Nuclear Proliferation
Just when I finished my last post saying that the US dominion over the Western Pacific will soon be over, and asked "what then..."
Comes North Korea and shoots an (alleged) hydrogen bomb. The world is startled. No, it's the world is amazed. It's jizzing on its pants. I can't say I appreciate Kim Jong Un's sense of aesthetics, but man, this guy understand strategy.
As usual, everybody is pointing at China. Please do something! You're feeding these guys!
And what says China?
https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/904388553030868992
Now, Hu Xijin is just a hack, he is by no means an official spokesman. But he doesn't say what the government doesn't allow him to say. So it's likely that the Chinese government thinks he has a point. In short: if we stop feeding The Kim, he'll get pissed at us. Probably will threaten to nuke Beijing or something. Then the whole media spotlight will be on the North Korea vs. China conflict. The US nor anybody in the West will help us or give a shit about it, and man we really don't need this shit on ourselves right now. China is kinda busy. Enough problems already. So you see this fat nuked-up hot potato here? You can have it, Gringoes.
You gotta see the genius of North Korean strategy during the last decades. They must have known exactly that China would never have an immediate incentive to do anything about them; even though China really doesn't like them at all. So they kept tensing the cord, knowing the Americans also wouldn't dare do anything given that Korean artillery can basically destroy Seoul (20 million people, 50km from the border) in half an hour.
So as I asked in my last post, what when the US is out of the Western Pacific? Now that North Korea has nukes, the answer seems obvious. Nuclear proliferation. First South Korea, unless they get a death wish and the local left decides to surrender and be unified under the glorious socialism of The Kim (not unlikely). But surely Japan will get their nukes. And then... Taiwan! Oh man, is China gonna get pissed at that. It would be quite interesting if Trump were to troll them by helping Taiwan get nukes and daring China to invade.
I don't quite see South East Asia having the technical capability to get any; unless they buy/lease them from the Norks. At any rate, what's the real problem? The typical warnings on nuclear proliferation is that "rogue agents" could hijack nukes and so something crazy, them being crazy. Of course the only people crazy enough to do that are fundamentalist Muslims. But there aren't any of those in East Asia. It's a 90% atheist, modernist, consumerist place.
The official historical narrative is sort of that nuclear weapons made the cost of war too big, which cut most of the nationalist warlike signaling spiral that consumed Europe from 1900 to 1945, unleashing a new era of peaceful cooperation, the EU and that crap. Hey, who knows, maybe in 100 years Kim 3rd the Fat is remembered as the harbinger of Peace in Asia.
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[…] Nuclear Proliferation […]
In almost every respect chinese politics reminds me more of the e.u. than any sort of patchwork paradise. I would wager any peace coming from North Korean arming up is likely to collapse in China via some sort of wealth transfer collapse ala Greece. The e.u. started bringing in muslims to rape 12 year old girls. Who knows how China will react when they reach the same place.
Does this explosion mark the birth of the world's 4th Sovereign? US, Russia, China, and now... KimLand?
Yep.
I see Kim's strategy as purely defensive. He needs weapons to defend his kingdom against foreign invasion, and needs permanent war hysteria to psych his subjects to obey. North Korea does not seem to be about to invade the South nor has any conflict with Japan (or the USA). This game can go on for twenty years more, till someone's nerves crack. I think Clinton worked up himself to almost erasing the dwarf kingdom, then calmed down. May be some South Korean general will crack up or the circle around the fat dictator himself. We know nothing about what is going on in the minds of the people, Kim is exposing himself all the time, we never see his bodyguards and their loyalty. South American dictators typically disappear because of jealous girlfriends. Korean families (vide Samsung) also have their tensions.
"...knowing the Americans also wouldn’t dare do anything given that Korean artillery can basically destroy Seoul (20 million people, 50km from the border) in half an hour." The NK assumption would be that the Americans are too compassionate/sentimental to do anything (they'd feel bad about a hundred thousand SK civilian deaths), not that they "wouldn't dare do anything" ...?
If sufficiently provoked and/or menaced, Americans will find moral grounds to do what they have to do. White people was never handicapped by compassion while waging war.
Yes, and maybe he'll even give Western civilisation closed borders. Even if he doesn't have rockets to transport his nukes, he should be able to smuggle them into any Westrern country. Our borders are open for anything, so I don't see how anyone could keep him from doing so. He doesn't even have to bring his containers through customs, it is sufficient to bring them into a port.
[…] Source: Bloody Shovel […]
Anybody's guess is as good as another's: "Korean artillery can basically destroy Seoul (20 million people, 50km from the border) in half an hour." There's that, and then there's "what U.S. city will he send the ICBM too if that's his whim-beyond-talk for a day?" Would it be LA or San Francisco or Seattle? Or something less famous like Portland, so the left could more easily blame any retaliation on the U.S. (which the U.S. would surely do, whatever president, this doesn't have anything to do with Trump really, unless Kim just thinks he's more fun to play with.) Or would we wait for Seoul to be destroyed first, since he'd like to do either if he could get away with it. In that case, U.S. cities wouldn't get it. Re: 20 years of this before someone's nerves crack? Aren't they bound to crack much sooner than that? It's just two weeks ago that Kim was going to do Guam. I actually thought he might, but I have no real reason to even guess, since everybody seems to be guessing by now. Don't people want the paranoia to be 'fulfilled' since N. Korea could be destroyed so easily? It's true that it didn't happen with USSR/USA Cold War that caused of a lot of nervous breakdowns. Spandrell--your eye good as usual, because any Kim picture is not a joy forever, but this one is magnificent: He's got reading glasses from Rite-Aid just like I do, but shaves his head so they can define his fat globules, sinking deep into the pre-temple cushions. Photo also looks more like an actual pig than any actual human being, in the flesh or pictured, I've ever seen. Brilliant.
Surely China is astute enough to perceive that this is the (or at least a) probable outcome. Do they prefer it to the present state of affairs, or are they just too apprehensive of the threat to their own territory? It is certainly much closer than U.S. or even Japan, and reachable by ordinary mid-range rockets Kims have had for decades.
Well I'm thinking China would invade Taiwan if it were clear it has a nuclear program, but they must think at this rate they'll depopulate before that happens. On Japan they'd have to shrug it. On SK... hey if the Koreans on both sides nuke each other into oblivion that kinda seems like a win-win for China.
A man is truly rich when he is rich enough to build his own nuclear arsenal
There will be war. Not necessarily this time, or next time, but war usually happens when people do not expect or intend it.
Ouch! What sort of war are you talking? War between nuclear armed states or civil wars within nuclear armed states?
Not predicting nuclear war any time soon. Just that nuclear war would, under the general circumstances, not be all that surprising. It is an unpredictable kind of event. If someone is driving blind, likely to crash, but the specifics of the crash are unpredictable. The world has gone a remarkably long time without using nukes, indicating a low likelihood of nuke use. But the likelihood of using nukes internally and externally rises, as people are daily becoming more reckless about risking war,and more entities have acquired nuclear weapons. Because of the long period of nuclear peace, I don't think there is a very high risk of imminent nuclear war. But equally, people always under estimate the likelihood of infrequent events, and today the likelihood is considerably higher than it used to be. Sooner or later nukes will be used, probably in internal war. But chances are, later. Enormously destructive wars are the result of everyone making terrible miscalculations, and also of everyone acting in an unreasonably aggressive way and getting away with it for a while, until suddenly they do not get away with it any more, hence difficult to predict.
"But the likelihood of using nukes internally and externally rises, as people are daily becoming more reckless about risking war,and more entities have acquired nuclear weapons." Yes, but esp. N. Korea--the provocations are much closer together than they have ever been, so that some kind of war as a result them even rather soon doesn't seem that unlikely. I think it had been at least some 2-4 years between most of them, now it's every few weeks, so nothing would be that surprising.
The US Government is much more threatening than it used to be, much more inclined to overthrow regimes for vague and capricious reasons. Since the the real reasons for the overthrow are seldom admitted, no regime can be sure what behavior would make it safe. This gives every regime a compelling reason to develop nuclear weapons.
Charlie Rose had L. Barber., D. Ignatius, D. Sanger, N. Burns on this. Barber said 'every few days' (not 'every few weeks') and all talked about how much faster he's moving and how China hates Kim, but the oil turn-off unsure, maybe unlikely. Kissinger was repeated from last week, emphasizing what U.S. must 'give China' if there is help expected. I thought the tone was getting more that military action was likely, but not recommended. Burns didn't like Haley's remark, there was talk of NK actually being part of the 'nuclear club', the 'existential fears' of Japan as well as Seoul, etc. Whether USG has 'capricious and vague reasons' for Kim's overthrow is possible, but the speed is what is important to whether something will happen, since acc. to them, NK will not go to table, etc. This sense of something military happening being likely was in other parts of the msm yesterday too. If 'infrequent events' are more likely, it's possible that all these provocations stopping would be the most unlikely 'infrequent event'. Sanger said they cannot yet transport the 'hydrogen' bomb all the way to U.S., but 'they're getting close to that'. Maybe, maybe not. I can't see that theory (of USG motives) has much to do with this even if you've got some points--if there's constant talk of the Cuban Missile Crisis and new tests constantly by NK, there's definitely some preparation going on, including by the CIA, Pentagon. Sanger said something about 'months' for U.S. military preparation, Burns said something else about 'the next few months', so maybe that's indicative of something. They definitely all know a lot, and won't say a lot, maybe even about USG 'vague and capricious' motives. I don't, but am not particularly focussed on regime change elsewhere and in general in regard to this particular situation. Of course nuclear weaponry is the best insurance against regime change. But even it's 'all planned out', we won't know that and neither did those journalists until something happen. At this point, only brinksmanship is sure, unless maybe the South Korea Trumptalk points to something too.
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