North Korea News

[I just Lurk]

Probably my favorite episode of CS (back when DC gave a fuck) was "fear the automotons". I agreed with dans analysis, and i dont believe the situation has funamentally changed.

Dan's assertions

1. NK is a rational actor

2. The offensive capabilities of the NK army are only formidable on paper. If NK invaded SK, SK and allies (us) would beat their ass quick.

3. But not quick enough to prevent extensive damage to seoul.

4. NK leadership threatens and saber rattles to get political capitol and also to get stuff (food, aid) from the rest of the world.

5. There is a "shockjock" aspect to this saber rattling that constantly causes NK to up the threats.

6. China protects NK and props them up.

Some aditional points to ponder

1. Kim jung ill? Un? Song? (Fatty rice patty) has suceeded his father.

How does this affect the stated dynamic?

He is in a much less secure position than his father. He is trying to secure his position by purging opposition and ratcheting up the shockjock factor.

2. There has been advancements in NK missle technology.

How does this affect the stated dynamic?

The US replaces seoul as something NK can damage in at the begginning of a shooting war.

One place that this analysis is lacking is knowledge of missle proficincy. I do not know if NK can hit CONUS, or if they are working up to the possibilty. Im pretty sure they could hit japan though.

3. NK can dig in and fight a defesive war in mountanous terrain. Attacking forces (ROk, US) would sustain high casualties to take these strong points.

How does this affect the stated dynamic?

The United states cannot preemptivley invade NK without sustainig unacceptably high (to the public) losses.


4. China has cooled relations with NK. China still states that it will aid NK in the case of a defemsive war.

How does this affect the stated dynamic?

It isolates NK. While this does weaken them, it also might make them despetate.

5. An outsider that does not play the political game by "the rules" has been elected POTUS.

How does this affect the stated dynamic?

It increases the shockjock value of NK saber rattling. The us media in portrayal of Trump as an unstable Nuclear hitler have psyched themselves out. Since trump doesnt play by the established rules, everyone is freaking out.

Question - Is Trump a rational actor?

I belive he is. He is driven by ego, and often speaks without thinking, but none of his actions are irrational.

So what is the situation?

It appears that the US and NK are at a stalemate. The US can't afford to incur the losses that would be necessary to invade NK, and NK cannot hope to win an offensive war against.... anyone really. Both sides have nuclear weapons, but both sides are controlled by rational actors.

Is there the possibility of one side grossly miscalcuating the situation, and pushing thier advasary into a corner where a shooting war is the only way forward? Yes. Luckily our institutions have 70 years of dealing with this situation with the soviets, and the stakes were much higher then.

Conclusions

Everybody chill. Smoke a bowl or pray or meditate or whatever. The situation has not fundamentaly changed. As always, listening to the hysterical media is not useful.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Good post. I disagree, but it's a very good post.

[ssu]

You may well be right. I have a faint memory of Reagan being provoked to react in an unusual way but haven't confirmed it. Quick wiki check says it included new aspects to prior year exercises but that is all.

Smitty answered it correctly. Basically this was just the old Politbyro's scare that Ronald Reagan will genuinely start a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. The excersize was well over and history before the US and allies understood how close they had been.

With the Koreas it's a bit different. There's a lot of threatre and gesturing between the Koreas and especially with North Korea. You seldom had such rhetoric between the US and the Soviet Union.

[Smitty-48]

@kybkh

The purpose of Able Archer was pretty simple, basically the Americans and British got together and said "we keep saying that we are prepared to fight World War Three, but are we really?" and when they asked the military, the military said "not really, we haven't actually practiced these procedures under realistic conditions since the 1960's, so we're seriously out of practice right now", so that's what it was, a realistic exercise to drill the Anglo-American deterent for the first time in the post Detente era.

But again, because it was Soviet doctrine to use exercises as a cover for a surprise attack, when Reagan and Thatcher both went into the huddle at the same time, Moscow was like "OMFG, it's habbening!"

[Speaker to Animals]

Yeah, they concluded that any exercise could be used as cover to launch a real attack, and therefore any such exercise that could presumably be used in such a fashion was a credible threat of war.

In a way, they weren't really wrong that it represented a huge risk. If somebody is running an exercise like that on your border, and you are hostile with them, it would be foolish to not prepare for the real thing in response. Where it almost went badly is that they never made it clear they were operating under that assumption.

[ssu]

Probably my favorite episode of CS (back when DC gave a fuck) was "fear the automotons". I agreed with dans analysis, and i dont believe the situation has funamentally changed.

Good post.

Basically for North Korea a nuclear deterrent is the only way they can have credible deterrence. Now the ignorant soldier might believe the propaganda of the superiority of his arms, but at some level in the military hierarchy reality has to come into the picture. And hence a nuclear deterrent is the only way.

Some other country would simply ally itself with China, but as Smitty has pointed out, North Korea is this over-the-top nationalist (basically racist) country that simply couldn't take to be the junior partner as their devoted leaders are so awesome.

[Smitty-48]

Well, the thing was, Reagan and Thatcher had instituted a major sea change when they came into office, things had been rolling along relatively stable under the auspices of Detente, I mean, the Soviets were using Detente as a cover for them to build up their forces in order to close the gap with the Americans and British, which is precisely why Reagan and Thatcher said "fuck Detente", but without Detente, things did immediately start to heat up again, because Detente had been the fig leaf which was keeping it all tamped down.

So after a relatively quiet 1970's, suddenly in the early 80's, you're right back to 1960's levels of tension and paranoia.

[DBTrek]

Well, the thing was, Reagan and Thatcher had instituted a major sea change when they came into office, things had been rolling along relatively stable under the auspices of Detente, I mean, the Soviets were using Detente as a cover for them to build up their forces in order to close the gap with the Americans and British, which is precisely why Reagan and Thatcher said "fuck Detente", but without Detente, things did imediate start to heat up again, because Detente had been the fig leaf which was keeping it all tamped down.

. . . meaning the USSR never got to catch up and fully challenge the west for Global supremacy.
Wow, terrible.
Be a shame is NK suffered the same fate, eh, you red-leaf flying comrade?

[Smitty-48]

. . . meaning the USSR never got to catch up and fully challenge the west for Global supremacy.

Well, the big thing was that they had by the mid 70's finally aqcuired the parity that they had been seeking since they were forced to back down in 1962, it basically took them ten years to be in a position to really threaten the CONUS with total anihilation, and they used the cover of Detente to get there without having a major response from the Americans before they could, basically America was asleep at the switch for awhile, so the Soviets exploited that, with a lot of help from an American traitor named John Walker, who gave them American submarine stealth secrets which made the Soviet subs quiet enough to sneak past the Americans into a first strike position for the first time ever.

[DBTrek]

Nuclear deterrence that allowed them to survive, but not challenge or thrive.

We should probably deny NK the comfort of assured survival.