08-10-2017, 09:54 PM
(08-09-2017, 01:31 PM)Dill Wrote: Every country, every situation, is different--especially when compared to NK. There is no "one way" to handle threats of verbal attacks.
We need to not think that we can control everything, that "losing China," or "losing Korea" is always some administration's fault.
There is nothing the US could have done to prevent the creation of NK, short of continuing WWII against our ally, the Soviet Union. Serious diplomacy over the last 30 years MIGHT have prevented the current crisis. We don't know for sure. Also, a failure of which ever administration led to this impasse, if one did fail, is also on the American voters who chose presidents unskilled in government and diplomacy. We are feeling that bigtime now.
How, exactly, does the US handle verbal threats of attacks? NK was responsive to talks and sanctions during the 90s, but Clinton blew a peaceful nuclear power agreement stalling for regime change. Bush would not talk to "evil," so NK had no reason to trust our "diplomacy." The IRaq invasion showed the US' willingness to invade whomever we want based upon fabricated intel, never mind that Iraq was already perfectly contained and adhering to post Gulf War agreements. Libya scrapped its nuke program to comply with US wishes--and the US led a bombing campaign against Gaddafi. The clear lesson from all this is that the US "handles" threats differently from president to president, that the only way you could be SURE the US could not launch a ground invasion is to have nukes.
Wait I'm a little confused here Dill. You're saying NK had no reason to trust our diplomacy, but what reason did we have to trust them? I may be mistaken, but wasn't it North Korea that crossed the 38th parallel and initiated what would become known as the Korean War? Wasn't it North Korea that attempted a reunification of the Korea's by force? I don't understand this "imperial aggressor" stance that North Korea has when they're the ones who decided to invade South Korea because they had Russia and China behind them.
We found out during the Bush administration that the unusual digging that the North Koreans were doing during the Clinton administration was in fact a part of the North Koreans attempt to cover up a secret nuclear program while still under the non-proliferation treaty. The North Koreans even admitted what they were doing and pulled themselves out of the treaty altogether.
If anything, I'd say North Korea has way more to prove in terms of trust than the US does in relation to them.
Quote:I don't see any scenario in which NK carries out a nuclear attack on the US without extreme provocation, like a land invasion by the US.
Their leader and ours are both unstable, given to reckless threats. It is not clear how well their advisors can control their actions. Think of the Cuban missile crisis without Kennedy or Khrushchev. Kim Jong Un may actually have a better sense of geopolitcs, understanding that China and Russia will not sit by while the US rains "fire and fury and, frankly, power" on their doorstep. That is a two edged sword of course. They don't want Kim bringing trouble to their doorstep.
At this point I'm not sure of the sanity of the Kim regime. Part of me feels they just might be crazy enough to nuke us.
Quote:Which is why diplomacy plus sanctions are the best option right now. Kim can't strike everyone sanctioning his regime, and sanctions would bring it down more certainly than military attacks. The US lacks leadership with any international stature right now. The question is whether people around the current president can manage the crisis. Sad that generals are the only reasonably competent diplomats on the Trump team.
I'm not sure how diplomacy will solve anything in all honesty. When North Korea invaded South Korea they clearly showed what their main goal is, and that is the reunification of Korea. That will never happen under diplomacy. What the North wants out of "diplomacy" is for the US to pack their bags and get out of South Korea so that they can finish their reunification process. It's the reason they hate us. It's not because we're "imperialists". It's because we stopped them from successfully taking over South Korea and reunifying the nation.
It's my personal belief that North Korea's goals of modernizing their nuclear capabilities has very little to do with "US aggression" and more to do with North Korea wanting to attempt another reunifying campaign against the South. I don't see diplomacy working as long as the Kim family is still the leadership of the country.
