Oh Please.....this is not a similar situation - the comparison is quite absurd! If NK did decide to do something daft or even retaliate after Trump has a moment of madness, how effective do you think their little tinpot missiles going to be? I mean seriously, I'm actually LOL They know full well NK would be roasted within minutes. They simply don't have anything to counter the incredibly advanced technology USA and allies possess. It's just a show. The terrorists on the other hand are already here! There have been 4 terrorist attacks in UK ALREADY in just 2017 (THIS YEAR) with knifes, van/car and homemade bombs in which innocent people have been killed barbarically. Imagine if these same people had access to WMD! This is a real threat! Not some tinpot country 1000's of miles away. Get a grip people!
And America has already had over 15000 deaths due to mass shootings this year alone. Mass Shooting Tracker Terrorism isn't a major cause of death in the UK. The threat in Korea, is immediately to south Korea, and Japan, secondary to that is widespread nuclear contamination, and the threat of a new arms race worldwide.
So... let's go through a scenario. This is all hypothetical, but it's a situation I could see occurring. I think two things right now could escalate or provoke a conflict. 1) North Korea continues testing its missiles, maybe it lands a little too close to one of any number of US interests. Trump or one of his generals reacts and authorizes a conventional strike against what is thought to be one of any number of production facilities. Kim Jong Un has the option to either retaliate or look incredibly weak in front of his generals. 2) Trump continues to escalate military operations in the area. Some radar operator panics, maybe someone operating a ship fires a shot and a US fighter jet or ship is taken out. I don't see Trump failing to retaliate in some measure afterwards. In either case, we've escalated to a shooting war. Minutes afterwards, if NK believes regime change is imminent, they have the capacity to deploy conventional, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons against Japan, South Korea, and China. That's a lot of people dead. They really do, it's called "Night time." Seriously. For all our tests of nuclear interception methods, we've hit about a 50% success rate on clear days, when the interceptor knows the direction the missile is coming from, how fast its going, the specific time of the missile launch, and the missile doesn't do anything crazy like fragment into multiple warheads. These are all levels of technology that are accessible to North Korea. This is not the technology that we should rely on to save a city full of people's lives. North Korea has been dedicating some absurd percentage of its GDP to nuclear weaponry. They've also developed lines of trade with Syria and Hezbollah, not to mention other terrorist groups. So let's say we're successful in removing North Korea's leadership. We find Kim Jong Un trying to flee the country in a tramp freighter, hidden among nets and fish. He's executed after an international trial, for crimes against humanity. We capture the nuclear facilities that we know about. We find stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. But we know that North Korea is riddled with mountains and tunnels. I doubt that we could be certain that we found all of them. Military members of North Korea quietly begin transporting unaccounted for weapons to non-state actors (terrorists) amidst a gigantic refugee crisis. Those nuclear weapons find their way overland to Paris, or London, or maybe are put on a ship that quietly docks into San Francisco, New Orleans, or New York. That doesn't strike me as all that far out. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, war with North Korea, conventional or nuclear, leaves a great many people dead and would only be the start of our problems.
To add to this, just off the top of my head from a course I did like 6 years ago, I can think of at least three instances people read radars wrong, equipment malfunctioned, panics happened during the Cold War and it was down to one person's erring on the side of caution or being unwilling to press the button that saved us from nuclear war. I'd rather avoid risking that person being North Korean. Or American for that matter. And especially Trump. I think a key thing here however, is that we're not talking about American or British or other Western lives. So far less people are inclined to give even the remotest of poops. During the political debates for the elections over here a few months back, Jeremy Corbyn came under considerable, and I mean considerable, flak for saying he wouldn't use a nuclear first strike against Iran or other Middle Eastern states. Sadly, I really don't think the appeal about "millions of lives" means anything to a lot of people if they're not directly recognisable. Its seen as a million "Koreans," and who cares about them, not a million "innocent men woman and children." I've seen far too many people be hypocrites over demanding the killing of civilians if ours are hurt, and on massively disproportionate scales, for me to think that line of reasoning/appeal works.
Yeah, I think that there's a lot of that in war. Snap judgments are made and through no fault of anyone's it escalates the conflict. I thinking managing that risk, avoiding those places where a call needs to be made in the short term, is a great idea. Oh, don't worry, I was talking about white people. I believe they have the capability of launching a small nuclear weapon towards Seattle or LA, but not necessarily NYC or DC. But yeah, you're right, as soon as it's happening in another place or to another race, a great number of Americans stop caring about civilian deaths.
"Oh,please," I'm not comparing situations,simply comparing people's "It can't/won't happen" logic. History is strewn with the shattered remnants of such thought.Your comparisons of the disparity in weaponry/tech don't change anything.Saying a war won't start because it doesn't make sense......simply doesn't make sense in the light of historical precedent of human behavior for thousands of years. Anything's possible.The Crimean War started over religious icons.Oh,yes,I do know that's not a similar situation either. But the powers that were at the time weren't too bright. Thank heavens they're all geniuses now. I very much doubt NK is going to start a nuke war and I'm not losing sleep over this.(Of course I grew up in a period when THE BOMB was much more hanging over thy head in people's consciousness-I remember ads for bomb shelters!). But I also don't choose to make absolute assumptions.Especially based on people's-both lay populations and the governments-intelligence regarding wars.In the 1980s we had an administration that started talking about new bomb shelters,starting air raid drills again,and limited (ha ha!) nuclear war.And ability to win same.Incredibly intelligent,don't you think? As for "They simply don't have anything to counter the incredibly advanced technology USA and allies possess." Sure,overall.But even the US admits if enough things are in the sky and you've only got so much time ya can't get 'em all. No one would have won in '62.Both sides knew that.But they almost did it anyway. Far,far closer than most,especially those born since then,realize. Have a good weekend,EdiSco-see ya next week. Well,probably
My stance is same as before, don't care and dont belive its that much of a threat. Its not the cold war anymore, also i imagine most people dont live in a important location to be nuked and then the kill zone is only so big. Also unless you have a bunker so far under ground, can get there before the weapon hits and have sufficient equipment to operate in a CBRN hazard area, you are dead or going to get varying amounts of radiation poising anyway etc. If we take classic post apocalypse style MAD where the entire nuked world is left as a nuclear wasteland, almost no one will survive and you will need to live in a bunker for around a generation last i looked into it and then keep the resources to live that long. Its probably longer, but i have not looked into it recently or in depth. Then you have to rebuild a world with primitive technology when there are probbly countless issues regarding radiation and food supply etc etc. But i dont belive North Korea is that much of a threat. I view north korea as more of a terrorist cell with a few dirty bombs, the damage it can do is limited. So from above, does it really matter what one thinks of their own demise if it should happen? You are dead, why worry about it. (unless you use this to actually gather the supplies needed to survive a nuclear holocaust) Ask your family if they lived through the cold war also. Its a good resource for information in this regard especially if you have family who worked in the security services.
^ So if it doesn't directly effect you, straight away, you don't care. Some of us have a more nuonced view on life/ potential threats to life and quality of life.
More like i generally dont care, but a positive for you is, if the U.S falls Trump wont be president anymore. How ever, my point had more substance than that.
No it didn't, it missed out the geo political consequences of even a limited local nuclear strike. Things are never just black and white, there's many shades of grey in between. The reason I dislike trump, is he is unstable, and his instability risks instability worldwide, if he were to be removed via the destruction of the USA, that would be an incredibly destabilising event.
Aside from what Dead_pool already mentioned - so all the people living in North Korea are terrorists in your eyes? I think most of them try to live a normal as possible life; they didn't choose to get born in that country, like I didn't get to choose or anyone does really. I would be disgusted of myself, if I were thinking: Ah, never mind, if NK gets nuked. I don't live there, so it's not my problem anyway. And I don't know the people, so of course I don't care for them either. Besides, they're all terrorists anyway. The global consequences not even being mentioned. What does that have to do with it. People were concerned and lucky than. But what does that have to do with a possible nuclear war now. Some people lived through Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wars in general. Doesn't make upcoming wars any better or less catastrophic.
Missed my point and i was not citing North Korea. To answer the question anyway, no i dont care, if they support the regime they are enemies and remain that way until they are no longer a threat. What government puts another country above its own? Let alone one which it is not allied with and is for all purposes hostile to it. Advice of where to get information about CBRN(E) knowledge and to discuss their opinions on the matter etc. What else is a better source than someone who lived through and saw all the advice given to civilians or was trained to fight or operate in a hazard area. edit: I saw your post Deadpool, i will quote it when i have a response for it.
Until trump started shouting his mouth off, they weren't overtly our enemies, so this wasnt really even an issue before hand. The people who are more their enemies, is south Korea, who are also our friends, so its in our interests to not start a war, we will definitely win, but it will kill many of our friends in south korea. Also I lived though the cold war, (and have family members in the armed forces) luckily nothing actually kicked off, but it was very very close, we really made it through due to luck, which is something i'd not want to live through again. Soviet officer who averted cold war nuclear disaster dies aged 77
They have been our enemies since the Korean war when North Korea became North Korea, the ideology is inherently incompatible with our views and it is also not recognised as the true Korea. It has a outstanding Claim on South Korea, blames the U.S for the split and has been a pest since the armistice and was a drain of resources until the armistice. They were part of the Communist bloc until that stopped being a thing which direclty meant they where an enemy state. Trump has nothing to do with it, he is the unlucky person who has to deal with a North Korea who has WMD's. this time it wont be MAD it would be a localised nuclear strike on one party and destruction of another.
Are you saying, all states that are different to America are americas enemy? And that the only way to deal with said enemies is by physical force? This is exactly why North Korea is trying to have a nuclear weapon, its the only way it can be sure to not be invaded by a rational nation. Mate if it was your life on the line you wouldn't be thinking war first, it should always be war last.
No. There are ideologies which are inherently incompatible however. Violence is a acceptable mesure to just about everything. Its a valid viewpoint to take. Not saying its right or wrong, but its valid. I have no idea why it has nuclear weapons, its kind of a keep to itself country which is why nobody wants it to have them because it has grievances with a lot of places. If it was my life on the line, i would have no say in the matter, what happens, happens its out of my control as to how or why it happens.
This says so much. It's wrong, it's stupid, it's full of a lack of understanding, but it says so much.
