Korea - More Than The Press Reports

This is a complex one, all right, and saber rattling, the Bush Admin's all-purpose foreign policy, may not be the best approach...

One thing for sure, D'art, the Korean's have been around a long, long time much longer than the US. I doubt China would allow anything to go wrong there and I don't think the people of China or Korea give a dang about what the current first strike policy of the US.

I saw this thread yesterday but had no further time to post. Really I can't do much now, as we have a storm moving through and I have yet to prepare for it. I want to say for now I have long been aware that colonialism made the situation that led to the Korean War, much like most of our wars, aside from the WWs. I know the knowledge does not defuse the current situation, but, surely there are better approaches than the ones we have always tried; else, why do we go war one round after another?

The invasions and colonizations of Korea occurred at the hands of China and Japan - and not the United States as is implied in some of the posts here.

Would any of the posters here have preferred that the UN did not resist the sudden attack of South Korea by the North in 1949? Would today's situation have been any better if Kim Jong Il ruled all of that peninsula instead of just its northern part?

The character and behavior of the government of North Korea has hardly changed since 1948. There appears to be little prospect that it will change in the near future either. This has not mattered much (except to the unfortunate citizens of that unhappy country) until the emergence of North Korea as a supplier of ballistic missiles and like weapons to other nations and its hardly subtle threats to use them against its regional neighbors. (Recall the unannounced launch of a long range ballistic missile over the territory of Japan a year or so ago, and couple that with the announced nuclear weapons program.)

It is easy to wring one's hands and bemoan whatever action is taken to deal with a situation such as this. It is much harder to organize and carry out an effort to deal with the serious threats that have emerged from North Korea.

Regardless of the past history how could anyone other than the North Koreans be pointed at for the current crisis? Yes, The Korean peninsula is split. But it has been in relative stasis for the last 45 years and slowly progressed through talks of reunification.

The North Korean's tipped that balance by developing nuclear weapons and then brandishing them like they are water pistols. They broke the stalemate and created the current situation.

It's only a crisis because a superpower determined it is (or to be more precise a " dangerous situation"). Thier shortcomings as a nation are their responsibility but the question about nukes ony exists because we think we have a god given right to determine what weapons others can have.

When our friends build WOMDs it's not a crisis so yes it's 100% to the US's credit that the word " crisis" is being bandied about (Japan and South Korea are downplaying it).

That being said I'd not have it any other way (except with less rhetoric on our side). Equality in availability of weaponry is a nice idea, but I'm not for proliferation, I do not think that this means we have moral high ground and when we rattle our sabers it's " right" while if anyone else makes a peep they are " evil".

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In an semirelated note:

WE played the nuke card before they did fishin' we leaked contingency plans that involved nulcear attacks on them and we rattled the saber first.

The current administration upped the ante as it entered (not necessarily a bad thing) and it's selective vision to think that the change in the status quo is entirely due to Korea.

The report you mention was leaked less than a year ago. The 1st card was played when North Korea began it's program to develop nuclear weapons more than 15 years ago.

Bull! We had had nukes stationed right next to them, how is that not a first card in nuclear brinksmanship? We are the only nation to have nukes on other countries soil. That is not a small matter and you can't say that they should not have been concerened about it.

It's a no-brainer for them to want them too and it's hadly saber rattling when it's done in secret. They did not "brandish" them until after the report was leaked, leaking a report so that details of nuclear plans to attack another nation are discussed publicly is far closer to nuclear brinksmanship that anything the Koreans have done.

Their desire to create weapons is NOT brinksmanship, it's stupid but wrought of their notions that it will help them survive. When you station nukes in Korea they are sure to get the hint that it's not a friendly gesture. I repeat, the NUCLEAR (not conventional) saber rattling was started by the US.

Well, they've obviously had the makings and capabilities for years. And things had started to change, with the South Korean open air policy, and South Korea and North Korea agreeing to talk.

But don't you think the U.S. allowing a ship filled with missiles, bound for Yemen (and isn't it questionable what use Yemen has for those missiles?) to pass gives the Koreans a dfifferent look at what the situation is? Sometimes we seem to take the attitude that all others are not so intelligent, which is a serious mistake in judgment.

There's a lot to be said about North Korea, and they certainly fit into that inscrutable definition, but I wouldn't be too quick to call them unaware or unintelligent. They're as aware of their history as we are.

You should review your history of the North Korean nuclear program. It began in 1962. The US didn't move any nukes into South Korea until it brought in B61 bombs in 1985 (which were removed in 1991) in response to the direct militarization of the North Korean nuclear program and the building of uranium enrichment plants at Taechon and Yongbyon and then conducted a weapons detonation test that could only be useful as a precursor to the building aof a nuclear weapon.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/dprk/nuke.htm

I might have polarized my argument a bit too much there. I don't have a qualm with the stationing of nukes in Korea etc, I am simply saying that I do not feel that Korea is doing the tango by themselves. I do not think they are engaging in brinksmanship soley due to their idiosyncracies. I think the hardline we took against them helped ratchet up the rhetoric and I think we rattled the sabers ourselves a few times.

I also reject the idea that building a saber is the same as rattling it. Nuclear tests are usually the way to rattle them when bulding. They just wanted to reciprocate the nuclear threat.

edit: I do take an interest in Korean history, a family member of mine died serving the airforce there. I am aware of the nuclear programs they have had and repeat that constructing nukes isn't the same as "brandishing them like water pistols".

I'm not comfortable with the current state of Yemeni affairs but why is their purchase of missiles questionable?

This may have been the information provided you at that web site, however, this is not at all what i have known to be true for quite a long time. When i was stationed in Korea in 1971, i was briefly stationed at Camp Richmond in the mountains. It was the common knowledge of everyone stationed there (a closed, secured compound--the most secure i saw in all of Korea) that the US had tactical nukes stored there, and had stored them there for many years.

In 1969, I was friendly with some officers of the nuclear base in Büren/Germany (close to my hometown).
Before that, they had been stationed in Korea.

The United States has nuclear weapons in 25 states and seven foreign countries.

so what is the best solution? whatever we've been doing for 50 years hasn't worked.
before any reunification there has to be economic parity. we've learned from germany.
and war is absolutely out of the question. neither south korea nor the US would stand for it.

i say we send our freedom fighters, mcdonalds and starbucks, over to north korea.

I disagree that the US would not stand for war. I think it'd be a tricky one but I think the current administration is composed of persons who are inclined to view that as a challenge.

But I agree about sending our "freedom fighters" as you call them. North Korea has shown that it is restless economically and has actually made tentative moves towards capitalizm by creating a test zone where they could experiment with this. The US economic assault on North Korea makes that kind of progress difficult. Encouraging modernization through capitalism is just the ticket.

My take on North Korea is that they will simply not disarm while they consider us to be such a threat to them. They have damn good reason to consider us a threat because, simply put, we threaten them literally and frequently.

I think the sunshine policy was working. Sure it wasn't bending North Korea to the US demands but I see the US demands as occasionally absurd and incongruous to the wishes of the region that we purport to protect.

Reconciliation of the Koreas was progressing nicely, even if US disarmament goals for North Korea weren't.

The US is using a strategy that is ill-advised. Our rhetoric is out of step with what South Korea wants, they are increasingly frustrated by agressive US actions and statements. Since we are ostensibly there for the protection of South Korea we should pursue a policy more in line with what South Korea wants to do. It's their country after all.

The greatest danger that North Korea represents is to South Korea. And if progress toward their reconciliation is made then this danger is minimized.

A secondary concern is one that is, IMO, a valid one for the US: proliferation. In my opinion proliferation is something North Korea maintains only an economic interest in. Our sanctions are such that their military technology is their only way to get their hands on cash, which they desperately need.

A normalization and eventual reconciliation of the Koreas would remove nearly all of North Korea's need for proliferation. I do not think they will disarm to the tune that the US wants because they fear America (for damn good reason) but as long as there is no proliferation I do not think this is nearly the problem it is now.

IMO, the US should sign a conditional non-aggression treaty (which NK has been asking for repeatedly) and try to modernize North Korea through their inevitable introduction to capitalism. We canleave the sunshine policy and reconciliation attempts to South Korea.

unless the north attacks first, the american people will not forgive tens of thousands of body bags. if the north decided to nuke seoul, the south korean death toll could be in the millions.

neither country wants war so you would think that comprimise would be simple.

i agree, a conditional non-agression treaty (also ending the korean war). then a gradual scale back of border troops on both sides.

It is habit by now to have a divided Korea, a de-militerized zone, and our army at the ready. What a nightmare.