Freebase Dali

The flight wasn't over North Korea, and it was part of an ongoing exercise with South Korea, who are our allies.

However, it was quite obviously a deliberate show of force in light of the situation, even though inert munitions were dropped.

Whether you think it was necessary or not is another matter entirely. North Korea might be famous for not following up on their threats, but I'm wondering whether it's worth chancing boy-cried-wolf when it's a new leader threatening to nuke us.
Just saying... the logic of putting the name "North Korea" on the "Oh You!" dog meme, in essence, probably isn't a better solution.

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ThePhanastasio

I still really think it's a lot of hot air being blown out North Korea's ass. If they attack the US mainland, that's an act of war, and they know that they'd be targeted by the remaining US and their allies. North Korea is an overwhelmingly impoverished country, with technology that can't hang with the main powers. Everyone and their brother seems to have nukes now, so big whoop, North Korea. They don't have the capability to start a war and emerge unscathed, and they have to know it. They still have their own MO, however, and distaste for South Korea, and want to talk a lot of ****, because South Korea is a war they think they can win.

China tolerates them, but their relationship is strained, and if N. Korea ****s up, China is not going to deal with their bull****. Their main concern seems to be keeping Kim Jong Un in order, in power, and refugees the hell out of China.

A great deal of the world seems just to tolerate them, and they're not huge on diplomacy. If they did something stupid, they'd either be invaded and their government overthrown (best case scenario) or completely wiped off the map (obviously worst case scenario.)

So, ultimately, they wage war, and they either get their asses handed to them in the end, or the world kills itself. I doubt either one of these things are on North Korea's agenda, but you never know, I guess.

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GuitarBizarre

People massively underestimate how strong NKs military actually is though - That they have a million man army isn't exactly some silly irrelevant point.

Its true that if they waged war on the rest of the world they'd lose, but technology only goes so far in the face of superior numbers wielding a still significant amount of firepower. They'd potentially get a lot done before folding.

The other problem is that NK is actually very difficult to wage war against - much like Russia, the geography there confers a huge defending advantage - Its been tried before to wage war against NK and the losses were far larger than army strength and technology alone should have indicated.

Nothing will happen, because this is all a show of force and an attempt to provoke, but the fact of the matter is that it is a very real standoff - NK can't leave their country to attack others because their enemies have much stronger armies, but nobody can attack into NK because there's just not enough reason to suffer those losses if NK are only shouting and yelling.

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The Batlord

They barely have enough money to maintain their army while it's doing nothing. I'm dubious that they would have enough money to keep it going for very long in wartime.

Actually, once the American army invaded Inchon the NK army got creamed all the way to the end of the country. It was the hordes of Chinese that poured over the Yalu River that saved them.

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Janszoon

Everything is sex to you isn't it?

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The Batlord

What can I say? Kim Dong Il and Pyongwang get me all hot and bothered.

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Plankton

This is appropriate for this thread:


Hans Blix.mov - YouTube

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GuitarBizarre

1 - I'm not about to predict the fiscal state of a country we know nothing about. We can safely state they have less money to throw around than "we" do, but the fact is they're willing to wage war and that's enough reasons to treat 1 million+ soldiers very seriously.

2 - I never said that beating the **** out of them wasn't possible, in fact the opposite, but the losses suffered would be unacceptable because of their smaller advantages, and no country is going to enter into that situation unless they absolutely have to - There's no sense in throwing away lives like that. And we won't nuke them because the political fallout (and actual fallout) would poison our relations (And the people within) the entire area - Not justifiable considering Korea and China's economies are strong and their political power significant.

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ZiggyStardust

One word: Nukes.

If America goes to war with them, one push of a button and it'll be over.

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