Korean situation thread

[Ritterin Sophia]

What the war- and scaremongering crowd is failing to do is presenting evidence that the North will go and wage war first or even try a nuclear first strike. Simply saying "they totally might try that" is not fucking enough.

I never said it was.

Also, SK putting american nukes back on their soil =/= preparing for a preemptive strike as fucking demanded by the Dragon. That's called a threatening gesture and more or less traditional when it comes to NK's trolling in order to not lose all too much face.

You don't ask the US to put nukes into your country unless you intend to use them as a nuclear tripwire for when the war goes hot again, whether or not intend to begin hostilities again or because you think they will.

SK overlooked NK's various attempts on its presidents. If that didn't lead to war, some shelled soldiers for sure won't.

I didn't say it would, I said switching to a retaliatory stance would.

Scroll up a few posts. Also, you've just done it again, or what's with the implication of the North potentially nuking Seoul if *wink* *wink* nothing is done now?

I said show me where I advocated a preemptive attack. I never implied any such thing, what I did imply is that the South changing to a retaliatory stance rather than deescalation is going to require the North to keep escalating their retaliations or they lose faith with the military, in which case they risk a civil war.

You're one to call my intellgence into question *pat* *pat*.

I'm just going to bold this part.

[Metahive]

The part where you said Shroomy was telling the truth, with no reservations, which included blaming the US for the ROK switching to a retaliation rather than deescalation policy.

You're splitting hairs, but o well, if that's what he meant, I withdraw my approval of that one point, satisfied?

I did not say that, I said that the DPRK is continually escalating the current tensions with every attack.

Are they? Bombarding a company of soldiers in disputed waters is actually a step down from trying to blow the head of state up, something they tried
in the past and which did not lead to war!

Yes, that is indeed what you're doing. I did not say whether they should make a preemptive attack or whether it would be outcome of the escalation caused by the ROK retaliating to DPRK attacks. I also never said I agreed with it or not. Simply that you're misrepresenting the argument.

You know, I don't believe you. Not after you falsely called the call for a preemptive attack on the North "prevailing", although it isn't prevailing at all and especially not after you went full tilt ahead scaremongering by implying the NKs will even nuke Seoul eventually if nothing is done to them first.

EDIT:
As for your last post, bla bla, more denialist bullshit, and even a display of grammar nazism. I salute you.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Are they? Bombarding a company of soldiers in disputed waters is actually a step down from trying to blow the head of state up, something they tried
in the past and which did not lead to war!

I think you mean bombarding a civilian village which had soldiers in it. And simply because something did not lead to war one time before does not mean it won't this time. That said I never said it would lead to war, so there's that.

You know, I don't believe you. Not after you falsely called the call for a preemptive attack on the North "prevailing", although it isn't prevailing at all and especially not after you went full tilt ahead scaremongering by implying the NKs will even nuke Seoul eventually if nothing is done to them first.

It is if the South Korean government is moving to a retaliatory stance.

As for your last post, bla bla, more denialist bullshit, and even a display of grammar nazism. I salute you.

Thank you for conceding you don't actually have an argument.

[ShadowDragon8685]

O, my bad, you just advocated keeping innocents in one torture prison. Makes all the difference I guess.

I didn't say I advocated it, just that I didn't see any options I considered more acceptable (which would have been any acceptable option whatsoever). And this is not that thread.

It's not vendetta-ish to point out that you keep doing the same fucking thing over and over, you one trick pony. O, and that whole "I'm just asking questions" thing doesn't fly when it's done by those other crazies, so neither won't it fly for you.

Except I was asking questions? In this case, I asked about the tactical situation and how it looked IF X, Y and Z. That was it.

Yes! Let's recklessly plunge the korean peninsula into war, for "the best of the people" of course! What could possibly go wrong? And even when, it's just Koreans dying and who cares, they're 4000 miles away anyway!

It's really a cold, simple question: will more Koreans die if we let the major shooting start on the DPRK's terms, which includes shelling Seoul into slush, than if we start the war on our terms which begins with raining hellfire on the artillery batallions which are waiting to shell Seoul.

If it comes out in favor of the "start the war on our terms" camp, then you have to consider the likelihood of the war starting on the DPRK's terms. If it's low, then you probably don't want to rekindle the Korean War. If it's high, then you might consider the fact that it's going to catch fire sooner or later and it might be better to light the match yourself so you know to take cover.

It's the same cold question we asked a thousand times during the cold war: if we go nuke first, will fewer of our people die than if we go nuke second. In the end it didn't matter who went nuke first or second, since the "winners" got to live approximately fifteen minutes longer. Long enough for a quickie, but not much else.

Or are you accusing me of not caring about the lives of people because they're from another country? America has, effectively, no stake in this. We don't have a dog in this fight, or at least we shouldn't. The bases in Korea are nice, but they don't offer a whole lot that the ones in Japan don't also offer in terms of strategic importance. Korea doesn't control and export vital resource in the way that, say, Saudi Arabia does that might just justify going to war to protect them purely so our resource flow is uninterrupted.

If this war started, Americans will die, in a fight that we shouldn't have a dog in. We went and entered the dog in the fight, specifically so if the dog of the guy we don't like kills our dog on his way to killing the dog of our friends, we have all the justification we want to march in with a shotgun and blow the dog and his handler away.

Even if I didn't care about Koreans, which is goddamned not true, I think you wouldn't dare try to say I didn't care about Americans. This is a war in which we gain effectively nothing and lose much, all in the name of reducing the loss to our friends and allies. Which is why I was asking if, given that it looks like the situation may be about to go off the fucking rails, if it would be better to resume the major hostilities on the terms of the US and the ROK, rather than letting the DPRK resume hostilities on their terms.

Or did you think I just like wars for wars' sake? I have Micheal Bay and James Cameron for that sort of entertainment, and the BBC puts on a pretty boring action movie for an action movie. The explosions look totally fake, and it's usually a talking head commenting about the fake-looking explosions in the background anyway. It's like if Glenn Beck starred in an action movie utilizing the skills he's already known for and no others.

I have relatives in Korea you fucking shrinkhead! I do not take kindly to people who advocate putting them into a warzone just because maybe the NKs might try something! You do not gamble with lives like that!

Their lives are already on the roulette wheel by being located somewhere in the southerly vicinity of the DPRK. The wheel has been spinning for the last fifty years or so, but it looks like the wheel is grinding to a halt. In that case, would you rather let the ball land where it lands - live on red, die on black - or would you rather cheat and smack down on the wheel to halt it on red?

I don't know. Maybe you'd rather let the chips fall where they may. It's not like I was suggesting the U.S. launch a unilateral attack and drag the ROK into it on a platform of "you're in the shit like it or not, follow through with us or deal with the norkish hordes on your land instead of theirs."

And what the fuck is a "shrinkhead"? Stop making up words, or at least provide the definition when you do. I don't know what kind of an insult that is, so I don't know how to properly tell you to go fuck yourself in reply.

In case you didn't notice, something like that already happened in 2003 with Iraq. Sure, the US had the UK and some other countries in the alliance, so it wasn't a completely unilateral action and sure, Saddam was a huge dick himself. But the fact still remains that China, Russia, Germany, France and a lot of other nations didn't approve of the invasion of Iraq and it still happened without anybody offering any kind of assistance to Iraq, let alone putting economic sanctions on the US.

As I recall, the war did happen - the Iraqis declared war on us and proceeded to fight a war with us to the best of their laughable ability.

The lesson here remains that the US could shell just about anyone besides the traditional nuclear powers without any serious repercussion apart from strongly worded statements. I doubt there would even be any serious economic sanctions, because the US is so important trade partner for pretty much all major exporting nations in the world. The reason the US does not do that normally is that there is no reason to do so, and it would alienate many allies, which would be disadvantageous in the long run, NOT the fear of military (or even economic) repercussions.

I wasn't suggesting that other uninterested parties get up in the fight, I was saying that the aggrieved party say "That's it, these bitches have gone too far. It's time to kick their asses up between their shoulderblades!"

If we sailed into the harbor of some country that wasn't meaninglessly unable to fight back, sank a warship and shelled the town, say, Iran, do you think they'd just shrug it off? Or would they do everything in their power to get whatever vengeance was within their reach, such as scrambling all ships they had to try and take out our vessels in the area and sending their army to go and try to curbstomp the guys we have in Iraq?

The Norks, on the other hand, do have a fairly good reason to be dicks. They want to extort more food and other support, and they also might have internal political reasons to flex muscles and show who's daddy. They also know that short of shelling a major population center or actually using their nukes they can get away with almost anything, because a war is not in the best interests of South Korea or the US.

So terrorism is basically okay and yes, we will negotiate with terrorists if they have nukes? Or submarines? Or just a bajillion half-starved guys that we think are ready to zergrush us for god and king who happen to conveniently be the same person?

Because that's exactly what you described: monumentally successful terrorism on a scale that Bin Laden gets a chubby wishing he could pull off; sinking a warship and shelling a town.

It's not just him alone either. It's simply too easy to talk about "sacrifices for the greater good" that have to be made when those sacrifices are the lives or the well-being of people whose names one probably can't even pronounce properly.

Nasty business, isn't it? But that doesn't mean it's right to just swear off forever being the one to make the first move and hope the other guy is polite enough to do the same. Moral high ground is well and good, but it often lies on the artillery range.

That's why you need to sit down and seriously hammer out whether it's better to take the moral high ground and hold it, bearing in mind the consequences if the other guy does not join you on the moral high ground.

That's why I think that everyone who advocates waging war on foreign soil to first imagine having friends and loved ones living near that soil. Let's see how much you can wank about deploying nuclear, biological or chemical weapons when it's your uncle that might get his skin blistered off by a dose of Mustard Gas or die from radiation poisoning.

"Wanking?" What the fuck are you smoking? Are you blithely or willfully ignorant of the fact that this whole question was about figuring out how to prevent the most harm to friendly civilians by crushing hostile forces with as much overwhelming and sudden firepower as could possibly be brought to bear.

If the war is coming, would you rather it be a soldier dying when a vengefully-minded armed member of the DPRK launches a banzai charge spraying bullets at US and ROK soldiers, or your family in Korea dying in a shelling attack because the DPRK launched the first strike?

The question was whether you could prevent Seoul from looking like a more glassy and steely Stalingrad by launching a first strike or not.

And yeah, Dragon, I've noticed that deploying such is for you not much of a moral issue but more one of practicability and political expedience.

"And biological is right out, even if we were tooled up for it, nobody wants to be the son of a bitch to open that file of worms first. What about chemical, though? Would the equation change any if we were willing (and able) to break out the stocks of chemical weapons? I doubt something like mustard gas or nerve gas is going to bother the North - I imagine they have gas masks everywhere - but what about, say, something very vigorously incendiary?"

Dead tends to be dead no matter how you get there. My main concern was preventing a bad case of the dead from spreading where you didn't want it to spread. You can be reasonably certain, as much as anything is certain in warfare, where the damage from chemical weapons, whether it's a big dose of Sarin gas or the morning napalm, is going to go. Obviously the farther towards the direct damage spectrum (napalm) you go the more certain. With bio and nukes it's an unpredictable clusterfuck, and believe it or not I'd rather not give the civilians in the DPRK a bad case of the death if at all possible in the event of the big one part deux.

Gas would not be nice at all, but it would be a lot less less-nice than a quick round of nukes or some kind of hyper-flu. On the other hand, if it turns out to be an extremely effective way of neutralizing the DPRK's artillery batteries, much more so than, say, dropping a huge submunition cluster bomb, a thermobaric warhead, napalm or just a big MOAB, it might be worth considering as an option. It wouldn't be, so it's not. For that to be the case, I guess we'd have to have rock-solid proof that the DPRK has never heard of a gas mask and their artillery batteries are all convienantly consolidated in quarries and other places where gas will be contained for maximum devastation on the forces under arms whilst having some form of magical proofing against napalm or kinetic air bursts.

Stop treating the world like a Civ 4 session, please, there're real people behind those numbers, you know.

I am not am imbecile, thank you.

As I already said, it's amazingly easy to say "let's get it over with" when the warzone is far away and filled with people you don't know. The warmongers are right? The same warmongers who were whining about Saddam's secret intentions to nuke the West and who keep nagging that Iran needs to be invaded because its full of evil fanatics who will surely lob nuclear bombs at everyone out of religious delusion once they have them?
I'm sorry, but this sort of warmonger has lost a lot of credibility lately. The NKs have a long history of murderous trolling, their economy depends on it after all. It's not worth to risk an all out war on the peninsula for it and especially not because a bunch of high and mighty armchair generals demand it. If you have hard evidence of the NKs planning an all out assault on the South, by all means let's hear about it, because that's the minimum required to justify a preemptive attack.

Calling it "murderous trolling" is just so cute, it makes it sound like some /b/tards got out of hand and a prank caused someone to freak out, jump in their car and drive recklessly to get away, resulting in their deaths.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea launched a brazen assault on a ship of war, under arms and flying flag of the Republic of Korea with only the flimsiest of deniability, and then followed it up by shelling an inhabited island, resulting in the deaths of civilians, who might very well have been your relatives if your relatives had been on that island, and certainly are somebody's relatives!

Making that cute by calling it 'murderous trolling' is heinous. What, if you live in South Korea, should you carry Norkish Aggression insurance? Treat the fact that there is an organization to your north, which routinely and brazenly flaunts its will to do death and destruction to you and yours, as no more than street crime?

I'm sorry, that's disgusting. Do you think those 44 sailors, their lives lost to the brine and whatever torpedo did in their vessel, would be happy to know that Seoul turned the other cheek, and were joined in death by at least four more, and nothing is being done about it? Because the North wants some more food and electricity, and instead of negotiating for it decide to kill people until they get given what they want?!

According to my own knowledge and the opinions of my relatives on location, if the war on the Korean peninsula breaks out again, the South will lose it, no matter whose forces prevail on the battlefield in the end. First because of the potential destruction of population and production centres and second due to the mass of refugees flooding south as well as a completely ruined north that's guaranteeing years of political instability and would require giant amounts of money and effort to get into shape in case the Sung regime disintegrates, which has a high probability of happening as a result of a war.

Funnily enough, I do remember that most of Europe and much of Japan and China were reduced to rubble in the years after the second world war. The short term might suck and suck large, but the long-term benefits are rather large; such as not having a psychotic dictator-monarchy to the immediate north which has existed in a state of perpetual military build-up and readiness for fifty years, constantly reminding you that you and they are still at war and they simply don't want to continue the main of the fighting yet, but feel the need to go ahead and kill some of your people every now and then.

Where's the strawman? You and your friend the Dragon do tell me it's for the best of SK to wage war upon the North preemptively, don't you?

No, retard, I don't. I was asking if it would be a viable short-term strategy for pre-empting the pounding of Seoul into gravel in the event the Big One seemed probable. If not it's fine, but if the writing on the wall is reading "high probability of Norkish hordes in the very near future," then it becomes a serious question of whether you can and should pre-empt that by attacking first.

Also, excuse me for caring for the lives and well-being of my relatives. I will make sure to never commit the sin of spoling the fun for dedicated armchair generals again by letting them know that there's a very real cost attached to reckless warmongering.

Are your relatives in the military?

I'm willing to bet that even if some of them are, more of them are not.

I'm wondering how many of them would survive the war if it starts on the terms of a madman in the DPRK versus a first strike by the ROK/US.

What the war- and scaremongering crowd is failing to do is presenting evidence that the North will go and wage war first or even try a nuclear first strike. Simply saying "they totally might try that" is not fucking enough.

What some retards would call, with a chipper note in their voice, "murderous trolling," others would call "testing the enemy's defenses."

Pay attention. Acts of war have been commited against the ROK by the DPRK in the very recent memory, repeatedly and with loss of life and materiel and property. If it had been my country, or even my relatives' country I'd want the heads of those responsible on fucking pikes, lest next time it be much more severe, if not all-out warfare.

Also, SK putting american nukes back on their soil =/= preparing for a preemptive strike as fucking demanded by the Dragon. That's called a threatening gesture and more or less traditional when it comes to NK's trolling in order to not lose all too much face.
SK overlooked NK's various attempts on its presidents. If that didn't lead to war, some shelled soldiers for sure won't.

My god, you are fucking depraved, aren't you? I think Neville Chamberlain would be proud of you.

"Let's just wave our fist menacingly and give the Norks what they want so they don't shell some soldiers again any time soon." That seems to be your stance here. It must be great for the North, they can pretty much do whatever the fuck they want with impunity short of actually nuking the ROK or pounding Seoul flat.

What if it's not an island next time? What if they go ahead and put a few rounds through those barrels dialed in on Seoul, just to make their point a little bit stronger? Hell, what if they just go full bore because they know the return fire will wipe out the batallion - what do they care? They've got plenty of batallions, a lot of artillery pieces, and the south will be properly cowed into giving them a lot of concessions in exchange for not doing it again in the next year or so!

Your outlined strategy is appeasement, pure and simple! It's letting the DPRK get away with murder, and paying them not to do it again.

Scroll up a few posts. Also, you've just done it again, or what's with the implication of the North potentially nuking Seoul if *wink* *wink* nothing is done now?

Stop putting words in people's mouths, insectface.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Actually it's extremely likely he has some family in the military if a large number are still in the ROK, since they still have mandatory conscription. If you really want to press the issue you could ask him to prove he has family in the ROK, but frankly it's irrelevant to me whether he does or not.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Actually it's extremely likely he has some family in the military if a large number are still in the ROK, since they still have mandatory conscription. If you really want to press the issue you could ask him to prove he has family in the ROK, but frankly it's irrelevant to me whether he does or not.

I didn't say I outright doubted that he had relatives in the military, just that he likely had more relatives who were not military than those that are.

For all I know he could be in Korea, and if he is then that's fine. Disgusting, but fine.

[Ritterin Sophia]

For all I know he could be in Korea, and if he is then that's fine. Disgusting, but fine.

I'm afraid I don't understand, how is being in Korea disgusting?

[Shroom Man 777]

Jesus Christ, Shroomy, quit being a fucking troll.

Okay.

How is retaliating to an attack starting a war? By any honest interpretation of events, the DPRK would've started the war.

Joined the war then? Reciprocated the war? Escalated hostilities? Partake in the war? Yes, the DPRK are the aggressors, but responding to them by entering a "war" with them is what I meant. By any honest interpretation of events, it's also not possible for the US/South Korea to launch any preemptive attack anyway since any attack they do could be interpreted as a postemptive attack. A very late one, anyway.

I don't think that getting into a long and protracted and destructive conflict is something the ROK and USA are too keen on, no matter how awesome and cool and radical and stick it and groovy ShadowDraggins et al. makes it sound. Afghanistan and Iraq have made me less keen on pre/post/ante/intra/inter/infra-emptive strikes of all kinds of prefixes, even though I remember myself cheering at the sight of Shock and Awe shown on CNN when I was youngers.

And following that how is America responsible for any possible change the ROK might make in their policies? They're the ones who were thinking of asking us to return tactical nukes to Korea, it was not a plan we came up with.

That's still not a war. They want that as a deterrence/defense/discouragement. "Put some nukes on our land to make us feel safer/make the Norks think twice" =/= "Blah blah blah decapitation massive first strike preemptive whatever" ?

Also, quit fucking strawmanning the position. When North Korea goes it's either going to be them flooding over the DMZ or it's going to be a civil war. In either case the prevailing thought on such a scenario is that it would be best to get it over with now, than latter when they would have nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles or tactical nuclear weaponry.

Says who? If the prevailing thought on such a scenario is to do it now, rather then wait it out, then why has the ROK and the USA been content to just tolerate NK's bullshit for the last few decades? None of them look too keen on "getting it over with" now or any time soon.

[Metahive]

Except I was asking questions? In this case, I asked about the tactical situation and how it looked IF X, Y and Z. That was it.

And then you ranted about how some "psycho" in the North might grab power and attack the South first and how that totally warrants all out war, including thinking about which part of ABC be best deployed against NK. Just asking questions...and then drawing batshit insane conclusions. Thank you.

Their lives are already on the roulette wheel by being located somewhere in the southerly vicinity of the DPRK. The wheel has been spinning for the last fifty years or so, but it looks like the wheel is grinding to a halt. In that case, would you rather let the ball land where it lands - live on red, die on black - or would you rather cheat and smack down on the wheel to halt it on red?

OK, I say it right here, I take this as representative for the following 10000 words+ rant you put out, which is filled with overly dramatic language, assumptions up the ass all the while sounding like something you hear on a teleshopping channel.
It's not working. It's not convincing, you're just restating your position over and over and over, only changing which outrageous superlative you apply to your bombastic rant next. It's a fucking chore to plough through it and at the end you've basically used so many words to really say very little.
"Would you rather have more innocents die later than launch a war now?" <- That's what you're saying in the following x+ paragraphs. Look how it all fits into just one sentence.
My reply to it by the way is the same. Bring conclusive evidence for the North planning to attack the South. Just a hunch and lots of fakey-fake outrage about how the North is "supposedly" escalating everything don't cut it. I've dealt with those charges already.

And what the fuck is a "shrinkhead"? Stop making up words, or at least provide the definition when you do. I don't know what kind of an insult that is, so I don't know how to properly tell you to go fuck yourself in reply.

You know what "shrink" and "head" mean, right? Put 'em together.

As I recall, the war did happen - the Iraqis declared war on us and proceeded to fight a war with us to the best of their laughable ability.

The Iraqis declared war on the US in 2003?

I am not am imbecile, thank you.

Of course not.

Are your relatives in the military?

SK practices conscription, so in case of a war, some of my relatives will find themselves in the Army (again). But even if not, do you honestly think civilans won't be subjected to the effects of a fucking war?

If you plan to reply to this, please imagine that every word costs you a dollar and be more concise!

[Ritterin Sophia]

I don't think that getting into a long and protracted and destructive conflict is something the ROK and USA are too keen on, no matter how awesome and cool and radical and stick it and groovy ShadowDraggins et al. makes it sound. Afghanistan and Iraq have made me less keen on pre/post/ante/intra/inter/infra-emptive strikes of all kinds of prefixes, even though I remember myself cheering at the sight of Shock and Awe shown on CNN when I was youngers.

You're leaving out the extenuating circumstances in both. In Afghanistan we got rid of the Taliban and then diverted our focus on Iraq before we'd taken to time to deal with the Taliban, allowing them to hole up in their mountains and regrouped whilst we weren't watching. In Iraq we didn't have enough troops to secure the Iraqi armories and they were looted by the insurgents. Most plans I've heard for finishing the Korean War once and for all require the US to provide their troops already in Korea to secure those positions or using the Americans as a spear with the rest of the ROKA following behind to secure them, obviously the latter seems more reasonable.

That's still not a war. They want that as a deterrence/defense/discouragement. "Put some nukes on our land to make us feel safer/make the Norks think twice" =/= "Blah blah blah decapitation massive first strike preemptive whatever" ?

And I'm talking about South Korea's move towards a more punitive stance where they respond to each attack, which gives the North reason to launch another, repeat, repeat, until we're already fighting another war.

Says who? If the prevailing thought on such a scenario is to do it now, rather then wait it out, then why has the ROK and the USA been content to just tolerate NK's bullshit for the last few decades? None of them look too keen on "getting it over with" now or any time soon.

Because no one expected Korea to get nuclear weapons to begin with, no one took the the warnings about nuclear proliferation seriously, now they do. Nuclear arms changes the game quite dramatically, as Iraq should show you where even the threat that they had them was enough to send people into a frenzy. They have them and we can't change that, but the idea behind the 'Get It Over With' plan is that we can keep them from getting any that would actually be useful.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's really a cold, simple question: will more Koreans die if we let the major shooting start on the DPRK's terms, which includes shelling Seoul into slush, than if we start the war on our terms which begins with raining hellfire on the artillery batallions which are waiting to shell Seoul.

If it comes out in favor of the "start the war on our terms" camp, then you have to consider the likelihood of the war starting on the DPRK's terms. If it's low, then you probably don't want to rekindle the Korean War. If it's high, then you might consider the fact that it's going to catch fire sooner or later and it might be better to light the match yourself so you know to take cover.


It's the same cold question we asked a thousand times during the cold war: if we go nuke first, will fewer of our people die than if we go nuke second. In the end it didn't matter who went nuke first or second, since the "winners" got to live approximately fifteen minutes longer. Long enough for a quickie, but not much else.

Well, the North Koreans haven't shelled Seoul into slush in the last fifty years of their miniature peninsular cold war. You're starting to sound like one of those first strike advocates in the non-miniature real Cold War, like an armchair General Turdgidson.

Armchair General "Draggin" Turdgidson: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.

President Schatten Schattsley: You're talking about mass murder, you armchair General, not war!

General "Draggin" Turdgidson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.

Which is why I was asking if, given that it looks like the situation may be about to go off the fucking rails, if it would be better to resume the major hostilities on the terms of the US and the ROK, rather than letting the DPRK resume hostilities on their terms.

Maybe you should ask if, given that it looks like the situation is just another routine round around the fucking rails like the past fifty years of impotent belligerence by the North Korean equivalents of eager young ShadowDraggins (including Greatest ShadowDraggin of them all, Kim Jong Kill), if it would be better to continue the sordid state of affairs between North and South Korea where there is no war, just periodic dick-acts by the impotent North before the resumption of business as usual, rather than either "resuming the major hostilities on the terms of the US and the ROK" or "letting the DPRK resume hostilities on their terms."

[Shroom Man 777]

You're leaving out the extenuating circumstances in both. In Afghanistan we got rid of the Taliban and then diverted our focus on Iraq before we'd taken to time to deal with the Taliban, allowing them to hole up in their mountains and re

Both of them are also extenuating circumstances that shouldn't be left out in the hippotheticel senareo randome altarnate realty RAR of a potential war on North Korea too, right?

And I'm talking about South Korea's move towards a more punitive stance where they respond to each attack, which gives the North reason to launch another, repeat, repeat, until we're already fighting another war.

So you want to bypass all of that, save everyone the trouble, and jump into a war now? Why would anyone want to start a war in the first place over a potential hippotheticel threat or bad thing in the future that hasn't happened yet, and may not even happen outright?

Because no one expected Korea to get nuclear weapons to begin with, no one took the the warnings about nuclear proliferation seriously.

Is waging war with the North Koreans now to prevent a future imaginary nuclear war with a better nuclear-armed North Korea the better option? Some would say that you're jumping the gun. The same logic applies to when the Soviet Union was developing nuclear weapons, or India and Pakistan (maybe, not sure), except in this case it's between a couple of nations in a peninsula.

EDIT:

I dunno mang, unless you're Emperoid Palpateeny and can predict the future and deliberately say with certainty that North Korea will inevitably nuke Seoul and the South Korea and whatever, I think waging a pre/post/whatever-emptive attack to destroy them first and killing countless people in the process, kinda looks like yer jumping the gun.

"North Korea killed four people, therefore we should invade

...to prevent massive death in the future, of course!

...somehow"

[MKSheppard]

Actually, there's a good point to be made -- the North literally has no option left.

It's been using external threats for the last 20 years to keep the shitpile that it is together.

Problems in the home front? Provoke something to tighten up solidarity!

The problem is like a drug addict; you can't keep doing the same stuff over and over; because the Sorks and US will just yawn.

Like for example, the Norks decide to empty 500 rounds of 14.5mm at a US bunker on the DMZ. It gets things all riled up; even if nobody dies.

Then they try it again. The US and Sork don't respond as strenuously -- it's like "The Norks are up to that again?"

So they have to escalate their next provocation to keep the tension high. There's only so far you can take it.

They've sunk a South Korean warship, shelled a town with 1,500 people in it....

There really isn't much left on the escalation chain before you have WAR now.

[Metahive]

Actually, there's a good point to be made -- the North literally has no option left.

What, and that's why they'll next invade the South although that will do nought but spell doom for the Song dynasty? You can call them lots of things, but not stupidly suicidal. As long as they get their occasional fix of energy, foodstuff and other goods, they won't risk certain death just out of sheer pettiness.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

They have been up to so many antics over the last few decades. Asians are more or less acquainted to this nonsense, but the rest of the world is far and away from this.

If one were to consider the airliner they blew up, this is nothing.

This time may be different, mind you they're just rumors, but from what I hear the ROK may be rewriting their ROE to be more punitive than for de-escalation.

So? I'm not panicking. I live 7hrs away and the repercussions are sure to hit. Why are you even saying it is something?

There will be no war, and even N. Korea knows a war will mean the end of N. Korea.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Both of them are also extenuating circumstances that shouldn't be left out in the hippotheticel senareo randome altarnate realty RAR of a potential war on North Korea too, right?

As you can see I had posted before I was ready, but I think the difference between Afghanistan and North Korea is the South is right there, they literally can't ignore it. And for Iraq the South would be the one securing the depots in most cases and it wouldn't be a matter of getting them ready, they've got six million reservist IIRC.

So you want to bypass all of that, save everyone the trouble, and jump into a war now? Why would anyone want to start a war in the first place over a potential hippotheticel threat or bad thing in the future that hasn't happened yet, and may not even happen outright?

I didn't say I did, I don't have to agree with a position wholeheartedly to disagree with your arguments against it. The question to ask is how likely it will be that North Korea will just roll over and die. Not likely which is why I have a problem with your arguments.

Is waging war with the North Koreans now to prevent a future imaginary nuclear war with a better nuclear-armed North Korea the better option? Some would say that you're jumping the gun. The same logic applies to when the Soviet Union was developing nuclear weapons, or India and Pakistan (maybe, not sure), except in this case it's between a couple of nations in a peninsula.

The difference then was that the Soviet Union would've done horrible things to our allies, and by horrible I don't mean hurting our economy, I mean they would no longer exist.

I dunno mang, unless you're Emperoid Palpateeny and can predict the future and deliberately say with certainty that North Korea will inevitably nuke Seoul and the South Korea and whatever, I think waging a pre/post/whatever-emptive attack to destroy them first and killing countless people in the process, kinda looks like yer jumping the gun.

"North Korea killed four people, therefore we should invade

...to prevent massive death in the future, of course!

...somehow"

And I ask again, for my own curiosity because I'm rather undecided on what should be done, what's the likelihood that North Korea is going to go quietly?

[Ritterin Sophia]

So? I'm not panicking. I live 7hrs away and the repercussions are sure to hit. Why are you even saying it is something?

There will be no war, and even N. Korea knows a war will mean the end of N. Korea.

Thus the part where I said 'mind you they're just rumors', but the tacnukes are certainly a sign that the South intends to take a harder position on the North than it previously had.

[MKSheppard]

As long as they get their occasional fix of energy, foodstuff and other goods, they won't risk certain death just out of sheer pettiness.

So what happens when the world is no longer giving them their hit of energy/food/goods?

They either:

A.) Escalate again to get that fix flowing again. Except that escalation now carries a non-trivial chance of ENORMOUS RETALIATION.

or

B.) Collapse -- The Nork Leadership orders Escalation, something like attacking a Sork town with MiG-21s loaded with cluster bombs; and the Airfield commander refuses the action?

[K. A. Pital]

And I ask again, what's the likelihood that North Korea is going to go quietly?

What is the likelihood of Pakistan going down loudly? You ask these questions as if you could calculate the chances and make a reasonable decision to megadeath DPRK. Why not also megadeath Pakistan - one less unreliable nuclear state, right?

[Shroom Man 777]

I get where you're coming from, Schats. But the very same question you're asking of me, guarantees of the Norks going down quietly, can also be asked of you, guarantees of the Norks going nutso and warring with South Korea - something they could've done for the past fifty years but... haven't. So, does that justify or necessitate the pre/post/whatever-emptive attack now/soon? Is the danger really assured and impending? I mean, I can't assure that North Korea will go down quietly, just as I'm sure you can't assure that North Korea will attack for some reason. There are a lot of unknowns. The fact that there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties should discourage, not encourage, rash actions and whatever-emptive attacks, shouldn't it?

Just because the ROK is asking for tac-nukes doesn't mean that war is inevitable. Lots of countries had tac nukes stationed in their countries, and they never went to war, AFAIK. Hell, having nukes in your country can be construed as a method to prevent and avoid war. And didn't the ROK have tac nukes during the Cold War where, surprisingly, they never ended up resuming hostilities?

[Metahive]

So what happens when the world is no longer giving them their hit of energy/food/goods?

Don't presume I haven't noticed that you scampered off with the goalposts. Yeah, good question, what then? But then is not now and no one is proposing to cut them off from their fix right now. I mean, China is their main benefactor and they haven't suggested anything to that effect lately, right?

[Ritterin Sophia]

What is the likelihood of Pakistan going down loudly? You ask these questions as if you could calculate the chances and make a reasonable decision to megadeath DPRK. Why not also megadeath Pakistan - one less unreliable nuclear state, right?

This first assumes I support and trust Pakistan, I don't.

[Shroom Man 777]

Why would North Korea want to wage a war it knows it can't win? So it can get its ass kicked, and get destroyed as a country, so they won't have any need for food/goods at all? If we're using the drug addict example:

Junkie gets desperate and wants more drugs >>>> in order to get more drugs, junkie pisses off dealers so the dealers either just kill the junky or never sell him drugs again >>>> ???? >>>> profit!

[Ritterin Sophia]

I get where you're coming from, Schats. But the very same question you're asking of me, guarantees of the Norks going down quietly, can also be asked of you, guarantees of the Norks going nutso and warring with South Korea - something they could've done for the past fifty years but... haven't. So, does that justify or necessitate the pre/post/whatever-emptive attack now/soon? Is the danger really assured and impending? I mean, I can't assure that North Korea will go down quietly, just as I'm sure you can't assure that North Korea will attack for some reason. There are a lot of unknowns. The fact that there are a lot of unknowns and uncertainties should discourage, not encourage, rash actions and whatever-emptive attacks, shouldn't it?

I never said it should, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you to stop your usual trolling so we can have a discussion. If I were decided I would've simply not bothered arguing, since that's what your usual method of 'debate' causes me to do. I haven't decided yet because both positions require gambling with lives. There was no one to argue the other side, except Shadowdragon*, so I did.

Just because the ROK is asking for tac-nukes doesn't mean that war is inevitable. Lots of countries had tac nukes stationed in their countries, and they never went to war, AFAIK. Hell, having nukes in your country can be construed as a method to prevent and avoid war. And didn't the ROK have tac nukes during the Cold War where, surprisingly, they never ended up resuming hostilities?

I never said it did mean war was inevitable, just that a harder line is being taken by the ROK government.

*And that's not going to get me the kind of productive argument I want.

[Shroom Man 777]

Okay, I guess my ribbings makes you angers.

But yeah. The thing is though, the current status quo (or however you put it) has seemingly worked for the past fifty years. North Korea does terrible things and kills a few people, but there have been no major destructive conflicts or resumption of hostilities ever since. Over this time, South Korea has become awesome while North Korea has become craps, and it's worked so far. Why should they change this? Well, yes, North Korea getting nukes is a bad thing and is shit for non-proliferation. But elsewhere in the world, similar things have happened - India and Pakistan had nukes one after the other, Iran will get nukes, etc. - and that hasn't justified any resumptions of major hostilities in those places either. So, yeah. That is what leads me to be not so keen on launching whatever-emptive strikes on North Korea.

But I am just an internet fatty spouting shit, and all I have is my general dislike for wars in comparison to some people's massive hardons for destructive conflict, so I don't know if my opinion is actually craps - so feel free to call it that, I won't minds, mangs. But yeah, you're way cooler than ShadowDraggins, Schats-kun! ^__________________^