South/North Korean incident.

[Fivelives]

Reunification of Korea would be great. I just don't think it'll happen without major loss of life.

[Everum]

Two things I'd like to add:

I doubt China would want to see an unified Korea emerge with pro-American views. Right now North is acting like a buffer between South and the 29k (you said?) US troops. It's like having your neighbour's Cujo attacking annoying salesmen on your porch while you watch and giggle behind windows. I doubt China would want more US troops at her border, might be enough to trigger a response?

I don't claim to be able to read the minds every chinese, but in my family (and the entire "friendlist") the USA is known as a country that ALWAYS knows better and likes to interfere with other people's business. I assume a majority of the population feels the same. If the population starts crying for their country to act, would that be enough to push a reluctant China into defending North Korea?

[Io.Draco]

There's going to be a lot of drama over it and nothing will happen...well not soon anyway.

Will it end up in war eventually? Maybe, maybe not. Hard to tell.

[Arnock]

The thing is, what exactly would China have to lose by breaking the treaty? I'm pretty sure backing an insane dictator's invasion of SK would cause much more damage to China's international rep than breaking the treaty.

[Passionario]

Now I have an urge to create this scenario in Civilization IV and play it a few times to see how it will likely resolve.

[Io.Draco]

The thing is, what exactly would China have to lose by breaking the treaty? I'm pretty sure backing an insane dictator's invasion of SK would cause much more damage to China's international rep than breaking the treaty.

I don't read that much into the media bullcrap, but I would like to know why exactly so many people call him insane. I don't know much about the NK/SK situation I admit, but how is using artillery to fire on SK after warning them to stop firing in their waters equal to insanity?

[Rachmaninoff]

The thing is, what exactly would China have to lose by breaking the treaty? I'm pretty sure backing an insane dictator's invasion of SK would cause much more damage to China's international rep than breaking the treaty.

I don't read that much into the media bullcrap, but I would like to know why exactly so many people call him insane. I don't know much about the NK/SK situation I admit, but how is using artillery to fire on SK after warning them to stop firing in their waters equal to insanity?

Read up on Kim Jong Il and the NL/SK conflict.

[Fivelives]

At the very least, he suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder, megalomania, and delusions of grandeur. Also, napoleon complex.

[Dantriges]

In April 2009, North Korea's constitution was amended and now implicitly refers to him as the "Supreme Leader".[4] He is also referred to as the "Dear Leader", "our Father", "the General" and "Generalissimo"

Kim Jong-il's official biography[8] states that he was born in a secret military camp on Baekdu Mountain in Japanese Korea on 16 February 1942.[9] Official biographers claim that his birth at Baekdu Mountain was foretold by a swallow, and heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow over the mountain and a new star in the heavens.

Sounds a bit weird.

Wikipaedia entry. Not abslutely sure that it is actually correct but well. The source where you get his offical biography is here http://web.archive.org/web/200803060558 ... jongil.htm Not sure if this site is actually correct but well just found it after a few minutes of searching. I think some other people can provide more detailed information.

The field of psychology has long been fascinated with the personality assessment of dictators, a notion that resulted in an extensive personality evaluation of Kim Jong-il. The report, compiled by Frederick L. Coolidge and Daniel L. Segal (with the assistance of a South Korean psychiatrist considered an expert on Kim Jong-il's behavior), concluded that the “big six” group of personality disorders shared by dictators Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Saddam Hussein (sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid and schizotypal) were also shared by Kim Jong-il—coinciding primarily with the profile of Saddam Hussein.[118] The evaluation also finds that Kim Jong-il appears to pride himself on North Korea's independence, despite the extreme hardships it appears to place on the North Korean people—an attribute appearing to emanate from his antisocial personality pattern.[118] This notion also encourages other cognitive issues, such as self-deception, as subsidiary components to Kim Jong-il's personality. Many of the stories about Kim Jong Il's eccentricities and decadent life-style are exaggerated, possibly circulated by South Korean intelligence to discredit the Northern regime.[119] Defectors claim that Kim has 17 different palaces and residences all over North Korea, including a private resort near Baekdu Mountain, a seaside lodge in the city of Wonsan, and a palace complex northeast of Pyongyang surrounded with multiple fence lines, bunkers and anti-aircraft batteries.[

[Dianora]

Are you seriously:

suggesting that North Korea is more or less just like China used to be?

saying that the Cultural Revolution, North Korea style "wouldn't be that bad"?

using tourist access as the primary measurement of human rights?


Look, I'm not advocating invading North Korea, far from it. I'm saying that we shouldn't leave our allies to rot when they're being threatened by an enemy.

Finally, nice use of false dichotomy there. The choices aren't "throw South Korea to North Korea" or "start World War III". To suggest otherwise is nothing but extreme ignorance of the dynamics of US-China relations.

Even with nuke, there's absolutely no way North Korea can win in war against South Korea. What their ace in the hole has always been is their harden bunker artillery that's overlooking Seoul with 15 million civilians. There's no way for US or South Korean forces to take them out before they inflict as much damage as they can.

Stop thinking of North Korea as a country in any meaningful way, think of them as a protection racket. Every time they do something provocative, it just mean they want to get pay. With Dear Leader dying, this is his last big score before joining his father, the Great Leader.

[knaughty]

Reunification of Korea would be great. I just don't think it'll happen without major loss of life.

Why would it be great? I mean, obviously the NK people would end up with a better standard of living, but SK may end up bankrupt getting there.

Even with nuke, there's absolutely no way North Korea can win in war against South Korea. What their ace in the hole has always been is their harden bunker artillery that's overlooking Seoul with 15 million civilians. There's no way for US or South Korean forces to take them out before they inflict as much damage as they can.

Cruise missile + tactical nuke = no bunker. That's assuming a normal bunker-buster can't do the trick. If you really don't want to use a nuke, stop being so damn hi-tech and just re-build the British "Grand Slam" bunker-busters and use modern bomb-sights to drop them. They're more effective than the modern ones.

There is a way - it just comes with political consequences so severe that even the US Military are unlikely to use it pre-emtively.

[Fivelives]

It would be great for a number of reasons:

1) no more US soldiers guarding a DMZ where live fire "accidents" still happen
2) no more insane dictators (if you think a dictatorship would outlive reunification, I'd love to hear why)
3) the region would settle down and move us one more step away from WWIII (whether nuclear or conventional, at this point either would be devastating on any number of levels)
4) one less nuclear power, at least for a generation or two while everything settles down
5) improving the lives of millions of NK citizens
6) another potential ally
7) something to focus on other than "turrism" (terrorism, typed with a bush accent!) and the TSA
another vacation spot with a lot of history and culture that we can discover

Etc etc... There's no good reason why Korea shouldn't unify. I believe in the band-aid philosophy: it's going to hurt, so just do it quick and get it over with. The longer it drags on, the longer it's going to take to get everything settled there; I'm thinking it'll already take at least two generations for things to settle, even if one side or the other was a clear and dominant winner in a civil war. More like 3 generations, give or take.

With both China and the US fighting over who gets to be the "white knight" in Korea post-reunification, I don't think it'll take too long for them to rebuild after a knock-down drag-out fight, and it definitely wouldn't bankrupt SK. It might bankrupt the US though; Sadly, I think China would win that fight, they're just in a better position to support a war-torn country than we are right now, especially after Iraq/Afghanistan.

[Adryl]

It would be great for a number of reasons:

1) no more US soldiers guarding a DMZ where live fire "accidents" still happen
2) no more insane dictators (if you think a dictatorship would outlive reunification, I'd love to hear why)
3) the region would settle down and move us one more step away from WWIII (whether nuclear or conventional, at this point either would be devastating on any number of levels)
4) one less nuclear power, at least for a generation or two while everything settles down
5) improving the lives of millions of NK citizens
6) another potential ally
7) something to focus on other than "turrism" (terrorism, typed with a bush accent!) and the TSA
another vacation spot with a lot of history and culture that we can discover

Etc etc... There's no good reason why Korea shouldn't unify. I believe in the band-aid philosophy: it's going to hurt, so just do it quick and get it over with. The longer it drags on, the longer it's going to take to get everything settled there; I'm thinking it'll already take at least two generations for things to settle, even if one side or the other was a clear and dominant winner in a civil war. More like 3 generations, give or take.

With both China and the US fighting over who gets to be the "white knight" in Korea post-reunification, I don't think it'll take too long for them to rebuild after a knock-down drag-out fight, and it definitely wouldn't bankrupt SK. It might bankrupt the US though; Sadly, I think China would win that fight, they're just in a better position to support a war-torn country than we are right now, especially after Iraq/Afghanistan.

It is as if you took the words (or text in this matter) right out of my head. I agree 100%.

[theckhd]

I believe in the band-aid philosophy: it's going to hurt, so just do it quick and get it over with.

It seems awfully naive to apply that philosophy to international politics since in this case the consequences involve people losing their lives. Would you be so cavalier about it if you were a Korean citizen in the crossfire?

[Fivelives]

Short answer: yes.
Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss.

In a war of attrition, more people will die. In a short, decisive war, less people will die. It still sucks for the people that die, but it sucks less overall. Peaceful reunification in Korea is an impossibility, thanks to the way the situation has developed over the last almost 60 years.