…
> Nobody launched any nukes at the US. You're right about Korea being a limited war. Both sides had protected rear areas that were vital to the war, and were careful not to step over the line. However the USSR had only tested their first a-bomb in 1949, and their strategic delivery systems were .. minimal .. for years after that.
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Perhaps if you spent more than four seconds on his website, you might the analysis interesting, http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/keytopics/threats.html
> "More than ever, I still consider the nuclear attack on America as inevitable, both because the real axis of evil (Russia and China) are still building for that attack, and because our own government is controlled by those intent upon destroying US sovereignty and delivering our nation over to a socialist New World Order." Classic Mormon survivalist subculture crazytalk.
If those countries wanted to commit nuclear suicide, they could have and would have done it a long time ago. The past had a lot more provocations that could have been used to justify it, than the recent times have.
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Absolutely. China could dismantle North Korea in a heartbeat, by pulling all support at a minimum or telling the military junta it's over and if they want to survive at all they have to play ball. Kim would be served up on a platter the next day. North Korea is nothing but a way for China to poke the US constantly.
I wonder if this is true. Having a rogue dictator developing nukes in your backyard is not the thing most governments are comfortable with. Beijing - Pyongyang is merely 800Km, after all.
Before North Korea had a nuclear weapon, much less the ability to build numerous of them, China propped up North Korea in countless ways for decades (from food to weapons to moral support). China could have very trivially killed Kim (or requested his overthrow), with absolutely no consequences. It's not like the weak and vastly smaller North Korean army was going to invade China, particularly after the Kims were gone.
I believe China could still dismantle North Korea. I think their fear is the chaos that could follow, from millions of refuges to perhaps a new military dictatorship to loose nukes.
It's funny how North Korea's open threats against South Korea and the US are met with basically rolling of eyes, while veiled threats from Iran against Israel and the US are met with massive fear and warmongering.
It's a concern about Iran's (their leadership's) willingness to commit suicide to destroy Israel. And particularly about the belief in self-fulfilling prophecies in religious doctrine (whether Christianity, Islam, or Judaism). Communists don't generally believe in an afterlife, and I would argue also aren't viewed as being as likely to be suicide bombers. It is thus Iran presents a different kind of fear: namely that…