North Korea detonates Nuke

North Korea has successfully detonated their first nuclear weapon in an underground test widely condemned by world leaders... And here I was thinking they had yet to invent the wheel, I don't see how they managed it, the country has almost no electricity for its civilian population, (look at a nightime satellite map, North Korea is entirelt BLACKED OUT)... This is a provocative and frankly stupid move on Kim Jong Il's part... Just yesterday I was re-assuring my younger stepbrother that North Korea is a backward demoralized cold-war-standard military force; not a threat at all. what do you think will come of it? Have they sealed their fate or will they get off with another warning...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/1 ... index.html

 

Well if I was making the decisions it would mean war which makes it a good thing I am not in charge :lol: .

I assume they will condemn it and put economic sanctions. I wouldn't be surprised if South Korea and Japan declared war. Funny thing is couple months back CNN tried to get the public to think that technically America is still at war with Korea but, there was no formal declaration of war(couple other wars too). But they do have a ceasefire, does not mean they are at war.

 

Just condemnation so far:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 033457.stm

I doubt anything but sanctions will actually happen. However, if sanctions are enacted, the North Korean population is gonna get hit by a nasty famine. I'm betting that if that happens the media will line up for shots of starving babies with the headline "Bush (or Blair, or national leader of your choice) did this" :roll: :angry:

 

KHM
They are under sanctions already and femine is wide spead for last 10 years or so.

Sanctions argument is kind of stupid as they are already under sanctions by most of the world.

War with South Korea? Not bloody likely as Seul is well in the range of North Korean artillery.

 

It kind of destabilizes the whole region a little which has a knock-on effect to the rest of the world - Japan, for example, now knows that it is within range of missiles possessed by a nuclear power who have a known dislike for them and a marked militarist/isolationist aspect. South Korea will, of course, be most concerned and other countries in the region will be very concerned too - also the US who have defence treaties with many of those states. Make no mistake - this is a development of great global importance. Nuclear proliferation is entering a phase which has been expected with trepidation for some time - states that many in the international community believe can't be fully trusted not to use the weapons or deliver them into the wrong hands are joining the club. But what can be done about it ? Very little in the case of North Korea. It will probably be down to China to use its greater influence. Ultimately, as long as North Korea remains outside the international community it will be a problem - therefore the best solution would be to bring it into that community - but this has proved impossible in the past.

 

Not to mention they still have China at their side.

 

Basic problem on both N. Korea and Iran is that both countries are using nuclear issue as leverage. Both want to talk, but only directly with US and not to anyone else. US (especialy Bush & co.) don't want to talk to them directly becouse this would be in their eyes recognition/legitimise regimes in those countries by US. BTW both are sanctioned by US and west so threats with sanctions make little or no impression on them.
Let's face it if US would deal directly with both countries things would not go this far.
War with N. Korea is out of the question. N. Korea still has formidable army. Even if it is technologicaly surpassed by US and surrounding nations it can still wreak havoc in the area.
Iran is another issue. Iran did lend a helping hand in Afganistan and did managed to hold back Shiites in Iraq. Anyone with brains understands that if US or Israel would try to attack Iran, whole middle east will explode( israel would be in deep shit with simultanious attacks by Hamas and Hezbolah and probably Syrian involment and Iranian long range missiles raining down), US can kiss Iraq goodby and they would have a hell of a tougher job in Afganistan (Iran gave and is still giving a lot of military and advisory support to anti-taliban coalition ).

It is also interesting that both countries are backed by Russia and China. N. Korea becouse both countries don't want US proxy on their strategicly important segment of the borders and prefer buffer zone i.e. N Korea. Iran becouse it is bargaining chip to break US monopoly on oil in mid east. China is treating Iran as important strategic partner becouse of oil that is badly needed for growth of their economy and Iran is one of only few sources that is availible too them. Russia is more or less backing Iran becouse they have common objectives regarding spreading of fundamentalist Sunni movements ( that is why both were supporting Northern alliance in Afganistan long before 9-11) in the area and Russian fear that will be boxed in by US controled countries.

 

North Korea does not have China on their side, China is simply the only country with which North Korea has diplomatic relations with... The Chinese were in fact the ones who first reported the detonation to western nations; betraying the trust of North Korea. If military action does occur, I think China will bear most of the responsibility for subjugating them...

 

South Korea is currently supplying North Korea with a lot of food & fertilizer, which is basically making the difference between surviving and not. Cut that off...

 

More words...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p ... 036129.stm

I wonder... what do you think the chances are of China simply invading North Korea. And what would the outcome be (politically and military)?

 

Particularily disconcerting is the fact that this is far more evidence that we ever had before invading Iraq... George Bush is faced with two options, either an invasion of North Korea or admitting that a mistake has been made somewhere...

IMHO the coalition should be in North Korea instead of Iraq

 

Doubt it. Iraq has something like oil N.Korea has nothing worth bothering for. N.Korea has huge military armed with heavy artilery, and now nukes. Iraq had none of this in serious numbers. If by any chance someone would invade N. korea, their first objective would be hitting south hard as S. Korea would probably be in the coalition against north. Only viable scenario without all out war in the far east would be timely death of Kim Jong Il preferably by natural couses or in internal strugle. God forbid by assasination by foreign power as N.Korean army would probably react in attack mode.

Big couse of this nuclear issues are the US and their actions. After invasion of Iraq and Bushes "axis of evil" ramblings, these regimes see that only nuclear detterant will stop US & co from invading their countries. India and Pakistan are interesting examples. India bordering with nuclear neighbour China and short and humiliating war in Himalaya decided that Nuclear detterant would be useful. This notion was reafirmed by US navy incursions in bay of Bengal in 1970's (during one of the wars with their ally Pakistan) and their view that US are thraething them with A bomb. So India built a bomb. Following their lead Pakistan also build a bomb. Both countries have similar ideas on nuclear deterant. If anyone attacks India they will bomb Pakistan and if anyone attacks Pakistan they will bomb India. Both countries broke treaties they signed. In my opinion Pakistan is larger treat than Iran to nonproliferation of nuclear weaponary. Pakistan has a long record of supporting Taliban and Al quida and was activeley supporting both in their war against other forces in Afganistan civil war. Their military inteligence service is still run by same poeple that practicaly created taliban. This should give you some idea of danger US are exposing themselves by trusting them.

 

Ah yes TISO, you're right about the oil, thats why i said 'should' :smok:

Speaiking purely in a military context however,
North Korea has a huge military... Iraq had a huge military... Both countries rely/relied upon huge and numerous ground forces... Whereas tThe U.S. has almost unrestricted airpower... in a conventional ground war both N.Korea and former iraq could have successfully fought the U.S., which is why America used aircraft to destroy the majority of ground forces in Gulf War 1 & 2, and which they probably will do in N.Korea as well. Whatsmore N.Korea simply has nuclear technology... as of yet they do not actually have a bomb or ICBM which can be delivered to a target.

The only real military obstacle in N.Korea is the terrain, I imagine that smart bombs and spotting units would be significantly more difficult in N.Koreas craggy mountains that it was in the Iraqi desert... If N.Korea can hide a significant portion of their enormous artillery force it could make things very difficult for occupying forces

 

To put this in a clearer context - a news report I saw last night stated that North Korea are believed to have obtained their first nuke in approx 1990 and are now estimated to have about six (how reliable this is I don't know given the closed nature of the country and previous inaccurate estimates of a similar nature eg. Iraq's WMD. My point is that this bomb test is not quite the massive escalation that it has been painted but rather the latest in a series of escalations and, as it was already known that they possessed nuclear weapons for up to sixteen years, the recent demonstrations of their missile systems (which are designed to deliver these nukes) is actually more significant than this test.

 

I agree with Lone Woulf on his point. For number of years N.Korean nukes were matter of speculation and Bush & co. downplayed them saying that it is not shure if N.Korea has them. Couple that and latest utterings about possible war one gets impression that N.Koreans had to play their hand and show that they do posses them. Basicly this is high risk diplomacy.
One has to realise that tough talk and invasion of another country has adverse effect in the long run as regimes not friendly to US belive that they have to prepare for war and best deterrant is still nuclear weapons. They don't have them for MAD strategy like during cold war but it is a matter for thought that in case of attack they can hit back hard with something and that possible agressor has to take possibility of high number own casulties seriously.

 

Guys, if you are going to state that the US invaded Iraq for oil you really will have to show just how much oil the US is getting from Iraq, or at least how the US is getting any benefits at all from Iraqi oil...

 

Not exactly Ricky often plans fail and the original plan is forgotten of a new plan.

 

in 91 many said the war was for oil...and this last war ...its also for oil?....so far all this free oil has cost us us tax payers many billions of dollars ...but i guess as gunter said ,we keep forgetting to pump it out...as near as i can figure it us oil companies still have to buy arab oil ,like everyone else ....dang ,how many times do we have to invade to get some of this free oil ...i mean since as tiso says we controll all of the middle east except iran,cant we please have just a couple super tankers of free oil...i wonder how many tankers full it would take before we could break even on what we are outta pocket so far...?....but even one tanker would be a start ,right?

 

JEEEEZ.
It's not that simple as we want free oil let's pump it. One has to think this strategicaly. In the long run control of oil reserves will be more important than right now. Even today demand for oil is huge especcialy as China is fuiling it's rapidly growing economy. Right now China gets most of her oil from Russia and Iran. Naturaly they don't want to be dependant from oil from one or two countries. Recently signed treaties will get them oil also from Venezuela and Sudan. China is also one of the main reasons for recent jump of oil prices as it was outbidding others (including USA) on world markets (that was also kick in the gut of US economy). Not long before invasion of Iraq US unsucefully tried to sponsor que in Venezuela (country with largest oil reserves if you also count heavy oil).

Iraq has large oil reserves, it had battle experienced army on the verge of collapse (morale was at all time low, logistics were in shambles, AF was non-existant), been under international sactions for 13 years that completly destroyed economy, dictator without wide support in short it was seen as easy target. Compare that to Iran or N.Korea.
Iran will not be easy as it has battle tested army (Iraq and Afganistan), wide support of population (in case of invasion), allies in Iraq, Libanon, Syria and Palestine, it also has Chinese and Russian backing, becouse in this game denying opposition the goals (in this case US) is as important as getting to your own goals.
N. Korea is strategicly important for both Russia and China. Russian main military bases are not far form N.Korea same goes for China. China also sees N.Korea as essential buffer zone important for stoping any possible invasion of N.China & Mandzhuria from that direction. Last thing both countries want is US army on their borders. About mentioned Cambodia scenario (China running over N.Korea) it is extremly unlikley. Ties between China and N.Korea go way back to Korean war. China sees N.Korea as their playing ground and one of the "toys" that keeps US on their toes. If US would Invade N. Korea China is likeley to side with N.Korea. I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese gave a silent nod in private to last N.Korean experiment.

 

So how was the invasion of Iraq a strategic method of securing oil?

If it is a weak nation with a weak economy then they will be only too happy to sell as much as they can at lower prices just to get some income. IIRC part of the sanctions was the 'food for oil' scheme, and one thing the USA over-produces and regularly exports is food.

Attempting to transform Iraq from a weak, divided country into a secure, democratic (and presumably capitalist) country can surely do nothing but result in higher prices for Iraqi oil.