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> More people would die if we did than if we don't. Over what time scale? I'm not advocating military action--I don't know nearly enough to have an informed op

by Osmium 14y ago

> More people would die if we did than if we don't. Over what time scale? I'm not advocating military action--I don't know nearly enough to have an informed opinion--but it seems to me that military action could cost lives now, but save countless innocent North Koreans in the generations to come. One can think back to the Second World War and consider what the cost of inaction would have been there. Concentration camps should not exist and if all other avenues have been exhausted, at what point does one have to accept the risk of dying to end them? I don't live in South Korea, nor do I have family there, so I understand that words like this are easy for me and I don't pretend otherwise. This isn't our decision to make in the West. But there's something about standing by and doing nothing that just seems unconscionable to me. Are sanctions really going to stop this? And now they have nuclear weapons too? Can this ever get better without getting worse first?

tptacek 14y ago
That's true if you believe the DPRK can survive over the long term. But the conventional wisdom is that it cannot; that it will inevitably disintegrate, especially if it can be prevented the use of allegiances and commercial relationships with other countries.
- drewcrawford 14y ago
  You reach a certain point where the weight of the evidence suggests that the received wisdom of imminent collapse isn't correct. With North Korea, we (should have) reached that vantage point in about the mid-90s. The NK regime has survived, to date: two major power transitions, the financial collapse of its protecting superpower state, the worst famine in modern history, a full-scale ground and air invasion by a world superpower, a widely-known and well-documented human rights record that would shame Nazi Germany, openly kidnapping foreign citizens to be trained as spies and other major diplomatic kerfuffles in the same league that have previously started wars, and I think the longest and most severe economic isolation in the history of the United Nations. We're told breathlessly with each new development for the past 50 years that collapse is surely just around the corner. But I can think of very little that would seriously test the regime beyond what they have faced so far.
  - unavoidable 14y ago
    What you say is true. But most people also did not foresee the USSR collapse in the early 1990s. At least not with the speed at which it happened.
rwhitman 14y ago
On a very short time scale. DPRK has a colossal amount of heavy artillery sitting just 35 miles from Seoul. To put that in perspective its as if Connecticut had the 4th largest army in the world poised to attack New York City at any time. Its a hostage situation, where DPRK has been holding one of the worlds largest, most prosperous cities with a gun to its head for decades...
- mistercow 14y ago
  >On a very short time scale. By "over what time scale?" I think Osmium meant "yes, more people would die in the short term, but would more people die in the long term?" It's a valid and important question. For how many decades should the rest of the world allow a regime to torture and kill innocent children before we decide that it's worth the (heavy) short-term losses to put a stop to it?
  - kamaal 14y ago
    In any attack, South Korea is doomed, not just militarily. There is more than one way DPRK can attack. DPRK also has nuclear weapons. They have a built a dam called Imnam dam and wired it with explosives, they can simply detonate the explosives and flood Seoul(There are ways to stop this, but still there will be considerable damage). Their army is pretty strong, and can fight until they cause significant damage. And beyond all they have a huge cache all kinds biological, chemical weapons. Also don't forget, China gets a buffer zone due to North Korea. Speaking from a Geo political stand point North Korea is very important to China. All this means war is impossible in that area. The best way is to exert economic pressure and have the regime collapse. But I'm believing that isn't possible either, China won't let that happen mostly because they don't want a refugee problem. Its a stalemate. Hardened more by Nuclear weapons.
    - gaius 14y ago
      Their army is pretty strong, and can fight until they cause significant damage. And beyond all they have a huge cache all kinds biological, chemical weapons. I don't think the Nork Army is a significant factor, really. The Western (or First World, or whatever you prefer to call it) way of war has moved on a lot since the 1950s. Communications and logistics are the key. In the first minutes of any stand-up fight, any modern military[1] would have absolute air supremacy, and from then on no Nork forces can communicate or move - it doesn't matter how many millions of men they have. They stop being an army and become just a bunch of guys in the same clothes. The problem is what do you do with them once you've "won"? It would be Irag or Afghanistan x100. [1] As an example, the UK defends the Falklands with just 4 modern fighters (Typhoons). That's enough for total superiority over the entire Argentine air force.

by Osmium 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago

That's true if you believe the DPRK can survive over the long term. But the conventional wisdom is that it cannot; that it will inevitably disintegrate, especially if it can be prevented the use of allegiances and commercial relationships with other countries.

drewcrawford 14y ago
You reach a certain point where the weight of the evidence suggests that the received wisdom of imminent collapse isn't correct. With North Korea, we (should have) reached that vantage point in about the mid-90s. The NK regime has survived, to date: two major power transitions, the financial collapse of its protecting superpower state, the worst famine in modern history, a full-scale ground and air invasion by a world superpower, a widely-known and well-documented human rights record that would shame Nazi Germany, openly kidnapping foreign citizens to be trained as spies and other major diplomatic kerfuffles in the same league that have previously started wars, and I think the longest and most severe economic isolation in the history of the United Nations. We're told breathlessly with each new development for the past 50 years that collapse is surely just around the corner. But I can think of very little that would seriously test the regime beyond what they have faced so far.
- unavoidable 14y ago
  What you say is true. But most people also did not foresee the USSR collapse in the early 1990s. At least not with the speed at which it happened.

rwhitman 14y ago

On a very short time scale. DPRK has a colossal amount of heavy artillery sitting just 35 miles from Seoul. To put that in perspective its as if Connecticut had the 4th largest army in the world poised to attack New York City at any time. Its a hostage situation, where DPRK has been holding one of the worlds largest, most prosperous cities with a gun to its head for decades...

mistercow 14y ago
>On a very short time scale. By "over what time scale?" I think Osmium meant "yes, more people would die in the short term, but would more people die in the long term?" It's a valid and important question. For how many decades should the rest of the world allow a regime to torture and kill innocent children before we decide that it's worth the (heavy) short-term losses to put a stop to it?
- kamaal 14y ago
  In any attack, South Korea is doomed, not just militarily. There is more than one way DPRK can attack. DPRK also has nuclear weapons. They have a built a dam called Imnam dam and wired it with explosives, they can simply detonate the explosives and flood Seoul(There are ways to stop this, but still there will be considerable damage). Their army is pretty strong, and can fight until they cause significant damage. And beyond all they have a huge cache all kinds biological, chemical weapons. Also don't forget, China gets a buffer zone due to North Korea. Speaking from a Geo political stand point North Korea is very important to China. All this means war is impossible in that area. The best way is to exert economic pressure and have the regime collapse. But I'm believing that isn't possible either, China won't let that happen mostly because they don't want a refugee problem. Its a stalemate. Hardened more by Nuclear weapons.
  - gaius 14y ago
    Their army is pretty strong, and can fight until they cause significant damage. And beyond all they have a huge cache all kinds biological, chemical weapons. I don't think the Nork Army is a significant factor, really. The Western (or First World, or whatever you prefer to call it) way of war has moved on a lot since the 1950s. Communications and logistics are the key. In the first minutes of any stand-up fight, any modern military[1] would have absolute air supremacy, and from then on no Nork forces can communicate or move - it doesn't matter how many millions of men they have. They stop being an army and become just a bunch of guys in the same clothes. The problem is what do you do with them once you've "won"? It would be Irag or Afghanistan x100. [1] As an example, the UK defends the Falklands with just 4 modern fighters (Typhoons). That's enough for total superiority over the entire Argentine air force.