How does this affect the world of International relations considering the issues with Iran, Iraq, and the US?

Will N. Korea keep its word to strike first at the U.S? Or will the U.S. strike them first?

Will these situations with N. Korea, Iraq, and Iran escalate into a WWII style conflict?

To be honest I read the official Korean Central News Agency web page quite often, for laughs. They are always saying stuff like this.

What I find most interesting right now regarding NK is her attitude and behavior at the nuclear talks (6 part talks that is) that were just held in Japan. She refuses to return or further participate unless the US removes business sanctions.

But it isn't really the US sanctions that seem to have caused such financial distress, it is China's, under I am sure what NK believes to be American influence or what we call trade. China apparently recently clamped down on NK's banking in Macau, which is alleged to be where NK hides all it's drug money and such while it's people die of starvation. It was in fact one of the very last refuges for NK financial maneuvering and I think it has hurt them very badly.


I would imagine this freezing of assets would be the reason for NK's current blustering.

So this shows the real extent of this NK threat. They really are horribly isolated and have very few friends and can be easily "hurt".

Americans would be best served if they tore down the hype and propaganda they are being fed about North Korea's situation on the world stage. The North Koreans are the best trained military in the Asian world, and far from the basic consensus, are not as bad off as we are led to believe. Not only do they possess the military capability to defend themselves from US attack, they also have the means and the ability to choose the time and place of battle themselves, and as Sun Tzu states, that's a recipe for a military success. The US will never attack North Korea. Look at how the US refused to be sympathetic to post-911 New Yorkers when they didn't respond to North Korea's threatening to turn New York into a hellfire worthy of Fallujah. Imagine the US response if Iraq or Iran specifically threatened post-911 New Yorkers for more death and carnage? Think Americans would have been angered by that and demanded some form of retribution?

I'm hesitant to reply to this because Truthmarch seems notorious for not responding to pointed questions pertaining to his posts.
Instead of just committing yet another drive by assault on logic, can you back up your claim? North Korea has the best trained military in the world? According to who, the North Koreans? How can you rant about the hype and propaganda of Americans while committing the same offense yourself? Pardon me if I am a bit skeptical about a regime who forces a deification of a dynasty of oppression.
The North Korean government is spouting the same rhetoric that they spout every year when joint exercises between the US and South Korea occur. Whether it is Team Spirit, Giant Step or Warrior Spirit, every exercise (the majority of which being computer gaming), the usual bile erupts. Their words mean nothing now, as they meant nothing for the last 50 years. Crediting the NK military as holding a recipe for military success is laughable.

Link

I believe North Korea to be a paper tiger without the backing of their masters in Beijing, and they are starting to embrace the wonders of capitalism too much to risk a global war.

I could do the obvious and do the reversal. Who told you North Korea is impoverished and the military is reduced to eating the bark from trees and their hardware is antiquitated to the Korean war of the early 1950's? Certainly it must have been the same outlets which told people about Iraq's fabled WMD which were about to get Americans.
You said that: The North Korean government is spouting the same rhetoric that they spout every year when joint exercises between the US and South Korea occur, but you ignore the fact that the US is spouting the same rhetoric that they spouted about Iraq. To see the splinter, take the log out of your own eye.
As far as evidence is concerned, in relation to who says it, one has to do one simple act. Look back at the individuals' past statements of claim, and see how true their words were. If you look back at the mainstream outlets, you would see that their claims about Iraq and Al-Queda were wrong. On the opposite, you would see that everything I was saying about Iraq was completely true. I said they ho hum didn't have any WMD. They weren't involved in 911, had no ties to Osama Bin HoHum. I was ridiculed and insulted but I was 100% wholly right the whole 9 no the whole 10 yards. So I trust what I know to be true and I don't trust what is reeking of agenda. I have no sacred cows or agendas. I don't give a crap about Iraq or the US or any other country any more than one another. I care about what's true and what's real. I seek not to change people's opinions or personal convictions, I seek only to educate people about reality and real events and hope that they will al least acknowledge those realities. Sick or not, I'd have no problem and I'd respect someone who told me "yeah I don't care about Iraqis and we the US are acting in our own self-interests". I'd respect that more than arguing with some American who laughably tries to convince people that Americans are dying for the Iraqi's benefit. Right? A country the US decimated with ten years of cruel sanctions, leading to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies dead, is suddenly worthy of dying for? No thanks. Peace.

Yet again, you provide us with no evidence that North Korea has the best trained military in the world. Who told me about the state of NK's military? Jane's, GlobalSecurity.org, and a couple of years looking across and patrolling the DMZ from OP Ouellette. I at least posted a quote from a source that is not a mouthpiece for the US government. Where do you get 'what you know to be true' about NK? The DPRK website? The Onion?
And strangely enough, the rhetoric flows back to Iraq. That's not the discussion here. If you cared about what is true and real, you wouldn't buy into the DPRK line anymore than you don't think people should buy into the US line about Iraq. You seem to be letting one foreign policy event blind you to anything else that is going on in the world, as evidenced by writing more about Iraq than NK in a thread primarily about NK.

I'll state again that the rhetoric coming from the Kim Il Jung asylum is the same as every year, dating back to when he boasted that when his father Kim Il Sung died, he would bury him in Seoul within 48 hours. That was in 1994, we're still waiting......

It's as predictable as the sun rising in the morning, and bears no relevance to anything else going on in the world. If you seek to educate, then please do so, but don't expect for people to simply take your word for something, when it flies in the face of uniformly accepted logic.

Firstly, according to every report I have seen, they are in fact far WORSE off than we are led to believe, as the North korean government has ben doing its utmost to hide the scale of the famine which has hit the country every year for the last four or five. I have NEVER seen any report on any agency claiming what Truthmarch claims.

Secondly, the idea that they are the best trained army in asia is lunacy, but put that aside for the moment. What exactly are they trained in?

(From Globalsecurity.org)

"As of 1996 the main equipment of the North Korean ground forces included over 3,800 tanks including 2,750 T-54/55/59s, 800 new model T-62 and light tanks, and about 250 outdated T-34s."

These are Soviet model tanks, and the wonderful thing about Soviet tanks is the code on them is their year of service. The BEST they have is pre-Vietnam era armour, That is Substantially worse than the standard equipment of the Iraqi military, which was the T-72. This offers about as much protection on the modern battlefield as a toyota camry.

The air force is comprised of old Soviet era jets, as NK has no domestic jet inductry. The most modern they have is a hanful of MiG-23s, but mostly MiG-19s, again pre-Vietnam technology.

But what about air defence?

"The bulk of North Korean radars are older Soviet and Chinese models with vacuum-tube technology, which limits continuous operations."

vacuum-tube technology!!! How old is that? I dont even know.

Regardless of how well trained they are, their equipment has advanced about a decade, at MOST since the Korean war. They are VERY numerous, but with equipment like this they simply pose no threat to a modern trained military. The real fear is the damage they could cause in the initial push, including shelling of major cities like Seoul, and the damage to South Korea, but they are a paper tiger at best, and that is being generous.



Firstly, please enlighten us. Exactly WHAT military capacity do they have to defend themselves? Please provide specifics to support this vacuous assertion.

As for the wonders of Sun Tzu, even if that were relevant, its not true. They can chose when to ttack, but they have exactly one direction in one place in which to attack, and thats all. The US however who could (If the forces were not committed to Iraq) surround the entire peninsula with aircraft carriers and choose its point of attack at any time, any place south, east or west.




Well, that at least is true. They will never attack unless NK does something really stupid and hits first, which they will not do. The Korean peninsula will continue to be a source of tension, but nobody wants a conflict there, and both sides recognise that, so the shouting and posturing will go only so far.

Sorry for the chuckle but it could not be helped. Your young age makes it clear to me that you're not fully on the same page as I and that may be because you get your information from textbooks and mainstream media outlets. Of course, when someone mocks and insults Sun Tzu's words, that in itself openly shows the age gap. One thing to note: the fores ARE commited in Iraq, so your words are hollow and overly patriotic.
As for NK's military, let me say this. You're opinion is solely based on what the mainstream tell you about NK, so anything I say is going to bring nothing but rhetoric patriotic gulash from you. I won't bother spoon-feeding you information as is the norm for many people, me included sometimes.
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/pdf/060321.pdf
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/northkorea/index_r.htm
http://fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/
http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/knfms95...0-101_chp4.html
That's about 0.000000000000000000000000000000001% of the data out there.

TruthMarch, I have to say that I am glad that you are on these boards because its possible that when one thinks of the member with the worst record here...they will no longer think of me.

How does this affect the world of International relations considering the issues with Iran, Iraq, and the US?

It's all talk IMHO. NK is looking for any chance it can to gain attention on the world stage and making outrageous claims and/or threats is the best way to do it. The US foreign policy towards Iraq, Iran, and NK is seriously messed up...but thats for another debate.

Will N. Korea keep its word to strike first at the U.S? Or will the U.S. strike them first?

Neither country will attack the other. They know that any attack on the US would be returned ten fold and that it would decimate NK. The US also knows that they have a pretty strong handle on the situation from a military standpoint that there is no reason to create another mess. I think we just have to wait them out until their economy completely collapses much like the Soviet Union. Then just like the fall of the Berlin Wall...down will come the 39th Parallel.

Will these situations with N. Korea, Iraq, and Iran escalate into a WWII style conflict?

No. Today's state of international affairs is like a game of chess where nobody takes eachother's pieces. All we do is position our pieces in such a way that if we ever to move...we can win in a few moves.

Really. How old exactly do you think I am I wonder? Please, enlighten us with your deductive reasoning.

Actually, I find the exact opposite is true. The young tend to read a book, think it is the 'coolest ever' and assume it is universally applicable to all situations, not hesitating to trot it out no matter the context. Kinda like you have done here.

I will put real money on the fact that not only have I forgotten more about modern military history than you will ever know (How many degrees do you have on the subject exactly?), but that I have access to far more information than you ever will (In which nations do you registered security clearence? What class? What is your ISC level? Talk 'White Tile' to me.)

However, NONE of that is relevant. At all.



Firstly my dear fellow, had you been paying any attention, you would notice that nobody on this board has ben sounding the trumpet of US overcommital more than me. In a dozen threads I have pointed out the exact extent to which the US cannot even meet its current operational commitments, let alone engage in new ones, so your 'news flash' is certainly no surprise.

Secondly, my words are not 'hollow and patriotic', I'm not even American. care to lob any other factualy incorrect, silly insults my way?


Now lets return to the topic. As usual, you made NO attempt to contradict any of my statements whatsoever, so apparently you must agree with the facts I presented about the technological level of their armour, air force and air defence.

I ALSO note that despite being asked at least three times you have made NO effort to evidence or justify any of your blatantly counterfactual statements, such as NK having the 'best trained military in Asia' and so on. In fact despite DIRECT requests of you, you have until now provided NO evidence of ANY kind to back up ANY of your assertions. This is not surprising, as has also been pointed out this is typical and common practice for you.

I FURTHER note that you glibly dismiss Globalsecurity.org, and more importantly, Jane's Defence as 'mainstream media' which is absurdly false. Jane's is the most respected and accurate civilian military intelligence agency on the planet.


BUT, regardless of ALL that, lets take a look at what you DID say, shall we?

Well, precious little...




Amusingly, after dismissing Janes as 'mainstream media' you then present FAS.org, which publicly aknowledges that they get much of their information from (you guessed it) Jane's defence.

However, you chose not to present any kind of rebuttal about my facts on the state of the North Korean military, I suppose assuming these four sites would 'do your talking for you'. So lets look at them shall we?

http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/pdf/060321.pdf

This is a CNS report on the state of North Korea's ballistic missile capability. It at no point mentions or even adresses their conventional forces, nor does it in any way contradict what I have said about them. The facts it presents here about their missile capacity are easy public knowledge.

Strike 1.



http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/northkorea/index_r.htm

This is a SEARCH ENGINE. Its not even a site, and on the search engine, do you know what the very first site is? Jane's Defence.

The second article on the search engine is Wikipedia on North Korea, which makes no mention whatsoever of their military at all. I'm sorry, were you not just insulting me about using 'mainstream media' then as contrary evidence you present a search engine listing Wikipedia?

The third article on the search engine is a link to a CBC news article (again, mainstream media) which mentions the size of the military, and nothing else whatsoever about its technology or capacity.

The fourth article on the webpage is a link to FAS, and as I will deal with FAS in a moment, lets leave it aside for now.

Most certainly Strike 2.


http://fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/
http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/knfms95...0-101_chp4.html

I will deal with these together as they are both FAS.org. Since neither source you have listed so far contradicts me at all, we all assume THIS source, which you list twice, will put me in my place, right?

The first is a decription of their nuclear potential, estimate as it is as of yet unproven. Irrelevant and in no way contradicts my assessment of their conventional military forces, or even adresses the issue.

So it ALL rests on this last source Truthmarch, unless you were speaking out of your nether hole, your only hope at demonstrating that ANYTHING I said is wrong depends on this last source...

So what does it have to say?


OOps. It Explicitly and clearly confirms EVERYTHING I just said, in GREAT detail. Oh dear Truthmarch, your own source completely shoots you down, that MUST be embarassing... let me cite, from YOUR source: http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/knfms95...0-101_chp4.html

"North Korea has some 4,000 medium and light tanks and assault guns, including over 2,000 T-54/55 main battle tanks of Soviet 1950s-era design. In addition, North Korea has indigenously produced about 700 T-62 tanks - a more capable version of the T-55 that was the Soviet Union's main battle tank in the early 1960s. Light tanks are also fielded in large numbers and include variants of the former Soviet PT-76 and Chinese Type 62/63. An additional tank (T-34) and assault guns (ASU-85/100) reside with the reserve infantry divisions."

Oh dear, EXACTLY what I said, COMPLETELY verifying my statements... but wait, there's more...


"About two-thirds of the Air Force's 1,100 combat aircraft are older generation Soviet- or Chinese-made designs incorporating 1950s and 1960s technology.
Older fighter aircraft include 160 MiG-21/FISHBEDs, 20 Su-7/FITTERs, 160 MiG-19/FARMERs, 120 MiG-17/FRESCOs, and 190 MiG-15/FAGOTs. Most of these aircraft are daylight, clear-weather-capable only, and carry limited weapon loads. Three regiments totaling 80 medium-range Il-28/BEAGLEs are the only bombers in the Air Force inventory. In 1985, North Korea acquired 45 MiG-23/FLOGGERs, with increased range and payload over other older, less capable North Korean fighters."


OH, no, EXACTLY what I said! Oh, this must be SO embarassing for you...

Thats not just strike three, thats (to mix metaphors) an 'own goal', thats points for my team!


So since you have provided NOTHING AT ALL that contradicts my assessments, and (kindly) provided one source that COMPLETELY CONFIRMS IT, I will thank you to take your complete lack of knowledge on the topic, add it to your insulting, patronising tone, and shove it.... ... Well, now I would not want to earn a strike now would I?

You were right about one thing though. You don't get your information from the mainstream media.

How are things over at wildnutbarlunaticfringeconspiracytheories.com anyways?



If you have anything else to contribute to this 'chat', do so in a civil tone, without the childish insults, and be prepared to back up your many wild assertions.

This is IMO just more saber rattling by a country that is essentially starving to death.



IMO NK will not do this although their leadership is as nutty and unpredictable as they come. The only reason to strike them first is if/when we learn they are committed to attacking the US and are ready to move. Since we have not yet fielded fully out missile defense shield any missile launched could kill millions of Americans sice they have the nukes and the long range delivery system.

The response to such an attack (and I strongly disagree with TM) would be an overwhelming nuclear response (to a nuclear attack) that would level NK in minuets. With superior weapons and technology in all areas there would be little left of NK in a matter of weeks. IMO the government would fall and the country surrender in days.



Only if they invade the South and do not use nukes or other WMD. Then it would be a UN operation – hopefully better run than the 1950s mess.