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About 100 people in a border town protesting the government with maybe 5 killed.

All news out of NK is unreliable and scarce so we may never know the whole story but it's intersting that this got out.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/02/24/2011022400582.html

Maybe thier iron grasp is getting a bit rusty and outside influence is finally starting to work its way in. I hope thats the case at least, a military entanglement with them would be vastly more brutal than what we've faced in the middle east.

Only thing I wonder about NK is if it did come to open war, would china still back them?

I doubt it, China has been trying to distance itself from Best Korea for some time now. This is me assuming that the North is the aggressor though.

You think it would be different if the south was?

I think it would be. South goes to war, we go to war. We go to war with Chinese ally, China stays out. China gets involved, they risk a loss of trade income from us.

Purely speculation.

DA's Forever wrote:Only thing I wonder about NK is if it did come to open war, would china still back them?

No. China is getting increasingly embarrassed by NK. Also, open war between China and the UN would be a major disaster for the Chinese economy.

Kilkrazy wrote:

DA's Forever wrote:Only thing I wonder about NK is if it did come to open war, would china still back them?

No. China is getting increasingly embarrassed by NK. Also, open war between China and the UN would be a major disaster for the Chinese economy.

I was going to say this.

I'm pretty sure part of us going to war with them would be saying "You know all that money we owe you? Yeah, you might as well just forget about it."

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

DA's Forever wrote:Only thing I wonder about NK is if it did come to open war, would china still back them?

No. China is getting increasingly embarrassed by NK. Also, open war between China and the UN would be a major disaster for the Chinese economy.

I was going to say this.

I'm pretty sure part of us going to war with them would be saying "You know all that money we owe you? Yeah, you might as well just forget about it."

A good point. China's many economic ties working against it then, eh?

Another illustration of why trade and interaction beat war every time for good outcomes in a clash of cultures. Once two countries' people are talking to each other constantly and making money off each other, they become much more accepting of each other's cultures, and war generally becomes a stupid idea.

There is no sensible way in which South Korea would end up being the aggressor in a war.

And no matter how the war breaks out, China will not support North Korean actions. It's interest now is primarily in stability in the region - as millions of refugees can be expected to flood across the border if war broke out.

It may act to prevent South Korea occupying the North, concerned about a US ally so close to it's border, or it might not (being happy with US commitments that they wouldn't station any troops in the newly unified Korea). Even if they did, posturing would likely be enough to see South Korea and the US back down.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DA's Forever wrote:A good point. China's many economic ties working against it then, eh?

In that it's discouraging them from engaging in a pointless war and getting it's sons killed, I'd say it's working for them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Monster Rain wrote:I was going to say this.

I'm pretty sure part of us going to war with them would be saying "You know all that money we owe you? Yeah, you might as well just forget about it."

It isn't just the debt, it's the economic activity. In the GFC some 40 million Chinese workers were left unemployed, that was just from a reduction in demand from the US. The impace to both sides from a complete stop in trade would be utterly disastrous.

Chinese posturing? I doubt it. The US commitment in South Korea is very deep even now and the US is not yet interested in completely handing the reins of Northeast Asia over to the PRC. To paraphrase Colonel Gaddafi, South Korea is not Egypt.

sebster wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

DA's Forever wrote:A good point. China's many economic ties working against it then, eh?

In that it's discouraging them from engaging in a pointless war and getting it's sons killed, I'd say it's working for them.

Just a different way of looking at it really but yes.

Mannahnin wrote:Another illustration of why trade and interaction beat war every time for good outcomes in a clash of cultures. Once two countries' people are talking to each other constantly and making money off each other, they become much more accepting of each other's cultures, and war generally becomes a stupid idea.

Intelligence never got in the way of a good slaughter before. This appraisal of trade is what convinced fellows like Bismarck that World War One could never happen.

Manchu wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Another illustration of why trade and interaction beat war every time for good outcomes in a clash of cultures. Once two countries' people are talking to each other constantly and making money off each other, they become much more accepting of each other's cultures, and war generally becomes a stupid idea.

Intelligence never got in the way of a good slaughter before. This appraisal of trade is what convinced fellows like Bismarck that World War One could never happen.

And we all know how well that turned out.

Yes, Wilhelm II convinced Bismarck that trade wouldn't matter a whit. He and not a few other wise heads, crowned and otherwise, demonstrated the point very ably at their first opportunity.

Manchu wrote:Intelligence never got in the way of a good slaughter before. This appraisal of trade is what convinced fellows like Bismarck that World War One could never happen.

The march to war in WWI wasn't a product of stupidity, but the result of a whole lot of factors, mostly tied to the mutual defence pacts that kept drawing more and more nations into the war.

There are no similar political structures now.

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

DA's Forever wrote:Only thing I wonder about NK is if it did come to open war, would china still back them?

No. China is getting increasingly embarrassed by NK. Also, open war between China and the UN would be a major disaster for the Chinese economy.

I was going to say this.

I'm pretty sure part of us going to war with them would be saying "You know all that money we owe you? Yeah, you might as well just forget about it."

Plus that whole nuclear exchange thing might be bad for the economy as well.

Would you like to play a game?

I predict that 100 people are soon going to vanish...

sebster wrote:

Manchu wrote:Intelligence never got in the way of a good slaughter before. This appraisal of trade is what convinced fellows like Bismarck that World War One could never happen.

The march to war in WWI wasn't a product of stupidity, but the result of a whole lot of factors, mostly tied to the mutual defence pacts that kept drawing more and more nations into the war.

There are no similar political structures now.

No, the march to WWI was the product of intelligence -- hence my quip. As for their being no similar political structures, I'm not so sure. There are certainly analogues between those political structures and current economic ones.

The technology of war has changed significantly, and thus removed the sort of rigid mobilization schedules that prevented anyone from backing down, but in general you're probably correct.