How much longer can America ignore North Korea?

So what exactly do we do about it? Same for Iran?

North Korea, unlike Iran, is not even the focus of debate in Washington. It should be a priority.

Yes, but they are not messing with you know who – - them guys with no lobbying efforts.

How about answering Bluedot12′s question? What exactly do you propose to “do” about it. You sound like Fox News.

Repeating myself from yesterday.

Why does anyone pay any attention to DPRK. It is of no consequence.

Threatening to use nuclear weapons on another nation is just grounds for military action by the nation being threatened. Compare the current situation with North Korea to the reasons given for the Iraq War and US foreign policy looks even more incoherent. Now the aggressor talking about “pre-emptive” war is North Korea and suddenly Washington has nothing to say about it.

North Korea has two (2) things neither Iran nor Saddam Hussein possessed: Nuclear weapons AND close ties to a superpower, in this case China. That was the case under George W. Bush and it remains the case under Barack H. Obama.

Also, AFAIK it has no mineral resources to speak of, and it hasn’t done anything to give the Israelis a pretext to call for its destruction.

So it gets left alone.

How much longer can America ignore North Korea?

We can and should ignore them forever. When will this country stop falling for the “godless commies are coming after us”. I heard the same crap for almost 50 years about the USSR. North Korea may be crazy, but no one, and I repeat no one, is crazy enough to launch a nuke.

North Korea can nuke Japan, but the threat is more useful than actually trying to implement it would be.

I suspect that DSW’s point here is that the US’ official policy is to freak out over non-nuclear nations like Iran that don’t have superpower patrons and have never started wars against other nations, yet to ignore the actions of nuclear-club nations like North Korea (or Pakistan, or India, or Israel) that are far more bellicose.

North Korea has been making threats for years. If they were to follow through on this one, they would 1) lose the political cover that China gives them, and 2) be bombed to irrelevancy in a matter of hours.

North Korea does not currently have a deliverable weapon. Nor does it have a reliable delivery system.

If you see a detonation greater than about 25kt, worry. That means they have fusion boosting working, at least to a degree. You can make a case they don’t even have implosion working yet. A 6kt blast is almost a fizzle.

Boxturtle (We ignore them because they have no oil and they’re not Moslem)

We can do very little. China holds all the cards and they’ll play in China’s best interests, not ours.

Remember too, the big danger from NK is their artillery, not their nukes.

Boxturtle (They can level Seoul before we can stop them)

Because of the amount of Chaos NK can cause, even without their nukes. Imagine a wave of refugees into China. China does. Imagine a boat flotilla to Japan. Japan does.

Boxturtle (China also imagines a united Korea in the US sphere right on their border)

I agree. The thing to remember about NK is that the current leadership is not going to do anything to endanger their hold on power. They realize that if the camels back breaks (Which a rocket attack on US territory would do), they’re done.

I think this current noise is mainly for domestic consumption.

Boxturtle (I’d like to load my B52′s up with MRE’s and carpetbomb the NK countryside)

@eCAHNomics

I wouldn’t perhaps go as far as that. To dismiss them as “of no consequence” ignores a couple of realities. Nevertheless, their utterances are often nonsense. The intentions of their utterances are also incomprehensible. They are too isolated to have the faintest notion of diplomacy. They don’t understand the immense dangers of making certain statements.

As to their nuclear capability. Though they seem to have made progress, they are likely to be some way off producing a functioning warhead for a ballistic missile. But they are clearly making continuous advances in that direction and will get there in the end.

I agree that the DPRK is full of shite and loves nothing more than to sabre rattle. Yet this latest very public threat highlights how the Emperor has no clothes in the Israel-run Village of Wash DC.

Here we do have a nation with *some* credible nuke capacity, yet Wash DC fiddles away, whilst shrieking about Eye-Ran.

Yeah: DPRK has no useful minerals or other resources, most esp no oil, and there’s no scary brown Mooselinz there to rile up the dumbfecks in Team USA Fuck YEAH!!

I mentioned China’s valid concerns yesterday. Today’s post is about DPRK nuking U.S.

What do we do about it? Why, more wars of course. We only spend more than all the other countries combined on defense. We need to double that asap. And collateral damage, no problem. We’re exceptional so we don’t care. You’re either with us or against us cause we’re number one. /

Threatening to use nuclear weapons on another nation is just grounds for military action by the nation being threatened.

That this line of reasoning is on the FDL front page is very disconcerting to me. Starting a war with a nuclear nation over a threat would be incredibly reckless and in no way just.

Shame on you.

Yes, I get the hypocrisy on display in Washington, but that’s no excuse for this.

Senate Hearing On North Korea right Now

There’s this joke about flea floating down the river on his back. He shouts “Raise the drawbridge, I’ve got a h-o.”

Is there no end of minor things U.S.ians can work themselves up into thinking are problems. Is there nothing more impt?

There are questions about whether DPRK has nukes, if it has them, it has one or two, no reliable delivery system, etc and all that. Pay no attention.

DPRK has a horrific history. U.S. leveled every bldg in the country during the Korean war, forcing them to live underground. Pre-Korean war history also awful. I forget the details. Here’s a good book on the subject.

Leader of DPRK has every reason to be paranoid. Since Korean war, leader has been a favorite whipping boy, constantly vilified for 60 years. Don’t think he’s suicidal, though

The country does have enough arms pointed at Seoul to preclude military aggression by U.S.

Boyohboyohboyohboy. What a great procrastination exercise.

Answer to my own question. NOthing. We do nothing at all. We can’t really. I even question why we want sanctions, but I leave that one to the wizards. On Iran, same thing, at least for now. But I have my doubts the world will let that happen.

Completely agree. Duly noted too that we still have no response from DSWright regarding what to do. The only conclusion: this is just mindless bellicosity chasing a headline. FDL trending downward.

This is a good thing, because it highlights our true priorities. North Korea can’t “nuke” the U.S., even if it really wanted to, even though they have a bomb. Iran doesn’t have a bomb, yet somehow they are a bigger threat.

It appears to be US policy to freak out over the possibility of another country getting nuclear weapons but not to freak out once they have nuclear weapons.

IMO, the first thing the US should do is drop the tactic of excommunicating certain nations by refusing direct talks with them. Cuba, Iran, North Korea. There was a time when nation “honor” would be offended by this that it would start talks to restore communication. That time ended in 1949. Now, it does nothing but make negotiations more difficult.

The fact that the threat in this case is so far-fetched with regard to North Korea’s capabilities seems the opening bid in negotiations. The US is not likely to respond other than taking the threat at face value, because “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” or “we don’t negotiate under threat”.

So how does North Korea end the Korean War, open its borders to trade, and function in the international system without losing face or being forced to adopt the neoliberalism of adjoining South Korea? That’s the conundrum their leadership faces.

And how can the US use its diplomacy with China to begin to talk this rhetoric back?

The world now knows that the US is a sucker for perceived enemies and will destroy itself in fruitless military campaigns against them. The world knows that domestic US politics is a battle between agression and more agression. Usama bin Laden saw this as the Achilles heel to destroy US global power. Might the folks in North Korea have been watching? Will our cult of “toughness” make us a sucker again?

And how can the US use its diplomacy with China to begin to talk this rhetoric back?

Good question.

“IMO, the first thing the US should do is drop the tactic of excommunicating certain nations by refusing direct talks with them.”

Not meaning to argue with your excellent comment, TD, but in my opinion the first thing the US should do is drop the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes like a hot potato.

Of course, now that would look like caving in to a lesser power, but the stupid course this nation has been put upon is just that kind of a gigantic swerve of the ship of state to where we are now guzzling our own putrid wake – (think the end of the Caine Mutiny movie).

Let’s make March Humphrey Bogart month. We just watched Jimmy Stewart in the Senate, after all. And it’s so timely – all aboard for the African Queen!

Absolutely right. This post is consistent with other stupidly alarmist DSWright pieces on North Korea, but the sentence you cite is beyond the pale.

Alarmist? They are actually threatening to use nuclear weapons. What more do you want them to do exactly?

Promising to nuke Washington DC will arouse strong feelings, both for and against…here in this country.

Before we do what? Start another war of aggression?

Starting a war with a country over threats isn’t defensive. It’s atrocious. And starting that war would only make it more likely, not less, that NK would use a nuke.

Shame on you.

Excellent point. It slipped my mind that that POS doctrine was still US policy. Yes, that most likely is the point of North Korea’s craziness.

A pre-emptive nuclear strike on North Korea would be crazy for the US to carry out as well. South Korea would be the collateral damage of our own strike. The same is true for the reverse situation of North Korea striking South Korea.

Pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Korean peninsula is not a credible policy for either side. North Korea must now be sensing that it’s investments in nuclear weapons are mostly useless given its geographic location. That sobering reality occurs to most nations after they build their nuclear weapons. One has to be as crazy as Harry Truman to use one.

I agre. THis is reminiscent of the cold war days with Russia and Kruschev banging his shoe on his desk. Ignore the little pissant. He’s jus rattling his saber.

OTOH, two words…….Seal Team 6.

“You don’t tug on superman’s cape. You don’t piss into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you don’t mess around with the United States’ military industrial complex.”

What????

Perhaps we should sent Rodman AND Kobe next time.

North Korea was threatening a sea of fire in the 1990′s. It’s the only way they can get our attention. Clinton wasn’t afraid to talk to the NKs and negotiated a deal to supply them with light-water reactors, which we later reneged on, as I recall. Obama’s lack of statesmanship and preference for military over diplomatic solutions worries me more than their threats.

The United States has thousands of nuclear weapons that can be exploded anywhere in the world in minutes; has used them in war; wasn’t shy about threatening to use them again in various theaters, including Korea, especially as long as it held the nuclear monopoly; has never disavowed a nuclear first strike; completely bombed out North Korea in the war, including napalm to exterminate the civilian population, and bombing of dams to flood the land, which the Allies deemed a war crime when the Germans had done it a few years before; more recently grouped North Korea in an Axis of Evil, along with one country it subsequently invaded and destroyed, and another which, this very week, the Vice President was at pains to make clear may yet face U.S. military action; and has always refused to negotiate with North Korea one-on-one.

So do the North Koreans get to ask “What more do you want them to do exactly”, and claim “just grounds for military action” against the nation threatening them?

The answer to that question, for both sides, is: No, neither the U.S. nor North Korea presently has just grounds for initiating military action against the other. I personally find that a desirable state of affairs relative to the alternative, and have little appreciation for writers who try to soften up their readers to support further rampages of U.S. militarists.

Maybe this on the heels of the last visit makes it plain to the world that the kid’s a puppet.

To be clear: Threats to use military force as North Korea did this week can certainly be seen as violations of the U.N. Charter, chs. I, VI & VII.

For the U.S. to initiate military action on that ostensible basis would be a far more grave and unambiguous violation of its binding international agreements, including the Charter and the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

Take your “what more do you want” to MSNBCFoxWashingtonPost and peddle it.

I’m only arguing for a focus on North Korea which is a legitimate nuclear threat rather than Iran which currently is not.

You can and should argue they are trolling for attention, but frankly they should get it.

Can North Korea target the Capital Building and the White House accurately? If so, then I dare them.

No one said start a war, well they said they would start a war. I’m saying we need to be focused. A war of aggression would be too costly as I’ve stated before DPRK could wipe out Seoul in 2 hours.

War no, Attention yes.

Now you’re being dishonest. You yourself said it was “grounds for military action.” Please. You’re foundering around. As for “we need to be focused,” I assure you the USG is focused, but not on the latest bombastic nonsense emanating from Pyongyang. Frankly it’s you who need some focus.

No one said start a war

No, you just said there were just grounds to start one.

Threatening to use nuclear weapons on another nation is just grounds for military action by the nation being threatened.

And I object to that. Vehemently. Threats don’t make for just grounds to start a war.

Once you’ve ceded that point, the conversation only involves the cost/benefit analysis of starting one, and that can be too easily muddied and manipulated compared to a moral right to initially strike.

Like you, I think that the costs would easily outweigh the benefits, but unlike you, I’m not prepared to say military action against them is just. It isn’t. It would be a grave injustice.

The U.S. should immediately stop the joint military exercises with SK and agree to bilateral talks in good faith. That’s all NK wants and I think it is reasonable.

You object to that being the law?

Or you object to me characterizing what N. Korea did as being applicable to that law?

I have no objection to that. That’s doing something reasonable in my view.

Ignoring this crisis in favor of sabre rattling with Iran over possible nuclear weapons is not reasonable, it’s dumb by its own metrics.

If all you wanted to say was that what they did could be grounds by law for military action, then that’s how you should have said it.

And yes, I would object to any law that gives a country the authority to start a war of aggression.

I actually understand that that is something you have been trying to get across in your North Korea posts. And there is some value in pointing out the fantasies that constitute supposedly serious foreign policy and security debate in the U.S. by contrasting them with empirical reality.

I, for instance, am eager to point out that the Iranian nuclear program actually exists, has observable features and dimensions, and use that to condemn the preposterous “mushroom cloud” propaganda that was used, along with the convenient umbrella category of WMD, to work the nation into a froth over Iraqi nukes that obviously didn’t exist.

But if I so argue, I feel obliged to take pains to make clear that I am not validating U.S. belligerence toward Iran, which is based on its own set of lies.

The Korean peninsula is host to at least two well-armed, dangerous powers in the form of the DPRK and the U.S., and is indeed (for many reasons I can’t fit into this comment) a much more valid “security” concern than the Muslim hunting that we have been told so often is all that stands between us and no more baseball and apple pie forever.

However, the substance of your posts has, IMO, has slipped way past pointing out such incongruities as a way to illuminate these issues, and looks to me indistinguishable from MSM scare-mongering about North Korea, which, you needn’t fear, does in fact exist alongside the other stuff.

Well, in that case I am happy to assure you, sihlkee, that no such law exists. While threats to settle differences by use of military force may well be illegal, they absolutely do not give the threatened nation the right to initiate hostilities. DSWright is misinformed.

If Iran sank a U.S. Navy ship, I wonder how people in the U.S. would treat the argument that the action had “just grounds” based on repeated U.S. threats.

I take your points and think it’s valid up to this limit. North Korea is extremely unpredictable – much more so than the Iranian government which I would argue are more in keeping with typical authoritarian regimes – rational, murderously so.

And yes N. Korea is saying outrageous things most likely to get attention. But unlike other types of trolling this can not be ignored, it has to be taken seriously and it isn’t to the degree warranted because of trivial concerns augmented by special interest groups in Washington.

But to going back to the initial point, North Korea isn’t getting its way, the UN just passed sanctions. So now what? They have shown a willingness to go all the way in these games of chicken we might see something aggressive (though likely no catastrophic).

The threat might have more substantive than we realize.

Can North Korea target the Capital Building and the White House accurately? If so, then I dare them.

Only if the NK missle launchers were trained in missle launching school in Florida.

What do we do about it? Why, more wars of course. We only spend more than all the other countries combined on defense. We need to double that asap. And collateral damage, no problem. We’re exceptional so we don’t care. You’re either with us or against us cause we’re number one. /

X2

The United States and the whole world should certainly give North Korea’s dear leader all the attention he wants because there’s just no better way to deal with him.

/s

DSWright writes:

… as I’ve stated before DPRK could wipe out Seoul in 2 hours.

That is a very pertinent fact. North Korea has had something like a nuclear deterrent all along in the form of countless, dug-in artillery emplacements able to level nearby Seoul on command.

That state of affairs is one of the reasons why some informed observers have not considered the North Korean nukes such a game changer.

Now, with slow progress on the missile program and miniaturization of their bombs, North Korea may eventually get to the point where their military capabilities really do change the strategic situation.

I think that’s all the more reason to eschew the boogeyman stuff the government-media complex wants to feed us, and look at the situation honestly.

I agree except I don’t think the government-media complex is really focusing on this much at all because the only serious option is diplomacy and the power elite want Iran regardless of the facts.

So it’s let’s ignore real problems like North Korea in exchange for lucrative phantom threats like Iran.

I’m not so sure their either of their nuclear capability or ballistic missile programs are quite as primitive as you are suggesting!

Okay, they are a long way from MIRV thank goodness. If you want to get into the technicalities, MIRV is the game changer. But I suspect with modern, and freely available technology, a ballistic missile guidance system is relatively easy to get working. Especially if, no matter how destitute, an entire government stands behind the program.

I appreciate your feedback, DSWright, and will continue to read your posts with interest, and the hope that this discussion will give you something to think about.

I’ll be signing off after this, though I’ll check back tonight. But I want to reply to your assertion that “North Korea is extremely unpredictable”.

If you mean that literally, as in their actions are not easily predicted, especially by the dimwits, madmen, Wall Street stooges, and tricksters that have been in charge of U.S. foreign policy at least since the likes of Henry Stimson and George Marshall were ushered off the scene for not being insane and violent enough, then I would agree with you.

If you mean “unpredictable” as a euphemism for irrational—as meaning that North Korea cannot be engaged in a purposeful, realistic dialogue—then you are grossly mistaken, and a dupe for U.S. villain-of-the-week propaganda.

Leaving aside any value judgments, the self-preservation of the DPRK regime almost three decades after their primary sponsor disintegrated, isolated and with few resources, is a tremendous achievement of statecraft. If, in the near future, the Koreas reunite peacefully (which is definitely possible, and there are many things the U.S. could do, and never does, to help bring it about), every posh university school of government in the U.S. should swoop in and offer nice faculty positions to all the DPRK foreign-affairs officials they can find. In terms of skillful and effective diplomacy from a position of weakness, what they have to teach our bunch is analogous to a modern engineer setting up shop at the University of Bologna 800 years ago.

No regime of “unpredictable” madmen could have survived against the odds that North Korea has faced. No, only a country with the boundless and unassailable strengths and advantages that the U.S. possesses can squander national wealth and credibility with such abandon, decade after decade, and still be master of its own house, with pretensions of being the lord of everyone else’s as well.

Ok, really last word from me now:

Sorry for being blunt, but this idea of yours, so often repeated, that you are the voice crying out in the wilderness about North Korea, while all the official and MSM fear-mongering is aimed at Iran just doesn’t match my observation.

If it makes you feel any better, I can assure you that the U.S. people would have ample access to alarmism about North Korea, even if you directed your attention elsewhere or, even better, contributed non-alarmist news and analysis.

Good, I’m having a lousy day. Cue the banner headline: Kim Jong-Il the Crapteenth Puts Matthew Detroit Out Of His Misery.

I think you cap prepositions when they’re use adverbially. Heading down to the typesetter’s office to inquire. . .

Well played.

Fair enough. I might be reading too much DC press.

I for one will second the not irrational notion that desperate and/or collapsing Cold War-era dictatorships–hell bent on Western-style modernization rather than autochthonous development anyway, let’s not forget–probably don’t mix well with nukes.

It does remain the case that the US is the only country to actually melt people, however–we did it twice, and even Hillary Clinton likes to menace people with doing it again.

And in many ways we PUT Ahmedinejad there when we overthrew Mossadegh, who like Chavez was a very mild socialist. And the Cold War and Korea–so much stupid to portion out. . Blowback is a cur.

Admirable post.

They don’t need ballistic missiles. Nuke + cargo container on third party ship in US port = kablooey. Especially as we don’t thoroughly xray every cargo container. We search airline passengers far more thoroughly than we search cargo. Glad I don’t live near a port…

It is especially disconcerting that these are among the first actions of a new government in North Korea.

Saber rattling for internal consumption, as the new young leader consolidates his power.