So what do you guys think about North Korea's latest shens?

 

For those unfamiliar or who want to freshen up, here's an article on it:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/22/world/asia/north-korea-five-things/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

 

If anyone finds other interesting pieces on this subject, feel free to post them below.

 

Remember: Be considerate of others' opinions and remain civil (I don't think this will escalate to that however one never knows with IRON members, we have passion for many things )

We can't say "war crazed" about common Americans. They're the same people as in other parts of world. The government is however totally different thing, but still, other countries are just the same (though do not have as much power to project their political will).

 

As for the NC conflict, nuclear backpacks, etc sound really funny, but would you say America won this fight if in the end:

- NC would stop with it's war rhetoric going back to business as usually.

- US would allow China to reclaim Taiwan

 

NC is most probably just a pawn in China's hands. And they're playing inexperienced NC's leader the best they can.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/13/us-korea-north-china-usa-idUSBRE93C06X20130413

Hasn't that been agreed for a very long time? 

 

The trouble is North Korea will not want to surrender its nukes. People talk about the USA having a military industrial complex, the military and the industry that support it essentially taking huge amounts of power to buy themselves weapons and pay themselves money. 

 

Well North Korea is essentially that. To the extreme. They even officially admit it. However, how long can an army rule a country totally and control all its resources without an outside threat? The answer is not very long. So they are forced to constantly create a threat through provocation and threats. But at the same time the ignorance of their economic management means that even when taking most production to provide an army they still are weak. To create enough fear that they can then generate an outside threat they need something more than obsolete aircraft, submarines and guns. All the while South Korea gets a better and better military more able to respond. The USA has a better and better military as well. 

 

North Korea does have a ground force that poses a threat in the form of its massed artillery batteries. However as it falls further and further behind in air power, sea power, and basic technology that will get weaker and weaker. It cannot catch up. The only way it can redress the balance is by creating nuclear and missile technology as a small arsenal is effective to make the country dangerous  and therefore manufacture the outside threat that the army needs. 

One interesting thing to watch is the use of those missiles. We can expect them to be test fired, but my hunch is that it will only be over water. The unknown in all this is the US anti-missile defenses. Can the Patriots and Ageis and THORAD systems defend against them? The US cannot afford it being discovered they cannot and the Koreans cannot afford it being discovered they can. If they cannot the NK gets greater freedom of action, and if they can then NK is screwed. As long as NK only fires at water the USA will not dare to test them, but NK will not dear to threaten land as the USA would then try to block the missiles and if they succeed then NK is in trouble. 

^ I agree Icewolf. North Korea has in the past launched and tested missile-types over water and the world took a lesser stance than when he tested it on land. It is quite interesting actually, that people predicted Kim Jong Un would be a more moderate successor in North Korea b/c he was schooled in democratic switzerland but it turns out he is even worse than his father. Although, I feel like Un's regime is going to play out much like his fathers. Crazy and bold in the beginning and then dwindling down to making deals for humanitarian aid and other services.

I think you are on the mark Dom.  In the end all of this bluster will eventually cool down (I really hope it does) and we will see steps taken to get aid into the country.  It may take years, but NK cannot continue to have an arms battle with vastly superior forces.  There really is not a scenario where combat works out for them.  And only a few where everyone loses.

^ I agree Icewolf. North Korea has in the past launched and tested missile-types over water and the world took a lesser stance than when he tested it on land. It is quite interesting actually, that people predicted Kim Jong Un would be a more moderate successor in North Korea b/c he was schooled in democratic switzerland but it turns out he is even worse than his father. Although, I feel like Un's regime is going to play out much like his fathers. Crazy and bold in the beginning and then dwindling down to making deals for humanitarian aid and other services.

What has democracy to do with moderation of policy? It just another assumption merely taken for granted.

 

All these antics are just merely tactics of this regime to prolong its hold in context of its localised framework.

Edited April 14, 201313 yr by Shahenshah

Swtizerland is not necessarily a good country to bring up a prospective North Korean leader if you want him to be moderate. 

 

1) They have compulsory military service and a very large military reserve

2) They are a very subdued society, very much quiet and peaceful population. 

3) They have a fairly morally ambiguous outlook-no concern about questionable multi-nationals and take no position regarding other countries. 

4) They have a long history of fighting of invaders-their national day marks the day they last threw out an invader. Today they are surrounded by NATO and the EU, the most powerful military force and the worlds largest trading block yet maintain political independence. 

 

Yeah...they could almost be the country that North Korea thinks it is. 

For the sake of those South Koreans vulnerable, and both the American and native forces who died in the first conflict (my grandfather included), and I sincerely hope that no blood is shed. If it must, I only hope Un and his supporters reap the terror they've sown.

http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/7103044_460s.jpg

rofl

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/16/world/asia/koreas-tensions/index.html?hpt=wo_c1

 

NK saying it will not warn South Korea before attacking. More rhetoric from Un :S

I honestly would not expect them to give warning. It would not follow history, nor the precedence currently being set.

 

Un seems to be stuggling to prove himself to the upper echelon of the military powers in NK.

 

I heard an interesting tactic, that has been used in other places, of making offerings of political asylum and money to upper level military staff willing to defect. Bonus cash for those willing to stay and pump reliable information on to us.

 

The general idea is that the offer is put out there and zero acceptance is expected, but it puts the doubt into peoples minds. Put stress on the relationships within the military leadership.

 

It was an interesting thought, and I would be curious as to how that would work out.

 

Also, I cannot find the article now, but CNN had something about an EMP style nuke being the attack expected from NK. A missile fired on the same flight path they used to launch their satelite would be able to approach the US from the South Pole, which if detonated at 300 miles of altitude could potentially affect the entire country. It would also be difficult to defend against due to the direction it would come from. The expert of the situation said it would require shooting the missile down right at the launch.

Is that assuming, IHA, that NK would launch a missile from somewhere in the antarctic region, via nuclear submarine or some other launching device?

No. Sorry, I was in a hurry as I typed that.

 

The idea is that IF NK launched a nuclear EMP device following the same orbit that they used to launch the satelite, it would approach from the direction of the South Pole, which is apparently a direction that we are least protected from. This would be a space bound rocket that would come back into orbit to detonate. The estimation was somewhere over Omaha, Nebraska. If an EMP device, of the size they estimated could be flown up by the same type of rocket used for the satelite launch, were to detonate it could potentially put out an EMP wave from coast to coast of the United States.

 

 

All of it is, of course, someone crunching numbers and making best guesses with the information available, but it does put a scary scenario out there.

 

 

Imagine the power grid in the US going down. That means no computers, no phones, no refrigerators/freezers, and no internet. Amongst many other things. It would take years to recover from that sort of hit, assuming the blast is strong enough to actually damage transformers and other intregal power grid components (which are not protected from EMP type attacks). It would probably be the most feasible way to do serious damage to the country.

 

Edit: Why do I have to edit in my paragraph breaks...

Oh ok that makes much more sense haha.

 

Yes, an EMP blast anywhere in the US would be devastating  mainly b/c our general public aging infrastructure doesn't have protection against EMP attacks like that, as you said we're taking power outages across the board. Being as dependent as we are on the internet/electricity, the country would stop functioning. Information wouldn't be able to move and there would be... mass panic and possible anarchy with the institution of martial law. All this considering that the EMP would be powerful enough to permanently or at least semi-perm damage the physical electricity grid and other infrastructure areas.

 

I haven't heard anything from the major news sources about an EMP though, still mostly speculation on their nuclear capabilities.

It appears to be almost exclusively speculation at this point, at least in the media. Whatever information our Intelligence agencies have they are keeping tight lips on it. Which is good. I always cringe when I see the news reporting things that should be OPSEC...

It appears to be almost exclusively speculation at this point, at least in the media. Whatever information our Intelligence agencies have they are keeping tight lips on it. Which is good. I always cringe when I see the news reporting things that should be OPSEC...

The news has turned into something very ugly to me. It is not about reporting the news anymore, its about making ratings and showing crap kardashian shit. Nowadays the news will do anything to get a story, even if it means put the country at risk. 

I always cringe when I see the news reporting things that should be OPSEC...

Sadly stuff like that tends to happen every now and then. It also doesn't help when news outlets will 'speculate' a scenario/event and then proceed to run it as a full blown story. Acting like its completely true and is about to happen or is already happening.

Have you read this article yet?

 

http://news.yahoo.com/nkorea-marking-leaders-birthday-shows-more-ire-052153500.html

 

Absolutely hilarious. It's okay for the DPRK to do this, but if anti-NK protests are held, they apparently can't take it. Hypocrites.

 

 Starting from early Monday morning, residents dressed in their finest clothing began walking from all parts of Pyongyang to lay flowers and bow before the bronze statues of Kim and his son, late leader Kim Jong Il, as the mournful "Song of Gen. Kim Il Sung" played over and over. Similar statues of the Kims are located in every North Korean province.

 

lmao, found that funny.

 

TW, of course they're hypocrites. Its North Korea for God's sake lol

The news has turned into something very ugly to me. It is not about reporting the news anymore, its about making ratings and showing crap kardashian shit. Nowadays the news will do anything to get a story, even if it means put the country at risk. 

I agree about the news part. Our media no longer informs us of what is really important. I feel like ABC, CBS, NBC only want to talk about dumb things, celebrities, and fake reality shows. There is way too much bias and they aren't concerned about what is actually happening around us. Take some recent, noteworthy U.S. events which the media refuses to talk about or only briefly mentions:

 

Bitcoin collapses and an estimated $1 Billion is essentially wiped out.

 

Gold and Silver prices tanked. This is extremely noteworthy as so many people have their savings/retirement funds invested in Gold/Silver.

 

Government Assistance Programs like Welfare, Food Stamps, Social Security could dry up in the near future.

 

The U.S. is spending astronomical amounts compared to the GDP.

 

Department of Homeland Security buys 1.6 billion rounds of hollow point ammunition (enough to fight the War in Iraq for 25 years), 2700 APCs, 7,000 fully automatic military rifles, and $2 billion worth of 'no hesitation' targets (pictures of average civilians) for shooting practice. I personally think this might be tied to preparing in case the government assistance programs run out of cash and people begin to riot.

 

For those who want to stay informed about the world and all the crap that is going on around us, the only way to do that is go online and do research. Check out websites which aren't afraid to tell you the truth and actually report relevant stories. Just avoid the conspiracy sites and news outlets which display stories that are obviously fake.

I was preparing to come and rant...  DeathMerchant covered all my points...

 

So yeah.  The news media sucks.  It is all about sensationalism and ratings.

I think people should be allowed to do whatever they want...

 

lol