The latest round of missile tests, and the testing of a hydrogen bomb has now made war on the Korean peninsula more realistic.
The potential for conflict in the Korean peninsula has never been so close since the Korean War of 1950.
A future Korean War will have an impact upon the balance of power in the region, if not the global community, with the prospect to ignite a superpower conflict between China and the United States. Kim Jong-Un’s regime in North Korea has the characteristics of an authoritarian fascist regime with a cult of personality, which is comparable to the Third Reich.
The situation in the North Korean regime is comparable, to a Dictatorship on a permanent war footing intent on causing conflict, the North Korean Communist leader Kim Jong-Un has admitted that it would not hesitate in using nuclear weapons against its enemies.
If the North Korean leadership wants to go ahead and detonate a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific it will only increase the likelihood of conflict in the Asia-Pacific region. The risk of nuclear war has never been higher between North Korea and the United States. United States’ President Trump’s hardline stance on the regime means that military action is now on the table, particularly after his UN address where President Trump suggested that the United States may not have any option but to “totally destroy North Korea” if necessary.
North Korea, although technologically inferior to the West has the capability of launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike on its neighbours – South Korea, and Japan, while threatening U.S. military interests in the region.
It also has the potential to ignite a wider conflict, with a domino effect bringing the world’s superpowers – both the United States and China into conflict. This crisis has the real possibility of turning into a thermonuclear war, if something is not done to politically and diplomatically diffuse tensions in the region. Let’s hope rationality will prevail and war can be averted.
No. Less.
Kim is a bad man acting rationally. He made his statement and I think it’s exactly where they’re at.
He’s got everyone in a bind with no real options but ultimately he’ll cut a deal with US.
I would invite anyone suggesting there shouldn’t be a deal to lay out their options including what they think the costs, casualties and escalatory effects.
#RealPolitik
A deal? You mean N. Korea drops its nuclear program in exchange for US financial reparation for flattening the country in the Korean war?
No. They will not drop their nuclear program now.
Did you read Kim’s statement?
Have you listened to what the Chinese say?
No I haven’t. What sort of deal do you have in mind?
North Korea sees its nuclear program as its primary means of protecting itself from the United States.
It has very clearly stated that sanctions will not stop it, their ultimate goal no matter the costs is to have to ability to strike the US. They use the US intervention in several countries of recent years as proof that it is the only way to stop the US from invading.
This situation ends in one of two ways. 1. The US accepts that North Korea is a nuclear power. 2. The US cannot accept NK as a nuclear power and attacks it, causing a war. In my opinion the only thing stopping this from happening is objections from South Korea because of the massive cost of lives and infrastructure that war would cause them.
Why there should not be a deal is emphatically simple. Fight now in a massive preemptive strike possibly lose 50-70% of Seouls structures maybe 1/3 the population, in return for depending on the strike plan and Rules of Engagement either the crippling or complete extermination of the North Korean state. The alternative being make a deal with a government that has reneged on every agreement made these past 60yrs. Thus putting at risk many citizens of the United States and her allies who live places like Tokyo, Honolulu, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles,Vancouver and San Diego in addition to many other cities.
So in the end Seoul versus Japan and the entire western seaboard from Alaska to Baja. Sorry Seoul your S.O.L. Also #Realpolitik your teacher certainly gave you a more sanitized and happy version than history teaches us.
I agree. However any effective preemptive strike by the United States requires South Korea’s full cooperation, which they are not currently willing to give.
Why there should be a deal is surely emphatically simple, the avoidance of Admageddon.
China and the US should accept that karma is at work here amd that their conflict in the Korean war and the absence of an equivalent to the Marshall plan for N.Korea created the soil in which the current regime has taken root, much as Hitler was able to exploit German resentment at the terms of the treaty of Versailles. These 2 countries have an obligation to the rest of the world to change the regime in N.Korea in a peaceful way.
Allow me to be clear the United States has only one obligation above all others and that is the protection of its citizens. Like I might add all other countries. Even if that means ordering an Ohio-class submarine to accomplish its mission and eradicate the threat of North Korea. A strategy that does not require the cooperation of any ally.
That is not the mission of an Ohio class submarine, it’s mission is one of deterrence. The whole point of nuclear weapons is that they will never be used, they are there to deter an aggressive nation from launching either a nuclear or conventional strike on either (in this case) the U.S or it’s allies.
If we ever get to a point where nuclear weapons are used again in anger, then they have failed in their mission not accomplished it. And assuming enough of us are left alive, we will need to seriously reassess keeping them at all.
The point of maintaining Nuclear ordnance is to remove threats, if that is done by deterrence wonderful. Nevertheless if removing the threat is to nuke North Korea until it glows either way the objective has been accomplished. Sometimes the only option is a preemptive strike. There should be no negotiation with a government like North Korea nor can you trust a country led by a man who has had so many of his own family killed.
Hi Elliot,
My understanding of history is neither sanitised nor happy.
The reason NK will not nuke anyone is because it would be an extinction event for them. They know this and preservation is the order of their day.
What they want is not to be extinct which is what they think they will be if they don’t go nuclear.
None of which is to remotely defend a very very bad man and his regime. Anyone who enjoys watching dissidents die by flamethrower is one sick **** which the world would be better off without.
But plenty of those about…
I Don’t think any of the Presidents or Leaders have any diplomacy between them. President Trump is not a good President. He is making the situation worse by bullying with his comments.
Bullying? Well I am glad you are so solicitous of a man who murders his own family’s feelings. Whether or not the President is good or not is immaterial. He is President by the will of the States and you are not. The decision is his to make as CnC. Now go do something constructive like minding your own business.
Haven’t they ever learnt from past wars,no one wins.The people of the world have had enough of wars.why can’t nations of the world get on with one another.
No one wins? Well I I’ll go outside have some tea with Burgoyne and have a chat with the Cherokees, Comanches and then come invite Santa Ana for lunch and Hitler for a BBQ. Oh wait they all lost and America danced on their dreams. The “people” as you call them have war because in the end they have irreconcilable differences and only on remedy the removal of the other.
The media on both sides can hipe up the rhetoric, to the point, where it appears no possible solution can be found. But history has shown us that the reality can be surprisingly different. The upper crust of any autocracy is usually sound and well bonded, and to a large extent that applies to the lower orders too. However, once the structure begins to show signs of degradation or instability, the whole edifice can buckle.
A disheveled man who walked into a British Army unit in 1945, to give himself up, was none other than Himmler, the second most wanted and hated man in Europe. In subsequent years many tyrants commanding great power and fear, have been discovered hiding alone, exposed, and bereft of friends.
Tell me how many million died in your example to achieve that result? Because I’m wondering at what point did the quote upper crust and lower orders cause the edifice to buckle. Considering the Wehrmacht and Waffen kept fighting all the way until Berlin fell and their psychopathic leader killed himself inflicting some of the highest casualties of the war in the closing months.
The lesson of history as put by Niccolo Machiavelli is “War cannot be avoided it can only be postponed to your enemies advantage”. Another one “You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you.”-Trotsky
The outcome of the current standoff may not result in war, and crippling sanctions could bring about change in the upper crust, we simply do not know?
In the case of the Third Riech, the rot set in almost as soon as Barbarosa failed. Key army staff realized the end was clearly in view. Hitler’s paranoia about his safety had resulted in numerous fortified hideouts being built from early in the war, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed. Could such activity have only suggested the Riech wasn’t as stable as Hilter pretended it was? The buckling began in earnest after the failed Valkery operation, and the damage was irreparable. Some historians even believe Rudolf Hess’s flight to Britain was in desperation, which was shared by many of his contemporaries, and going to war was a huge miscalculation.
Avoiding genocide and heavy warfighting casualties under the leadership of a dictator determined to use military force, is almost impossible to avoid, yet such structures usually end in a whimper. I can think of very few that ended without retribution, apart from Starlin and Franco.
We simply do not know is not something I ensure the safety of my family to. Neither do I safeguard my country to that standard.
Elliott – I simply can’t agree. Removing the threat of North Korea by using nuclear weapons creates other more serious threats. The first is legitimising the use of such weapons in a first strike role, something which has been unthinkable since Hiroshima. After all if the leader of the free world can use them, why not China or Russia or anywhere else? The Wests moral authority, in part, comes from the acceptance that we would never fire first. The second is of the conflict spiralling into all out nuclear holocaust. The former makes the world a far more dangerous and unstable place to live, the latter would put humanity back to the Stone Age. There’s simply no *credible* use for nuclear weapons other than as a deterrent in my opinion.
At the end of the day the likelihood of North Korea firing first is vanishingly small *because* of the deterrent effect of mutually assured destruction. If they did fire first, then and only then can our use of nuclear weapons ever be sanctioned.
The use of Nuclear weapons to preempt the mass death American women and children while also minimizing military casualties is the most legitimate use of them. Unless you are are actually saying we have to bury the charred remains of our families before we respond. That or you are saying the lives of our servicemen is worth less than your being able to sleep at night because saving them and letting them go home would hit you in the feels. I was not taught nor have I ever come to believe from studying history that the United States got it wrong in WWII. Winning and therefore securing freedom and liberty for your people requires at times uncomfortable actions including as it did firebombing every major city in Axis Europe in addition to Japan and nuking two cities.
What China and Russia see as moral is their own business and has often been shown to be counter to our view regardless. That is their people’s concern not ours unless and until they begin to threaten war.
Whilst I understand your reasoning I profoundly disagree. Nuclear weapons are not there to provide a convenient means of minimising US or allied casualties. World War II was a completely different scenario, we had, the whole planet had been at war for years, millions of lives had already been lost. There hasn’t even been a declaration of war here. And yes you, we have to wait until they act, that is precisely the moral duty we have. It is not our right to extinguish innocent life wherever they live and nuclear weapons are indiscriminate killers. Wars are one thing, some are necessary, some unavoidable but none should be fought with such casual disregard for civilian life or for future consequences as ordering a nuclear first strike would. It would throw the rule book out the window and whilst it may get rid of the immediate threat, as I said it will undoubtedly create other more serious ones down the line, we cannot ignore that either. Unlike any other weapon on any of NATOs arsenal, nuclear weapons have the ability to end life on a planetary scale and we must not forget that either.