ysg, on 11 Apr 2013 - 22:54, said:

Servant of the Lord, on 11 Apr 2013 - 20:50, said:
The last thing the United States needs to do right now is to show their allies that they were just posturing, and won't honor their contracts to support their allies when bullets start whizzing by.

SK is a US ally? What makes you think that SK and US are -- in any way -- good buddies?

SK has been a US ally since the korea war.

Now that the cold war is over it might be considered less important to protect SK but there is still an alliance in place, the US cannot back out of one alliance when things are heating up since that would weaken or possibly even ruin their other alliances.

It might be a good idea for the US to get rid of some of its old cold-war era alliances but they can't do that when the ally in question has a significant threat hanging over their head.

Really? That's it?

Basically.

Your thread is too racist and left-wing for any serious thought to be put into any reply.

What kind of person even considers abandoning an ally? Seriously?

Questioning the worth of all Koreans? Seriously?

Funny how you say that all we would lose would be a bunch of Starcraft players, as if the concept of import/export makes no sense to you. Like, they all bought Starcraft, but somehow America didn’t profit from that?

And most of us here have owned at least 1 or 2 Samsung products in our lives.

Then of course there is the strategic military positioning for America, which would gain a larger border with China should it help South Korea stomp all over North Korea.

And then there is just the frank fact that I like Koreans. North and south. I have dated both. So much for your “Koreans don’t like Americans” theory.

I put too much thought into my reply already.

L. Spiro

You know, I'd love to believe that, I really would. But you're making a lot of assumptions:
1 - NK has a reliable and accurate nuclear weapons delivery platform. Their rockets are a step above SCUDs.
2 - Their nukes are reliable to detonate when they need to. No evidence of this to date.
3 - They actively want war that could topple their regime or at least make them puppets of Beijing.

If this was a global exchange, similar to the one between US and USSR, then yes, we'd all be royally screwed. Mad Max tenfold. However, even in the worst case, Pyongyang just doesn't have the capability to do something like this.

You can't treat any nuclear threat lightly. For the same reasons a bomb threat in a building everyone is forced to evacuate, even when you believe the threat is bogus, there's been one every day, and 90% of the time terrorists explode bombs without warning.

I'll give you an example. Someone is pointing a gun at you, it's a really rusty, old piece of junk. You're not even sure it's loaded, but the man, a crazy one, is aiming at you and threatening to shot. You can risk going carelessly against this man, or you can act cautious that gun may actually fire. It doesn't have to be a Desert Eagle to kill or wound you.

2 - Their nukes are reliable to detonate when they need to. No evidence of this to date.

The atomic bomb is actually a very primitive technology. The trigger mechanism is really basic.
What's hard was to develop all the necessary scientific background to understand how it should be made (and whether it was possible and why), and the really hard part is refining Uranium; which they got that covered thanks to the left-over factories courtesy of their USSR bodies.
Little Boy was dropped 50 years without having ever been tested (Trinity was plutonium-based). Technological advances until today have greatly improved their efficiency and power though.

1 - NK has a reliable and accurate nuclear weapons delivery platform. Their rockets are a step above SCUDs.

There's a lot of ways to detonate a bomb. It is believed NK's technology is far below of what US' can protect. That is, assuming the US' anti-missile systems function as they should. External factors (such as powerful solar storms like the one from today have to be weighted in) can affect their capability. Nothing's fool proof.

You don't even need to target a city. Targetting something like the North pole, Alaska's block of ice, or Groenland could cause a damage that ranges from meaningless to catastrophic for everybody.

Not to mention that everyone going on about the lack of a threat from North Korea's nuclear program is completely overlooking the fact that all the current nuclear powers have always had nukes that were gifted to them by gods or something, and only they could possibly build more of them because they are all magical fairies or something...

Wait, that's not right at all. Nukes are relatively simple in design really, and the hardest part becomes quality control, logistics, and the base sciences. Look at the development of the US, Russian, British, French, and Chinese programs in the last century. The base sciences are already fairly well known and North Korea more than likely has access to at least 50 years of top secret developments from half a dozen nations. They have access to technology that means they can do in a year what others needed a decade to achieve.

To laugh away North Korean nuclear threats as completely harmless is to let someone stack fuel cans around your house, and then laugh at them while they struggle to get the flint set in an old zippo lighter.

And don't forget that the World economy is heavily tied to South Korea. Without South Korean shipyards the world is in a very bad state and left scrambling to rebuild a massive industrial and technical base. If you bought ANYTHING in the last month, then odds are apparently something around 50:1 or better that at some point a South Korean built ship was involved somewhere along the line. (Sure, the item itself might not have been brought on a South Korean built ship, but what about all the tools used to make it? Fuel used to drive the ship it came on? etc.)

Your thread is too racist and left-wing for any serious thought to be put into any reply.

Where does "you're of no use to me so I'm not helping you" fit onto the left/right political line? If anything, this is some kind of (misguided) neo-conservatism ;-P

Basically.

Your thread is too racist

Oooooooh, the "R" word .

Tell me, based on me questioning the policies and the actions of society, how is that racist?

and left-wing for any serious thought to be put into any reply.

No, actually I would like an overall reduction of the size of the federal government. I would like to see the elimination of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Furthermore, I'd like to see a reduction in the expenditure of the military when it comes to stationing US troops abroad.

What kind of person even considers abandoning an ally? Seriously?
Questioning the worth of all Koreans? Seriously?

You either have a really hard time comprehending my posts, have a very strange outlook on the world or came here with an ax to grind.

Funny how you say that all we would lose would be a bunch of Starcraft players, as if the concept of import/export makes no sense to you. Like, they all bought Starcraft, but somehow America didn’t profit from that?

What? Buying and selling between countries?

And most of us here have owned at least 1 or 2 Samsung products in our lives.

Ok... so what?

Then of course there is the strategic military positioning for America, which would gain a larger border with China should it help South Korea stomp all over North Korea.

And this makes even less sense for US interests. All it would do is piss off the Chinese. Why would we want to do that? All that would do is piss Beijing off when we need them in negotiations/putting pressure on countries such as Pakistan, Iran, etc.

My position, in case you've forgotten, (you did, didn't you?) is that US should withdraw from the Korean peninsula completely. The reason for this is that it's not worth to US interests. As it stands, SK can defend itself quite well against NK, but, should NK provoke, SK respond and then we have a full-on war, China will get involved and will deliver a stomping.

And then there is just the frank fact that I like Koreans. North and south. I have dated both. So much for your “Koreans don’t like Americans” theory.
I put too much thought into my reply already.

Your ending remarks are incorrect. You've failed to quip/troll back at me calling me a racist.

2/10

Where does "you're of no use to me so I'm not helping you" fit onto the left/right political line? If anything, this is some kind of (misguided) neo-conservatism ;-P

I'm thinking of night-watch state and minimalist federal government. There's no reason why the US should be expending over 500 billion (current dollars) on all defense and federal government administrative needs.

Honestly? I'm getting a kick out of some of the responses . But SK is just one of many places from where I'd withdraw US military presence. Some of the responses are along the lines of: Waah! I want subsidized military protection! Because if I do it myself, it'll be too expensive!

Political decisions typically aren't (and definitely should not be) made on the basis of anti-Americanism among the populace of a nation whose government is still an ally. Pulling out of SK and leaving them to stand alone just because some of their citizens don't like us would be an all-around crappy move. Really, you need a whole lot more justification for something like that than "they don't like us, so screw 'em". Hell, Australia doesn't like us (just ask Hodgman ) but would you honestly suggest that, should some act of aggression be instigated against Australia, we should say "there's a rising tide of anti-Americanism there, so screw 'em"? The US is currently far too over-extended, militarily and politically speaking, for isolationism to be a valid diplomatic move.

I'm all in favor of less interference in other people's business for the most part, and would be overjoyed if my government would stop instigating wars driven by greed and arrogance, but something like what you propose would just be a dick move entirely.

You can't treat any nuclear threat lightly. For the same reasons a bomb threat in a building everyone is forced to evacuate, even when you believe the threat is bogus, there's been one every day, and 90% of the time terrorists explode bombs without warning.

I'll give you an example. Someone is pointing a gun at you, it's a really rusty, old piece of junk. You're not even sure it's loaded, but the man, a crazy one, is aiming at you and threatening to shot. You can risk going carelessly against this man, or you can act cautious that gun may actually fire. It doesn't have to be a Desert Eagle to kill or wound you.

Honestly, a worthwhile response. Yes, you can't treat _every_ threat carelessly. However, the amount of evidence of the military capability of the North is pretty slim. We know that they're starving. Their proof that they detonated a nuke when others were not able to detect the seismograph shock-waves, is pretty non-existent. I can understand if Iran says that they have a bomb, 5 hours after a spike was detected from the region of shockwaves, but this just didn't happen.

To be blunt, I'm not convinced that they have the resources or the technical know-how to do this.

The atomic bomb is actually a very primitive technology. The trigger mechanism is really basic.
What's hard was to develop all the necessary scientific background to understand how it should be made (and whether it was possible and why), and the really hard part is refining Uranium; which they got that covered thanks to the left-over factories courtesy of their USSR bodies.
Little Boy was dropped 50 years without having ever been tested (Trinity was plutonium-based). Technological advances until today have greatly improved their efficiency and power though.

Look, I know that the USSR was pretty loose when it came to AKs and some other weapons systems, but when it came to their nukes -- when the Iron Curtain was up -- those were pretty much untouchable. They might pay lip-service to NK, give them planes, tanks, boats, etc. but no way in hell would they give them nukes.

As for NK getting the stuff on the black market, possible, yes, but again, if they said that they blew a nuke up, then they'd get noticed right away by a number of advanced countries (Russia, US, France, etc.) Things like this are impossible to hide.

There's a lot of ways to detonate a bomb. It is believed NK's technology is far below of what US' can protect. That is, assuming the US' anti-missile systems function as they should. External factors (such as powerful solar storms like the one from today have to be weighted in) can affect their capability. Nothing's fool proof.

I know that, but I'm not arguing that America's missile defense capabilities are fool-proof .

You don't even need to target a city. Targetting something like the North pole, Alaska's block of ice, or Groenland could cause a damage that ranges from meaningless to catastrophic for everybody.

Political decisions typically aren't (and definitely should not be) made on the basis of anti-Americanism among the populace of a nation whose government is still an ally. Pulling out of SK and leaving them to stand alone just because some of their citizens don't like us would be an all-around crappy move.

It seems that most people here are not reading what I'm writing . SK of today is not SK of 1950. It's a wealthy nation, with an advanced military. SK's military expenditure is more than NK's GDP.

Really, you need a whole lot more justification for something like that than "they don't like us, so screw 'em".

Why? If you hate my guts, why should I put my neck on the line for you? If we work in the same office, I help you out and cover for you but you spread rumors about me behind my back, you're on your own .

Hell, Australia doesn't like us (just ask Hodgman ) but would you honestly suggest that, should some act of aggression be instigated against Australia, we should say "there's a rising tide of anti-Americanism there, so screw 'em"?

There are consequences for actions . And yes, I'd advocate that position.

The US is currently far too over-extended, militarily and politically speaking, for isolationism to be a valid diplomatic move.

All the more reason to draw down worldwide.

I'm all in favor of less interference in other people's business for the most part, and would be overjoyed if my government would stop instigating wars driven by greed and arrogance, but something like what you propose would just be a dick move entirely.

Are you serious? Really?

We have a debt of over 13 trillion dollars, a budget deficit for years now and we should keep going as if these are the 90's? No, a dick move would be to continue to keep going as we are, bankrupt the country and then shrug, smile sheepishly and meekly say: "Well, making drastic changes is hard.. he he .."