North Korea News

[de officiis]

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's navy plans joint drills with the U.S. Navy's Carl Vinson carrier strike group as it steams towards the Korean peninsula in a display of military power aimed at deterring the North Korean regime from further missile tests, two sources said.

The Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force (MSDF) may conduct helicopter landings on each other's ships, as well as communication drills, as the USS Carl Vinson and its escort ships pass through waters close to Japanese territory, the sources said.

"Japan wants to dispatch several destroyers as the Carl Vinson enters the East China Sea," said one of the sources.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/artic ... la-sources

I've never quite understood how these drills are actually supposed to deter anyone. Is the deteree just supposed to be awe-struck and scared off?

[Smitty-48]

Saber Rattling is really just Strategic Warning, so it's communication, you're overtly displaying the stages of escalation as you go, in order to communicate the increasing tension to pontential opponents and allies, so that it doesn't escalate straight to full on war, without warning, to wit, you can't deter anybody with a surprise attack, in order to deter, you have to display that you are ramping up towards the brink of war, step by step, making it clear which step you are on at any given moment as you go, just so there's no ambiguity as to where you're at, to both enemy and friend.

In the early stages, you're not into the intimidation phase, more like the "hey, we see what they're up to and we're not asleep at the switch over here" phase, the intimidation phases come later in the process, as you get closer to the brink of war.

These drills at this level, with Japan specifiically, would be in the "we are going to honour our treaty obligation to Japan, make no mistake" communicating track, diplomatic operations "Japan and America are interchangeable, there's no daylight between us here".

[ssu]

I've never quite understood how these drills are actually supposed to deter anyone. Is the deteree just supposed to be awe-struck and scared off?

Drills are deterrence. You show your abilities. It's not about being awe-struck and scaring off the other. It's normal behaviour of armed forces, just as Smitty said.

For example,

If Russia sends a long range bomber flying in the Atlantic or anywhere close to any other country, that country will likely send a fighter to intercept it, get a visual contact and perhaps take a picture. It shows that the country is alert. If it doesn't happen, then the Russians will notice that the country isn't capable of controlling it's aerospace.

It's really embarrassing if another military catches you totally asleep.

[Zlaxer]

Pp

As per usual, America would go in overconfident, predicting total victory within days, and then find the war to be exponentially more difficult than expected, the enemy to be exponentially more tenacious than expected, inflicting exponentially more attrition on the Americans than expected. Par for the course.

No, no ground war. just blockade them.....China looks like they've had it with Kim.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's mainly to prepare for conflict, and in so doing, demonstrate you are preparing for said conflict.

It's also a clever way to shuffle aircraft around in secret..

[kybkh]

IN THE first century BC, the Roman historian Sallust wrote that the republic had descended into internal strife because of the destruction of its enemy, Carthage, in the Third Punic War. Fear of the enemy, or metus hostilis, produced domestic cohesion. Without an adversary, Romans turned their knives inward: “when the minds of the people were relieved of that dread [of Carthage], wantonness and arrogance naturally arose.”

Something similar may be happening today. There are numerous explanations for the current discord in the United States, ranging from globalization to the splintering of American communities. But one big factor is being largely ignored: the lack of a foreign threat. External threats can unify diverse populations. Psychologists have shown that people quickly form “in-groups” and “out-groups” (us versus them), whether it’s two sports teams going head-to-head or two nations at war. The desire for mutual protection, and sometimes for vengeance, can reduce enmity between in-group members and create a “one-for-all” mind-set.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/doe ... nemy-18106

[kybkh]

How Many Enemies, How Much Military Spending?

Given a list of 18 potential enemies of the U.S., a majority of the American population rated only North Korea and Iran as adversaries. Other nations, ranging from Venezuela to China, came in far behind.

If the American people are right, what explains today’s military budget?

The U.S. traditionally pursued a foreign policy and maintained a force structure appropriate for a republic. Not until World War I did Washington create the expeditionary military of a great power. And only during the latter half of the 20th Century did the American government deploy such a force during formal peacetime.

The justification for doing the latter was the threat of hegemonic communism: the Soviet Union, which kept the Red Army poised along the famed Iron Curtain; the Warsaw Pact, which corralled Eastern and Central European states on behalf of Soviet objectives; Maoist China, which posed an unpredictable threat to the war-weakened nations of East Asia; and a gaggle of Third World countries, which allied themselves with the U.S.S.R.

In the aftermath of the world’s most destructive conflict, American military deployments around the globe were seen as necessary to contain the advance of communism. Even many advocates of limited government saw little alternative to maintaining outsized armed forces, a network of foreign bases, and numerous, often undemocratic client states.

Two decades ago this justification for America’s anomalous, quasi-imperial system disappeared. The Soviet Union dissolved, the Warsaw Pact disbanded, China adopted the market, and Third World states jettisoned collectivism. Colin Powell famously observed that he was running out of enemies, being left with only North Korea’s Kim Il-sung and Cuba’s Fidel Castro—nasty characters, but pitiful replacements for Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Yet the U.S. essentially has maintained its Cold War military. Defense spending dipped in the early 1990s, but real outlays merely dropped from the Reagan build-up back to the Cold War average. Since then military expenditures (the baseline budget excluding costs of Afghanistan and Iraq) have climbed to a peacetime record. America accounts for nearly half of the world’s military outlays.

That is, Washington is spending more today on its military now than it did when the U.S. was confronting the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, Maoist China, and assorted Third World autocracies.

Whatever could justify such outlays?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-band ... 62509.html

[Smitty-48]

Pp

As per usual, America would go in overconfident, predicting total victory within days, and then find the war to be exponentially more difficult than expected, the enemy to be exponentially more tenacious than expected, inflicting exponentially more attrition on the Americans than expected. Par for the course.

No, no ground war. just blockade them.....China looks like they've had it with Kim.

They're already blockaded, and even if Beijing has "had it" with Kim, I wouldn't believe the Chinese if they claim they'd be willing to destabilize the status quo all the way to Regime Change, they might ratchet up the blockading aspect, but I don't buy that they would actually get proactive and force the issue in terms of going over to the offense, they're too risk averse, they ain't even that confident in their own regime, so as to be trying to Regime Change somebody else.

It's like Bourbon France helping America defeat the British Crown, that can come back to bite, when the French people see America overthrow its Crown and so see that it is possible, causing them to do it to the Bourbon Crown soon after.

If the Kim Dynasty can be overthrown, so can the Mao Dynasty, Dynastic Overthrow is China's greatest fear, so I don't see them doing a demonstration as to how that is done, right next door, Beijing ain't all that different than Pyongyang, down at the DNA level, Commie Dictatoriship is Commie Dictatorship, no matter how ostensibly "benign", birds of a feather should not be throwing stones in their glass houses, even if they ain't gonna flock together as much as they once did.

[The Conservative]

Pp

As per usual, America would go in overconfident, predicting total victory within days, and then find the war to be exponentially more difficult than expected, the enemy to be exponentially more tenacious than expected, inflicting exponentially more attrition on the Americans than expected. Par for the course.

No, no ground war. just blockade them.....China looks like they've had it with Kim.

They're already blockaded, and even if Beijing has "had it" with Kim, I wouldn't believe the Chinese if they claim they'd be willing to destabilize the status quo all the way to Regime Change, they might ratchet up the blockading aspect, but I don't buy that they would actually get proactive and force the issue in terms of going over to the offense, they're too risk averse, they ain't even that confident in their own regime, so as to be trying to Regime Change somebody else.

It's like Bourbon France helping America defeat the British Crown, that can come back to bite, when the French people see America overthrow its Crown and so see that it is possible, causing them to do it to the Bourbon Crown soon after.

If the Kim Dynasty can be overthrown, so can the Mao Dynasty, Dynastic Overthrow is China's greatest fear, so I don't see them doing a demonstration as to how that is done, right next door, Beijing ain't all that different than Pyongyang, down at the DNA level, Commie Dictatoriship is Commie Dictatorship, no matter how ostensibly "benign", birds of a feather should not be throwing stones in their glass houses, even if they ain't gonna flock together as much as they once did.

Like I've said before, I think they would if it meant keeping an eye off China, it would be an ideal time for China to try to get away with something if the international eye is directed at a conflict South-East of it's border.

[ssu]

If North Korea ceases to exist, likely the end result will be a much stronger "South" Korea than now.

And China basically will have the US forces on their border at the Yalu river. The US didn't withdraw from Germany, and hell not will withdraw from Korea if North Korea is taken over by South Korea.

Enough reasons for China to tolerate the obscure oddity like North Korea. Besides, there's no other country that China has saved from total destruction.