North Korea

[violence in the media]

So, it's been in the news a lot recently. NPR has been talking about it a lot in the past week, and they're talking about North Korea's skill at brinksmanship, and how that's pretty much the only way they engage in diplomacy and so on, and it made me wonder: what is The Limit? And what would [the U.S./South Korea/Japan/China/the world] do if they actually crossed it? Does anyone really know?

[cthulhu]

No-one is going to start shit with North Korea, it's way to hard. What would start shit is if the south decides that it is under attack, and responds with whatever their war plan is.

I have no idea what the south korean war plan looks like, but it's probably heavy on alpha strikes to try and disrupt all the N Korean forces in range of Seoul.

Once that happens there is no turning back. But really North Korea can do whatever it likes short of making the south think that it is being attacked now.

[RobbyPants]

In the past week, I haven't heard much new in developments, other than even firmer declaration that we know the ship was sunk by North Korea.

I find it interesting to listen to, but I have no idea what that limit is. What I'm curious about is why they did it, unless it was literally "just cuz", to see if they could.

[Juton]

South Korea doesn't want to start shit, Seoul is in artillery range of the DMZ, and North Korea supposed has something like 17,000 artillery pieces aimed at the south. China doesn't want a war, because it thinks that it will get a large portion of North Korea's population as refuges and their is the risk they could be drawn into a larger conflict, which it doesn't want. Japan also doesn't want anything to go down, North Korea has menaced Japan with nukes/missiles previously and Japan doesn't want to have another city nuked.

The wild cards are North Korea and maybe some hawks in the States. North Korea is a wild card because dear leader is fucking nuts, or at least acts that way. Some hawks may want to start shit, aside from the possibility of nukes a war with North Korea is the only plausible conventional war the US could engage without disastrous consequences.

I think before North Korea actually crosses the line it will check in with China, since China also subsidizes them. If China doesn't want something to happen it's unlikely anything will. Either nothing will happen or there will be a full-on war, their is not a lot of in between. It's very likely that this will simmer down in the next few weeks and be forgotten.

[Crissa]

The DPNK hasn't followed Chinese suggestions for a couple decades, despite our attempts to engage China. China is similarly in range of fallout as Japan is, and doesn't want to upset the capitalist gravy train which rolled into town.

We'll just have to take our cues from South Korea. They're the punching bag here, if they want to fight back, I think we should help them, but I doubt they will.

I would agree with speculation that this is just a reaffirmation of the DPNK's support for its military command for rights to succession. If a military commander thought that the chain of command wouldn't back him up, they would be far less likely to support the status quo. So the chain of command is just reaffirming that the military is more important to them than any mistakes or local diplomacy.

-Crissa

[violence in the media]

They've been reporting recently (though I'd have to hunt up a transcript from NPR) that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is vowing to hold the North Koreans responsible for sinking the Cheonan, and that the South Koreans have recently presented the Chinese with a "you can trade $200 billion with us or $2 billion with them" economic ultimatum.

edit: From today.

...but South Korean President Lee Myung-bak seems determined that this time there should be consequences for the death of the 46 South Korean sailors aboard the Cheonan.

Brown, who travels often to South Korea for business purposes, says he noticed on a trip to Seoul earlier this month that younger South Koreans are angrier about the Cheonan than they have been about any North Korean act in the past.

"For the first time on this episode I noticed in conversations in Korea that this touched their hearts. These were 46 young draftees, young conscripts, similar to them in generation. There was very much of, 'There but for the grace of God could have gone my younger brother.' "

No luck yet finding the economic quote.

[Orca]

There's an argument here that it's mainly an internal argument by people who neither know nor care what outsiders think.

[Username17]

There's an argument here that it's mainly an internal argument by people who neither know nor care what outsiders think.

That's a pretty good argument. The DPRK is an isolationist theocracy that actively tells its people that there are zombies outside the borders. You might as well ask why the tribe (tribes?) in the Sentinel Islands shoot arrows at everyone and everything that shows up.

They're isolationists with an authoritarian structure that is justified by religion rather than logic. Attacking foreigners isn't something they do because they are trying to provoke some response or attain some goal -it's simply because attacking foreigners is a thing that they do.

-Username17

[K]

I suspect that this is yet another attempt to gain legitimacy on the world stage so that people would stop embargoing them.

I mean, Bill Clinton didn't get those two hot reporter/spys out of there because he is the most interesting man in the world (though evidence suggests that he might just be the guy in the Dos Eques commercials). He succeeded because North Korea is desperate to be taken seriously.

I mean, this is the main reason that nations try to get nuclear bombs. They don't really want to blow people up... they do want the threat of blowing people up so that no one challenges their rule and they listen when they make demands. I mean, people take Pakistan seriously in international circles, and if they didn't have the bomb they'd be another third world shit-hole that no one cares about like... I don't know.... Angola.

[Username17]

Here's the Latest from DPRK. It's... totally insane. A repressive theocracy based on thought control so severe that even the wildest dreams of Imams and Fundamentalist Mormon Prophets pale in comparison. And it's huge. Tens of millions of people who don't even know that their own leader has been dead for 16 years.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

What are the odds of DPRK dropping a nuke on:

1) Themselves
2) South Korea
2) Japan
3) China
4) Some country unfortunate enough to be on the same planet.

Within the next two decades?

[Blasted]

I think low.
DPRK exists to serve the whims of the dear leader.
If he launches a nuke, then he must know that nukes will be used against him and the chances of him surviving that are very slim.
I think it would be a last resort, revenge attack, if any. If that's the case odds are that the launching sites/warheads will already be destroyed.
I'm more concerned about fatalist elements of the DPRK military starting a war, Dr. Strangelove style, in order to get rid of dear leader.

[Surgo]

Well, keep in account when replying to this that Dear Leader is unlikely to live for another two decades.

[Zinegata]

"The Limit" would most likely be crossed when artillery shells start hitting Seoul.

North Korea quite honestly gets away with its brinksmanship because the world doesn't really want to see the capital of one of the largest and most dynamic economies in Asia to be reduced to a smouldering mess.

But if the line is crossed however, expect a very bloody 2nd Korean War. With China hopefully remaining neutral.

[cthulhu]

Make no mistake, South korea would crush north korea - but thats part of the reason they don't want to fight, they know they would win.

[Crissa]

Hopefully China will be on S. Korea's side, not just neutral.

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

A neutral China is as good as China siding with South Korea. A non-neutral China is likely the sort aiding the North Koreans against South Korea.

[Crissa]

A China siding with S. Korea is less likely to destabilize the international economy.

-Crissa

[Starmaker]

That's a pretty good argument. The DPRK is an isolationist theocracy that actively tells its people that there are zombies outside the borders. You might as well ask why the tribe (tribes?) in the Sentinel Islands shoot arrows at everyone and everything that shows up.

I'd love some zombie links, not because I doubt you, but because communism in Russia has been pretty much monopolized by crazyfuck "if they hate America they're G♥♥d" DPRK supporters.

[cthulhu]

A China siding with S. Korea is less likely to destabilize the international economy.

-Crissa

China won't fight a war with the US over North Korea if North Korea starts it.

I doubt they would do anything except try and manage the border, which would be a massive, massive issue for them - this is the reason they don't want NK to collapse.

[Username17]

That's a pretty good argument. The DPRK is an isolationist theocracy that actively tells its people that there are zombies outside the borders. You might as well ask why the tribe (tribes?) in the Sentinel Islands shoot arrows at everyone and everything that shows up.

I'd love some zombie links, not because I doubt you, but because communism in Russia has been pretty much monopolized by crazyfuck "if they hate America they're G♥♥d" DPRK supporters.

Oh, what the fucking fuck?

DPRK Propaganda is Weird. The Kims long ago rejected Marxism. They aren't even allies of Russian Communists. They aren't atheists, they aren't communists. The "Workers Party" is a bizarre Confucian Theocracy that worships their head of state - who has been dead for 16 years!

Starting from the early 1990s the North Korean official "historians" began to insist that Korea was among the few places on earth from whence the humankind originated. The Koreans, as the official theory goes, are not related to any other nation, they have not come from anywhere, but have uniquely ancient roots, and their ancestors have always lived on the Korean Peninsula. In the early 1990s North Korean archaeologists claimed they had found remnants of King Tangun, the legendary founder of the Choson kingdom, son of a god and a female bear-turned-woman (sadly, the skeleton they found looked perfectly human!). Not surprisingly, his tomb was "discovered" nowhere, but in Pyongyang, adding some credence to the idea that Pyongyang had always been the capital of the country. The skeleton was placed in a new tomb, hastily erected in the pseudotraditional “Old Korean” style.

Koreans,specifically North Koreans, are a different species from all the other inhabitants of the Earth. All other countries envy the wealth and power of DPRK, and are filled with monsters that look like humans. Sorry, it's not actually living dead, it's a hostile race of skin shifters - my bad.

-Username17

[endersdouble]

What's the saying, that any parody of fundamentalism will be indistinguishable from the original? I think that's doubly true of North Korea. I find all the stuff on that page very hard to believe...but that doesn't mean I think it's false. Scary.

[Starmaker]

Oh, what the fucking fuck?

DPRK Propaganda is Weird.

Publication date: 1995! Liberal Yeltsinist propaganda!!! Not true!!! Hur dur dur!

On a serious note, here's a breakdown of "communists" in Russia:

• The Old Guard. Wild-eyed crazy people. Very vocal, very crazy, very poor. No Internet access. Not popular. Nominally atheist. Aged 40 to 50.
  
  Love everything that has to do with the Communism brand, simultaneously, never see any contradictions. Think whatever happens in the DPRK is the way (or at least a way) to run things (because they're Communist, you see). Sell self-published newspapers for 3 cents, cry and hug interested customers. Recite poems about global revolution. Believe in universal siblinghood, hate the bourgeoisie, actively hate Western entertainment ("soulless snuff").
• The Patriots. Hate America (some of them fly the Confederacy flag). Middle-class, educated, with Internet access. Highly popular.
  
  Think Stalin was teh best evar and everything that existed or was implemented under Stalin was teh best evar. Have a meme ("Now you're going to tell me HD-TV didn't exist in Stalin's time!") to make exception for technology and their love of Western entertainment, fail to see it works for social advancement too.
  
  Love-hate-envy China. The rest of the world is good to the extent that they "hate America". Consider reports about low quality of life in "good" countries to be proof of America's evil and reports of crazy shit to be evil liberal propaganda.
  
  Think gays and abortions are America's propaganda plan to decrease the population of "undesirables" that America itself fell victim to, much like if a virus weapon was accidentally released in the lab. Think sex ed is European pedophile propaganda. Are divided on the matter of orthodox christianity, consider other abrahamic religions Evil™ and non-abrahamic religions quaint harmless folktales.
• The Pioneers. Nonconformist youth. (Don't have anything to do with the actual Pioneers, which is a small-scale kids' nonprofit.) Communism is a fashion statement. Think Lenin was cool (our local Che, totally rad). Don't know which country Che is from. Atheist or nominally buddhist.
• The Losers. Aged 40+, low-class but not piss-poor. Don't (cannot) use the Internet. Mildly orthodox christian (pray, go to church at Easter, use religious paraphernalia at funerals - actually, the latter is done by default in Russia).
  
  Miss the Soviet times. Vote Communist at elections. Are nostalgic for "good old" Soviet movies but will watch whetever's on TV all the same.
• Me.

[Username17]

This is why simple Right/Left political divisions are stupid.

Stalin? Seriously? I don't understand why people think they have to glorify or vilify Stalin in order to have a position on the Soviet era. During World War 2 there were six main countries: 3 main Axis (Japan, Germany, Italy), and 3 main Allies (United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom). Also a fuck tonne of "also appearing" on both sides (Axis gets the Slovakian Theocratic Republic, Allies get Canada, and so on for most of the planet). But of the big six, Stalin comes 3rd or 4th in "most genocide" (depending on how you feel about Churchill starving Indians to death), and comes 2nd or 3rd in "most competent" (depending on how you feel about Stalin blowing off the Barbarossa intel). That's pretty reasonable actually. All told he comes off as "above average" in World War 2. Now admittedly, you're above average in a short list with Hitler and Tojo in it, but still.

But fucking hell: you can go ahead and be a Communist partisan. Go on and on about how awesome Kerala is compared to Rajasthan. But North Korea is Not Your Friend. Hell, I am a commie and I have zero sympathy for anything the North Koreans do to their people.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

Actually, Stalin is the first on the genocide list if you add the Interbellum period.