GloryofGreece wrote:Smitty-48 wrote:I put no faith in rational arbitrage, as it pertains to war, if rational arbitrage was really a factor, there wouldn't be any wars at all.
The Americans are calling the North Koreans a paper tiger, the North Koreans are calling the Americans a paper tiger, both sides are assuming that the other is going to back down, and that is the very thing, which nuclear wars will be made of.
So what happens in your opinion, your guess of say the next five years?
Nothing has happened and it seems like we have been either talking about N. Korea, threatening them, them threatening us, talking shit etc. for DECADES.
I don't make timelines as to when something is going to collapse, but the situation is not static and stable as you are asserting, and I personally do not believe that the North Korean's are talking shit, I think they're serious, if they weren't serious, they wouldn't take things as far as they have, the amount of effort and risk that they are undertaking, indicates that they are in fact very serious, and backing up their talk with the actual capabilities to follow through on their threats.
People present me with rational arbitrage as to why "it couldn't happen", and I simply test that against my analysis and find it to be wanting. Could happen, increasing chance of it happening all the time, exactly when it is going to happen, don't know exactly.
I also take the long view, in that, once the North Koreans reach a certain threshold, which they are progressing towards rapidly right now and in fact accelerating, then you're into an indefinite standoff which is volatile and unstable, wherein the slightest confrontation escalates immediately to the brink of nuclear war, and the more times you go to that well, the more you are courting your luck running out.
And it has taken decades to get to this point, but that's because the North Koreans didn't have the resources of a superpower, so it has taken them longer, none the less, they have now reached the culmination of a forty year plan, in impressive fashion, as I said, they are backing their talk up, with action, and they've done exactly what they've threatened to do, down to a tee, so why wouldn't you take them at their word then?
The Americans are the ones who seem to be talking shit, the North Koreans are the ones who are doing everything they've said they were going to do, in an orderly and systematic march to the threshold of being able to challenge the United States in an asymmetrical nuclear confrontation.
The United States is vastly underestimating its opponent and vastly overestimating its own capabilities to destroy them at a whim, with hydrogen bombs in the mix, which, if that's not bad ju-ju, I don't know what is.
I also factor in how the United States has reacted in the past, when the underestimated opponent has come at them out of the blue, catching America asleep at the switch, and that's bad ju-ju too, because the United States, as a collective, does not react to those sorts of things, in a calm and rational manner.
It's not just the North Koreans you have to look at, in terms of doing reckless things in a confrontation, the United States is just as, if not more prone to that, than they are. They can back the United States up against a wall, and they openly state that they intend to, and the United States is laughing it off now, but when the North Koreans make their move, I don't think the Americans are going to be laughing.
The rational arbitrage which is being presented to me, is all based on the Cold War and associated meeting engagement of the Cuban Missile Crisis, with the assertion that in such a binary, the result is always going to be "zero", I'm simply saying two things, one; is that the American perception of those events is largely based on mythology rather than reality, and two; as a result, the binary does not have to come up "zero" every time, and since you've only had one throw of the dice, probability on the aggregate would put the chances of "one" coming up the second time, at 50%.
