http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp...123.htm&sc=1104

Please read this story. It appears north korea is panning a military offensive against the Us.

Question to Debate: what should the Us do if anything? should united nations be called? should south korea be worried?

Uh, you really should read the story more carefully. All it says is that the N. Vietnamese gov't was ordering it's citizens to prepare for a U.S. led attack. You got it backwards.

Evacuation procedures don't sound like an offensive to me. I see nothing new or surprising here. From their point of reference, it's prudent to be prepared, and it gives the starving population something unsubversive and Kim-friendly to think about.

North WHO?
I think GWB knows that fighting the North Koreans with ground troops is not a good idea. Our losses would be horrendous, as is usually the case when dealing with a brainwashed population. Even their "educated classes", such as government employees and mililtary officers, are almost completely ignorant of life outside their own country.
This is a country that should soon collapse from within, perhaps a military coup, but that assumes that at least some of their higher ranking offers are not completely brainwashed. A few million more starvation deaths might push the situation to the brink.
Add a panic among the population, and who knows what might happen?

Bill55AZ, I wasn't saying America was going to attack. I was saying that North Korea issued a 'memo' of sorts telling her people that America was going to attack; which they did. I mentioned this because the thread if founded on a misreading of the original story.

I have a question. What exactly is it, that makes N.Korea a threat? I always hear people talking about N.Korea being a threat to the US or to the world. But nobody ever told me what makes this country so dangerous (if there even is a threat).

Involvement in North Korea should be out of the question

What should the U.S. do if anything? should united nations be called? should south korea be worried?

Calling in the UN would be the worst option for the world. The UN Security council is mired in a quagmire of beauracracy that prevetns it from ever getting anything done- just look at Rwanda, where millions were killed while the UN stood by and watched.
Also, the U.S. cannot afford to diversify its forces any more than it already has. If the U.S. government stretches our troops any more than they already are, the impact is two-fold. 1st, our troop strength goes down because all troops will suffer from the stretch. 2nd, overstretch will undermine our civil-military relations. When the pentagon sees that it is getting screwed, it feels animosity towards the congress and the president, decreasing our power projection to the world. Both result in more enemies of the U.S. and an open opportunity for us to be attacked.

Haven't you heard, North Korea is one of the axis of evil. But don't worry Bush won't attack North Korea, since it won't be a presumed pushover like Iraq. I figure by the time we get through with Iraq(in 10 years) then Iran (another 5 or 10 years) then we can take care of North Korea. Of course that will be 10 to 20 years from now, but just be patient.

North Korea, war, and US don't even belong in the same sentence until every single one of our troops leaves Iraq. We are committing hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq, as well as billions of dollars. Why would we throw that away, and let the country that we are rebuilding well, go into a civil war, and then go attack the biggest military in the world. We are going to need more support in a war with DPRK than the UK. We're going to need Russia, France, the big ones. Maybe we can use some of *French accent* Canada's security guards *end French accent*.

That story isn't even there anymore.

North Korea stands a threat if and only if USA and North Korea engages in a war. The threat of North Koreans is their possession of Nuclear Weapons. If North Korea could make use of intercontinental missiles, then North Korea would be a true threat. But now however, North Koreans, due to propaganda, believes that the US will attack and invade their country. But the invasion of North Korea by the US at this point seems impossible, if we factor in the economical and movitational standpoints.
America WILL ONLY engage in a war if they know that they will gain more than they lose.
After the actions of the Bush administration, using tactics such as the hardcore ones seen used in the spyplane incident in China, the Afganistan War and the non- negotiations with ALLIED tribe leaders, and the Iraqi war (need I say more on that?) North Korean leaders made no mistake in fearing an EVENTUAL attack on their soil by the US if they wait long enough. Once the American economy rises again, alliances with the Europeans fixed, I believe that North Korea just might be the new target.
Finally, after much circumlocution, to answer the question, I believe that North Korea is NOT planning any sort of offensive, because quite plainly, they have no offensive. Their only threat is nuclear weapons, but they have no intercontinental missiles to deliver them. This, therefore, is not a great threat to the US. The North Korean navy is a JOKE, and some can even argue that they have no navy that is a threat to the US. Therefore, how can North Korea be planning an offensive? We have to ask ourselves of what other possible motives the US has of having a deliberation with North Korea. Perhaps to assert more political influence with China and Japan, or perhaps to strenghten their relationship with South Korea, who provides extremely strategic positions in Asian.

To continue a few more points I missed with my previous post:

North Korea is an extremely brainwashed civilization without any contact to the outside world. However, North Korea would NEVER collapse from within. Simply because there are not enough political standpoints for there to be a coup. Even if there were, China would never let it get that bad, because China has many political interests in North Korea. To give that up due to a shift in the government would be horrendous.

Unlike Iraq, North Korea has had numerous true accounts of weapons of mass destruction construction. They have made threats to the United States and it is clear that they if they see a chance to strike the US without receiving a counter-measure they will seize it. I do not believe the United States should make a pre-emptive strike on North Korea, however we should be prepared with enough troops left in defense to keep North Korea in there current neutral state. We need to keep much of our forces still at the mainland or at least deployable in case of a national disaster. The UN has proved to be mostly useless at getting anything done quickly so when the occasion arises they should not be looked to for support unless we are in need of dire help. The situation with North Korea is a dangerous one for it is not a question of 'if' but a question or 'when'.

I cannot recall that North Korea ever threatened to declare war to the US if not threatened or being attacked by the US before. Its an old fashioned security dilemma. North Koreans are worried that the US will attack their country, simply because that already happened once, under the flag of the UN, however with mainly American troops. American troops are staged along South Korea.
North Korea is isolated, communistic, and called a member of the axis of evil. They are being pushed in the corner by the current administration and now they push back. If you were the head of the state, would you not fear an US-led attack?
The only chance for their government is to prepare themselves as best as they can for an invasion, for they won't get any help from another country.

What do they do? They militarize their population, build bomb-proof shelters and indoctrinate their people so that they will fight to the last breath. And that works well, the losses for an invasion would be for any military force in disastrous proportions. So the US are intimidated by force, and North Korea will have to keep that strategy up if they want to prevail. Simply deterrence. I think it was George Wash who said something like: "To keep peace you have to prepare for war."
No, I don't think North Korea will attack anyone, but they sure destabilize the region with their pursuit of self-preservation.
Btw, if the US administration would care about proliferation of WMD or National Security or democratic values , they would not have invaded Iraq, but North Korea.