North Korea Launches ICBM

[Don Roley]

Right now China is in no shape fiancially to fight a war even a small one. Any damages sustained on their part will be costly to their economy and they got other things to do... i.e. prevent their communist idealism to go the same route as the country formerly known as the Soviet Union.
Most likely they'll tell No. Korea to knock off the prick waving and get back to running their communism like they should.

It is a bit more complicated than that. When I talked about them running interferance and supporting North Korea, shooting was one of the least likely problems.

Merely by using the UN to run interferance while North Korea does as it pleases, China can stop the West and Japan from reacting.

For example, if North Korea tries targetting a few Japanese shipping vessals to warn Japan not to prevent their postal remitances, then China can continue the same line of 'lets just stop and not do anything to raise the tension' as a few Japanese ships sink to the bottom of the sea. No sanctions right now, and no UN action to protect Japan later.

Japan has a constitution that prevents it from waging war. Its 'military' is a self defense force. And that means that the moment someone stops shooting at them, they have to stop shooting themselves. It is kind of like what we deal with as civilians. As soon as the other guy turns around we lose the right to use violence against him. Even if we pretty much know he will be baqck in the near future, we have to go to the police and let them take care of the matter.

In this case, China can keep the police (UN) out of the situation.

So, maybe North Korea would launch a few limited attacks on Japan or Japanese assests. Then China urges them to stop. And China stops any action by the UN while things 'cool down' and they 'let diplomacy work.' A little later, North Korea might pull something off again. There definatly will be the message that North Korea could attack again if Japan does not do what they want and again China might stop anything happening to them in return.

And maybe China is using this to their advantage. They have been trying to control the internal politics of Japan. Heck, they pretty much want to be the big player in Asia. Let us say that they hold out the idea that they may get tough with North Korea in return for some 'good will' from Japan- like having the Japanese LDP party elect the guy they want as prime minister.

See the fun that they can cause? And their abilities to nuke other countries is always on the table. They don't have to state it, but it is sitting there in plain site.

Of course, the ironic thing is that the consensus is that American won't nuke Pyongyang. Americans just don't do that sort of thing, so North Korea is pretty much free to pull these types of things off. I just saw some democratic lawmaker trying to score points by saying that we don't have enough troops now to invade North Korea. The assumption is that we would want to invade instead of treat a self proclaimed nuclear power as a nuclear target. No one seems to think that America would just use its stealth fighters, bombers, cruise missles, etc to turn large portions of North Korea into parking lots without moving large numbers of troops across the world.

 

[TimoS]

Oh, and North Korea gets a lot of hard currency from ethnic North Koreans living in Japan. Many gambling profits from pachinko parlors get remitted to North Korea.

That's interesting.

I remember reading in one finnish newspaper that the US had somehow closed down a bank in Macao that North Korea was using to launder money and distribute fake money and that was one of the reasons that the multi-party negotiations that were going on died down. Apparently this action hurt North Korea quite badly, so they walked out of the negotiations and that this latest missile test was their way of trying to get USA to agree to direct, one-on-one negotiations

 

[TimoS]

No one seems to think that America would just use its stealth fighters, bombers, cruise missles, etc to turn large portions of North Korea into parking lots without moving large numbers of troops across the world.

But wouldn't China react to that? Also would you be able to do that without North Korea being able to retaliate against South Korea (and maybe also Japan) and thus doing major damage to their infrastructure? As I've understood it, those two questions have been the two major questions. I don't doubt that the USA can, if it so chooses, put North Korea basically out of existence, but the cost of that kind of action has been deemed to be prohibitive

 

[Don Roley]

But wouldn't China react to that? Also would you be able to do that without North Korea being able to retaliate against South Korea (and maybe also Japan) and thus doing major damage to their infrastructure? As I've understood it, those two questions have been the two major questions. I don't doubt that the USA can, if it so chooses, put North Korea basically out of existence, but the cost of that kind of action has been deemed to be prohibitive

If America launched a conventional attack, then the North would be able to target Seoul with a lot of stuff and do some major damage.

The thing I was talking about is since we pretty much know where most of the artillary units near the border are, if we used stealth bombers and such to take them out using nuclear weapons as well as Pyongyang at the same time, they would be a lot less of a threat.

China would be sitting there with a fait accompli (sorry about the spelling) and probably wondering if it would be worth trying anything at that point.

But everyong assumes that the West would not launch a sneak nuclear attack like that. But no one assumes that the North would not if given a chance.

Ironic, huh?

Both South Korea and China do not want the North to fail for fear of having to take over all the problems and refugees. China also wants to build hedgemony over Asia. They seem to be trying to make it clear that you need to bow to them because no other power like the UN or America can do anything without their approval. Keep that in mind as you watch the haggling in the UN.

 

[Marginal]

Missile defense system?? Thats impossible! Whats next, man being able to fly or land on the moon??

How long between initial concept and actualization? Wasn't it a few hundred years?

My point was that the idea is a good one and with a national will to make one work perhaps we may get one.

Well, it has produced better eyeglasses. That's something I suppose.