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I think that is the hard question for the US and China: is military intervention in North Korea actually inevitable?

http://www.movieweb.com/movie/team-america-world-police/inevitable

 BryllCream wrote:
Remind me why I should care about a possible war in a far-away country?

Cigarettes have gone up so if Tokyo gets nuked it's all the same to you? I was going to remind you of human decency but the effort is clearly a waste.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
so I can't say I much care either way

Re-read that to yourself and consider how you might be coming off to reasonable people.

My wages are going down by 1% in real terms. Gas and electricity are up 8%. Rent and council tax consume half of my pay packet. Food prices have gone up around 12%. Tobacco is also now obscenely expensive.

Remind me why I should care about a possible war in a far-away country?

He has a point. We are all driven by our own interests and direct concerns. Your mom's death would be terrible for you and slightly sad for me. But th inverse holds true as well. Each step away garners less and less concern.

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Remind me why I should care about a possible war in a far-away country?

Cigarettes have gone up so if Tokyo gets nuked it's all the same to you? I was going to remind you of human decency but the effort is clearly a waste.

How do you define human decency? Do you mean reducing the aggregate amount of suffering in the world, or do you mean pandering to whatever is in the media at any given moment?

 Frazzled wrote:
Your mom's death would be terrible for you and slightly sad for me.

Frazz, when your mom was sick I never said nor even thought "why should I care?" Even if I didn't know you at all, as opposed to knowing you only very, very slightly via this site, such an attitude is pretty unworthy of a decent man.

I think folks underestimate the Norks. I suspect they are more than capable of having learned valuable lessons about how the US and thier allies fight over the past couple of decades. There is adequate proof they have shared intel with nations that collect against us in the various conflicts. We k now they have a darned good HUMINT/Clandestine SpecOps capability in SK and Japan. They have logistics to support conventional ops prepositioned and under darned good cover. They will benefit from a cyber war capability that will be used against SK, Japan and the US and other allies.

I ave no doubt they get curb stomped in the end, but it won't be a clean, short, or easy war. Add in SK frankly is not economically ready to handle reunification especially after a destructive war.

China stands to gain as SK and their allies are forced to absorb a complete economic and ecological disaster while they no longer have to assume responsibility for feeding and heating the Norks. Yes, they lose a buffer but the destabilization of the peninsula opens opportunities for them in several ways.

I've been in jobs where the Nork problem was one I had to be very familiar with. I am convinced we can thrash them, but not without a lot of mess and pain. Which probably why we haven't told them to pound sand over the last couple decades.

 BryllCream wrote:
How do you define human decency?

I don't think we need to get into philosophy to understand that professing indifference to major losses of human life is lowdown, scummy talk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CptJake wrote:
I am convinced we can thrash them, but not without a lot of mess and pain.

No doubt, them building their infrastructure entirely underground if nothing else would make things extremely problematic. I wonder though what could be achieved with aggressive counter propaganda.

 Manchu wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Your mom's death would be terrible for you and slightly sad for me.

Frazz, when your mom was sick I never said nor even thought "why should I care?" Even if I didn't know you at all, as opposed to knowing you only very, very slightly via this site, such an attitude is pretty unworthy of a decent man.

And neither would I. But unles you knew me it would be a minor thing to you.

Get off the high horse. Only one person could care that much for every person on the planet, and he ended up nailed to a stick.

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
How do you define human decency?

I don't think we need to get into philosophy to understand that professing indifference to major losses of human life is lowdown, scummy talk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

CptJake wrote:
I am convinced we can thrash them, but not without a lot of mess and pain.

No doubt, them building their infrastructure entirely underground if nothing else would make things extremely problematic. I wonder though what could be achieved with aggressive counter propaganda.

But that philosophy is detatched from the actual emotion of compassion.

If I see a man huddled in the street and homeless, I'll give him a couple of quid, because it's my instinct to alleviate his suffering. But I will never visit these places, they will never ilicit an emotional response from me. Therefore you are advocating a philosophy, and not an emotional response.

If I expressed indifference to suffering and death that I witnessed, you would have good cause to call me a savage. But I have not. I am simply not of the same mind to you in abstract matters, and while you're free to keep your own counsel, I am genuinely interested in your reasoning behind it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:

And neither would I. But unles you knew me it would be a minor thing to you.

Get off the high horse. Only one person could care that much for every person on the planet, and he ended up nailed to a stick.

Hah. Good post.

 Frazzled wrote:
Get off the high horse. Only one person could care that much for every person on the planet, and he ended up nailed to a stick.

I'll get off the high horse if you agree to take your head out of its ass. You don't need to be good friends with every citizen of Tokyo to get that them getting massacred by a DPRK dirty bomb is a very bad and sad thing of greater important than a few more pence for your cigarettes.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Your mom's death would be terrible for you and slightly sad for me.

Frazz, when your mom was sick I never said nor even thought "why should I care?" Even if I didn't know you at all, as opposed to knowing you only very, very slightly via this site, such an attitude is pretty unworthy of a decent man.

And neither would I. But unles you knew me it would be a minor thing to you.

Get off the high horse. Only one person could care that much for every person on the planet, and he ended up nailed to a stick.

>_> two sticks...


But I think that most people can say, all out war with anyone can be bad, and that it should probably be avoided at almost all costs (invasion being probably the only acceptable reason).

 BryllCream wrote:
If I expressed indifference to suffering and death that I witnessed, you would have good cause to call me a savage.

You've expressed indifference to suffering and death that you can imagine. Or maybe the issue is that you lack the empathy to imagine what it would be like for Seoul or Tokyo to get nuked. Either way, it's savage.

 Alfndrate wrote:
But I think that most people can say, all out war with anyone can be bad, and that it should probably be avoided at almost all costs

Not to these jokers. Frazz and Bryllcream don't personally know and value some of these millions of potential casualities so it's no big deal to them.

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
If I expressed indifference to suffering and death that I witnessed, you would have good cause to call me a savage.

You've expressed indifference to suffering and death that you can imagine. Or maybe the issue is that you lack the empathy to imagine what it would be like for Seoul or Tokyo to get nuked. Either way, it's savage.

And you under-state the cost and risk of action that stems from that empathy. If we allow ourselves to be outraged and shocked by it, that will trigger action, probably a military response. So Britain finds herself in a war with a country twenty times her size on the other side of the earth. And what would we get out of it? Nothing. No good could come of it whatsoever.

 Manchu wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Get off the high horse. Only one person could care that much for every person on the planet, and he ended up nailed to a stick.

I'll get off the high horse if you agree to take your head out of its ass. You don't need to be good friends with every citizen of Tokyo to get that them getting massacred by a DPRK dirty bomb is a very bad and sad thing of greater important than a few more pence for your cigarettes.

I'll admit to haveing a gigantic ass, but thats just not going to work...

I never said otherwise. However I can understand people being less humanly attached the further they are down the old 6 steps to Kevin Bacon tree.

 BryllCream wrote:
So Britain finds herself in a war with a country twenty times her size on the other side of the earth

So you saying you don't care whether Japanese or Korean people die in the millions keeps Britain out of wasteful wars? I'll save you the brain cells: No, being a lout is not what keeps Britain safe. No one is advocating the UK act unilaterally against the DPRK -- or, at this point, that the UK should consider any military intervention. Moreover, whether or not individuals have a humane concern for the fate of others is not determinative of whether a government commences war.

 Frazzled wrote:
However I can understand people being less humanly attached the further they are down the old 6 steps to Kevin Bacon tree.

Obviously you care more about your kids than somebody else's kids especially if you never met nor even were particularly aware of the existence of that someone else. And there's nothing wrong with that. But none of that translates into BryllCream's statements ITT.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
If I expressed indifference to suffering and death that I witnessed, you would have good cause to call me a savage.

You've expressed indifference to suffering and death that you can imagine. Or maybe the issue is that you lack the empathy to imagine what it would be like for Seoul or Tokyo to get nuked. Either way, it's savage.

And you under-state the cost and risk of action that stems from that empathy. If we allow ourselves to be outraged and shocked by it, that will trigger action, probably a military response. So Britain finds herself in a war with a country twenty times her size on the other side of the earth. And what would we get out of it? Nothing. No good could come of it whatsoever.

Too late to be having this conversation. Your country already committed itself to South Korea, the United States and the UN goals in the Koreas. You don't get to enter into treaties and then later say "what do we get out of it?"

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
If I expressed indifference to suffering and death that I witnessed, you would have good cause to call me a savage.

You've expressed indifference to suffering and death that you can imagine. Or maybe the issue is that you lack the empathy to imagine what it would be like for Seoul or Tokyo to get nuked. Either way, it's savage.

 Alfndrate wrote:
But I think that most people can say, all out war with anyone can be bad, and that it should probably be avoided at almost all costs

Not to these jokers. Frazz and Bryllcream don't personally know and value some of these millions of potential casualities so it's no big deal to them.

I didn't say that. I said he had a point, in that pragmatically we are less concerned about people on the other side of the world then we are with people we know.

Now I'm down with nuking them, but thats just because they are at war with us and directly threaten the lives of Americans.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
However I can understand people being less humanly attached the further they are down the old 6 steps to Kevin Bacon tree.

Obviously you care more about your kids than somebody else's kids especially if you never met nor even were particularly aware of the existence of that someone else. And there's nothing wrong with that. But none of that translates into BryllCream's statements ITT.

So what are we arguing about? I'm just saying as a general statement thats a truth about the human condition.

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
So Britain finds herself in a war with a country twenty times her size on the other side of the earth

So you saying you don't care whether Japanese or Korean people die in the millions keeps Britain out of wasteful wars? I'll save you the brain cells: No, being a lout is not what keeps Britain safe. No one is advocating the UK act unilaterally against the DPRK -- or, at this point, that the UK should consider any military intervention. Moreover, whether or not individuals have a humane concern for the fate of others is not determinative of whether a government commences war.

Isn't it more important to have an emotional connection to human life, rather than an intellectual one? My concern for humanity stems from my own experience of the world, not some arbitrary notion of importance.

The fact is that a disconnect between emotion and intellect is nessesary - a child dies of malnutrition every 3.6 seconds, if I were to see such a thing it would undoubtidly move me to tears. And yet it happens constantly and relentlessly, and I go about my life quite happily without thinking of the world's poor. Does that make me a monster?

Do you care about those starving children? Does it occupy your every waking moment with concern? Or do you just drop a few coins in a charity box every now and then and get on with your life, like the rest of us?

 BryllCream wrote:
Does it occupy your every waking moment with concern?

We don't need to talk about every waking moment. When the moment is at hand, when someone brings up a grave subject, one demonstrates nothing but vulgarity by professing indifference to human suffering.

 Manchu wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Does it occupy your every waking moment with concern?

We don't need to talk about every waking moment. When the moment is at hand, when someone brings up a grave subject, one demonstrates nothing but vulgarity by professing indifference to human suffering.

Expressing indifference at a hypothetical tragedy is one thing. It's another thing if it actually happened and I was talking to a friend all "LOL WHY SHOULD I CARE". I think you may have read too much into my initial comment.

Enough with the Nuke comments guys, as bad arse as it sounds it is a pointless route to go down. You only have to see what happened when Chernobyl & Fukushima spat out radioactive particles. A couple of Nukes would spread a hell of a lot further and contaminate more than the target. This is what the people in power realised, it's a lose lose situation, it will effect the whole world,. better to beat your enemy economically than with radiation.

 Wolfstan wrote:
Enough with the Nuke comments guys, as bad arse as it sounds it is a pointless route to go down. You only have to see what happened when Chernobyl & Fukushima spat out radioactive particles. A couple of Nukes would spread a hell of a lot further and contaminate more than the target. This is what the people in power realised, it's a lose lose situation, it will effect the whole world,. better to beat your enemy economically than with radiation.

Unless they attack.

 Wolfstan wrote:
Enough with the Nuke comments guys, as bad arse as it sounds it is a pointless route to go down. You only have to see what happened when Chernobyl & Fukushima spat out radioactive particles. A couple of Nukes would spread a hell of a lot further and contaminate more than the target. This is what the people in power realised, it's a lose lose situation, it will effect the whole world,. better to beat your enemy economically than with radiation.

And yet the nuke the Norks recently popped off wasn't quite as messy as the meltdowns....

You drop a nuke on a city and BANG, wide spread dispersal of radioactive particles. We had the ennvironment Agency in the UK picking up on the Chernobyl stuff in the grass over here. Okay it wasn't life threatening but it was at higher levels and this is from something which threw out the same sort of contamination as a dirty nuke.

So yeah big bad kick arse drop the bomb is cool when talking about it, but the reality is it would screw us all.

 Wolfstan wrote:
You drop a nuke on a city and BANG, wide spread dispersal of radioactive particles. We had the ennvironment Agency in the UK picking up on the Chernobyl stuff in the grass over here. Okay it wasn't life threatening but it was at higher levels and this is from something which threw out the same sort of contamination as a dirty nuke.

So yeah big bad kick arse drop the bomb is cool when talking about it, but the reality is it would screw us all.

Better than 100,000 US casualties.

If you understand military targeteering (pairing munitons/delivery systems and targets to achieve a desired effect) you would probably not think about nuking PyongYang. What you COULD see would be nuking the 'scud basket' to make the launch zones unuseable, or much more likely, deep penetrating nukes to take out critical hardened/underground facilities that other munitions can't touch. Chances of careful targeted use of nukes by UN/NATO forces 'screwing us all' due to fallout are pretty slim.

Not saying we would or should use nukes, but I am saying you overestimate the effect. Again, the one the Norks recently pooped, and hundreds of others popped by several nations testing their munitions haven't been as damaging as uncontrolled meltdowns you mentioned.

EDIT: Remember, SK and their allies are going to end up bearing the cost of cleaning NK and trying to turn them into an economically viable part of a reunited Korea. The North is an ecological and economic nightmare right now. Indiscrimiante use of nukes or other targeting of certain types of infrastructure will not be helpful and no one serious is advocating that. That doesn't mean that in some very specific cases nukes are not useful or are worse than some other (as yet unoffered) alternative. Some of the hardened/underground facilities that will need to be destroyed/neutralized are going to be very tough targets. I'm sure the pros are gonna hit them with the best munitions they can in order to achieve the needed effects on those targets. In a perfect world that is done without nukes, and we've worked hard to develop non-nuke alternatives to taking out those types of facilities.

Hopefully we never have to find out... A war on that peninsula will not be limited to Korea, and as I've said, it will be messy. Several scuds (or similar) missiles with chem warheads hitting Seoul is a real possibility for example.

Urg just wait for them particles to float up north and watch the real mess begin (internationally)

Edit: also wernt most of those nuke tests underground tests? (honestly don't know but if they where underground it would be far easier to contain than a surface test. also have no idea what the wind stream is like up there) also i would hate for something like this to start considering my other office in Seoul)

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Sabre rattling most likely.

But who wants to fight the US army? I just saw a thing that showed off their completely automated supply truck. It drives itself, scans terrain, and can deliver things to the front lines without the risk of losing any lives. What country would willingly take on a military with technology such as this?

Hehe, someone watches Top Gear


Ultimately I think it's also saber rattling, but I hope that they don't go all crazy and start shooting, our speed bump force there SHOULD bring up enough public outcry that we have to do something, if it happens of course.

 whembly wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Well, that and the fact that Seoul would be shelled to rubble in minutes if war broke out.

China would benefit if one of their major trading rivals was demolished, and open up expansion of the Sealanes. Sure NK would be deccimated, but it would hobble a Greater Korea for decades.

War is a Win/Win for China.... or not.

Naw... I remember there were tactical discussions that if war does break out, we'd level those areas having those rockets pointed at Seoul.

Ideally yes. However, there are a lot of rockets and guns pointed at Seoul, I doubt we can instantly destroy them all with a wave of our hand.

However, you do know that our troops in SK are not meant to stop an invasion right? They are suppose to die. If the NK attack and American soldiers are killed, then you can guarartee US intervention. It's called a tripwire in diplomatic/strategic circles.

I'm hoping NK ends up committing suicide by China, they've been pissing off their only friend a lot recently.