Brontoforumus Archive

Discussion Boards => Thaddeus Boyd's Panel of Death => Topic started by: Royal☭ on April 04, 2009, 09:36:19 PM

Title: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on April 04, 2009, 09:36:19 PM
Oh, North Korea, you guys just keep reaching for the stars! (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/04/AR2009040403239.html?hpid=topnews)
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Brentai on April 04, 2009, 11:03:25 PM
The whole thing is kind of mind boggling.

:itsmagic: Don't you dare launch that rocket, North Korea!
:serious: Don't you dare.
:itsmagic: Don't you dare launch it!
:vampire: Launched it.
:itsmagic: FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
:serious: So... what happens now?
:itsmagic:
:serious:
:vampire: C'mon, guys.
:serious:
:itsmagic:
:serious: Seriously.  What happens?
:itsmagic: I uh... I don't know.  Does anything happen?  Anything at all?
:vampire: Oh you guys are kidding me.
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Dooly on April 04, 2009, 11:23:10 PM
Quote
North Korea announced about four hours after the launch that it had succeeded in putting a satellite into orbit. "The satellite is rotating normally in its orbit," the Korean Central News Agency reported.

I obviously have no intimate knowledge of the intricacies of missile launches, but doesn't it take longer than four hours to get a satellite from the launch pad to a stable orbit?
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: SCD on April 05, 2009, 08:41:35 AM
North Korea doesn't really operate in real-time, or have 24-hour news networks.
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Mongrel on April 05, 2009, 09:42:14 AM
North Korea doesn't really operate in the real world
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on April 05, 2009, 09:52:36 AM
I'd be surprised if the "satellite" were anything more that a random chunk of rocket that hasn't fallen out of the sky, yet.
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Fredward on April 05, 2009, 09:54:09 AM
Looks like the rest of the world is calling it a 'failure'. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7984254.stm)

I don't know why they need quotation marks. The whole thing ended up in the Pacific.
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Brentai on April 05, 2009, 10:42:15 AM
Because they needed quotation marks when they 'launched' the thing in the first place.  You can't get an certain quantum state from an uncertain quantum state, that'd just collapse the whole waveform and then Schroedinger's Rocket would blow up space and time.
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: SCD on April 05, 2009, 10:47:49 AM
From the NK propagandist's viewpoint, the launch was a 'success', and the second satellite will join the first in broadcasting revolutionary patriotic tunes. 

From the NK engineer's perspective, the launch was a 'success' as they were able to get the second stage to work, which is a drastic improvement from the last. 

From the NK leadership's perspective, this was a 'setback', and with luck their engineers will be able to create a rocket that will hit North America next time

From the rest of the world's viewpoint, this was a 'failure'.  The other three viewpoints explain the quotations.
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on April 05, 2009, 11:17:14 AM
I have to wonder what use the Hermit Kingdom has for a communications satellite when they have no Internet or cell phone services, save for government officials.
Title: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Doom on April 05, 2009, 01:55:31 PM
I have to wonder what use the Hermit Kingdom has for a communications satellite when they have no Internet or cell phone services, save for government officials.


Quote
the US, EU, Japan and South Korea condemned the launch, thought to be a cover for a long-range missile test.
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Brentai on April 05, 2009, 07:20:38 PM
World officially can't agree on how to react to the whole thing. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-north-korea-main6-2009apr06,0,6990607.story)
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: SCD on April 05, 2009, 08:23:07 PM
Here's what I'm wondering:  How much of the food coming in as Aid is coming in from western nations?
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Thad on April 05, 2009, 08:30:09 PM
Which is exactly what's wrong with sanctions.
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Brentai on April 05, 2009, 10:07:08 PM
Outcome of rocket launch boosts South Korean economy. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a66e7njbNs18&refer=home)

...hmm.

Hey Canada.  Got a little proposition for ya.
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Zaratustra on April 05, 2009, 10:51:52 PM
yeah, north korea doesn't scare anyone. Like that country full of sand and mountains that's named after a dog breed. Nothing came out of that either.
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Transportation on April 06, 2009, 05:05:36 AM
You guys do know that North Korea has enough artillery pointed at Seoul to level it, right? That's why we pay attention to them even if they're a bit silly.
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Mongrel on April 06, 2009, 06:01:35 AM
NK is kind of like a suicide bomb at the international level.

Also: My vote for thread icon is the puppet Kim Jong Il from Team America singing 'So Ronery'.
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Büge on April 06, 2009, 06:16:35 AM
yeah, north korea doesn't scare anyone. Like that country full of sand and mountains that's named after a dog. Nothing came out of that either.

...Indiana?
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Bongo Bill on April 06, 2009, 12:58:39 PM
Fido, obviously.
Title: Re: Pretend that North Korea is fucking scary.
Post by: Mongrel on April 06, 2009, 04:02:43 PM
Fido, obviously.

(http://www.firstshowing.net/img/fido-poster-red.jpg)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Transportation on May 25, 2009, 06:25:51 AM
North Koreans conduct second nuclear test. (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/24/nkorea.nuclear/index.html)

Amusingly their conventional weaponry is still more powerful by the kiloton.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on May 25, 2009, 07:40:09 AM
North Koreans conduct second nuclear test. (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/24/nkorea.nuclear/index.html)

Amusingly their conventional weaponry is still more powerful by the kiloton.

Yeah but nothing brings out the EVERYBODY PANIC OMG faster than the bogeyman of Nuclear Weapons being randomly slung around.

Though in all fairness, I suspect most countries would prefer to have a 50 kiloton conventional explosive dropped on them to a 10 kiloton nuke.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on May 26, 2009, 11:13:57 AM
I can't imagine that all these chumps with nuclear ambitions will be remembered very fondly in the history books, but I don't suppose they care much, either.

And on the plus side of getting hit with even a small nuke, you'll have a very angry international community on your side. I forget where or when it was (somewhere in Africa or Iraq, I think), but some poor villagers got strafed by gunships that used anti-personnel flechette rockets, so government inspectors didn't find the tell-tale scorch marks and craters of such an attack.

Still kind of a choice between Shit A and Shit B, I guess.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on May 26, 2009, 12:36:22 PM
Interesting.  I feel a disturbance in the force over this one.  Nothing linkable yet
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on May 26, 2009, 04:32:13 PM
Above the 38th Parallel, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090526/wl_afp/nkoreanuclearweaponsmissiles). 'cause y'know, the US, China, South Korea, Japan, and the rest of the world in general aren't pissed off at Kim Jong Ill enough.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on May 26, 2009, 10:21:50 PM
At this point, I imagine that every yank jet plane in the region, as well as any other allied plane is on a heightened state.

Oddly enough, should this be more than posturing, the first shots would most likely be shot from howitzer.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on May 27, 2009, 03:01:06 AM
Anybody see the latest news? I woke up this morning to see that NK has declared that it is no longer bound by the 1953 ceasefire. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/north-korea-warns-of-attack-if-ships-checked/article1154640/)

(http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorial-cartoons/1634902.bin)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on June 07, 2009, 09:56:11 PM
Because the United States and the World in general aren't angry enough at the North already (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_nkorea_journalists_held)

(THAD EDIT: Link is to article titled "Will US send envoy after NKorea jails reporters?")

I know await the botched black op to rescue them involving the crash of at least two Blackhawk helicopters
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on June 07, 2009, 10:41:45 PM
Like we didn't expect that outcome.

Is China tired of their shit yet?  Because I think they're literally the only thing stopping us from just rolling right up to that prison and telling the guards there to give us our fucking people back or we'll dismantle the place brick by brick.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on June 08, 2009, 01:20:59 AM
China is pretty sick of their shit, yeah. They provide damn near everything that lets North Korea function, but can't get any concessions out of them. I don't know that China would go to bat for us on this particular case, but it's getting worse between them.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Lunartick on June 08, 2009, 01:26:28 AM
This is the second time your WMD sensor is malfunctioning.
:3
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on June 08, 2009, 03:33:41 AM
Yes, but it seems to me that America stands to gain nothing from an invasion. What resources does North Korea have, besides eerily clean and anachronistic cities?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: sei on June 08, 2009, 04:31:49 AM
dongchimee (http://www.dalkiworld.com/about/c_dongchimee.asp)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Detonator on June 08, 2009, 05:29:52 AM
China is pretty sick of their shit, yeah. They provide damn near everything that lets North Korea function, but can't get any concessions out of them. I don't know that China would go to bat for us on this particular case, but it's getting worse between them.

From what I understand, China has the ability to end the North Korean regime overnight if they wished.  The fact that they don't seems to indicate that having them around benefits China in some way.  Probably the fact that it pisses everyone else off
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 08, 2009, 06:40:48 AM
Two things about China:

1)  China really only gives a shit about what it believes to be China.  They had a chance to colonize the world well before the rest of us and decided it wasn't in their interests. 

2)  Any destabilization in NK would bring wide swaths of refugees flooding across the border.  This would be destabilizing for China, in what I assume is China's opinion. 
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 08, 2009, 07:19:54 AM
Yeah, I mean, the DPRK is isn't building a border fence right now just to keep their folks IN (though that's part of it), thy're building it because China yelled at them to keep the riff-raff refugees OUT.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Transportation on June 08, 2009, 11:45:24 AM
You guys do know that North Korea has enough artillery pointed at Seoul to level it, right? That's why we pay attention to them even if they're a bit silly.

Not to mention absurd amounts of landmines (on both sides) and an extensive military infrastructure (tunnel and such) which been under constant expansion since the last war. Any North Korean war would become a general Korean war within days.

China gets resources from North Korea, such as ore, coal, etc. (http://www.nkeconwatch.com/category/mining/iron-ore/)

Not to mention any post-war unification process would be likely U.S./South Korea dominated.

Not worth fighting over two people, really. Not that we'll need to as North Korea will probably trade them for concessions of some sort.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on June 18, 2009, 06:24:23 AM
NK may fire a missile toward Hawaii in early July. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/18/north-korea-may-fire-a-mi_n_217293.html)

Give us a reason to atomize you, sir.

:doit:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Catloaf on June 18, 2009, 06:30:53 AM
LAUNCH A MISSILE AT HAWAII
 :advice:
WATCH IT LAND 1000KM SHORT OF TARGET AS YOU AWAIT YOUR DOOM
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Alex on June 18, 2009, 06:35:43 AM
I can't even begin to comprehend what the hell is going through anyone's head in North Korea.

Do they...do they want to piss everyone (us in particular) off or what?  I don't get it.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 18, 2009, 06:54:32 AM
TheySeeMeTrollin.jpg
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on June 18, 2009, 09:14:05 AM
Wow. Once again, I'm at a loss for words. The North seems to have a knack for leaving me speechless.

I'd like to hear the Hermit Kingdom's logic for launching missiles and testing nukes that kinda work, and then getting all belligerent with a nation with missiles and nukes that definitely work.

It's like the strategic equivalent of waving around a loaded gun and trying to look like a bad-ass in front of Solid Snake.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Koah on June 18, 2009, 10:56:53 AM
Fortunately the article explicitly mentions China getting upset over the launch, which helps allay (personal) fears that Kim Jong-Il is trying to goad the U.S. into war with the DPRK specifically so China gets dragged into the conflict.  Not that this is actually the plan, of course; it's just hard to find possible explanations for this that aren't merely "piss off America."
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 18, 2009, 11:24:53 AM
Well, the explanation on paper is literally that this is basically the international equivilant of "LOOK AT MEEEEEEEEE!!!!1oneoneomg", with the goal of getting people to throw enough loot at you to make you shut up.

The problem is that pushing the boundaries invariably has you bumping up against things you really shouldn't be.

What I would be worried about is two things:

1) That this shit will never end. That they will hit the big red button marked "TROLL ENTIRE WORLD" every time they want something. Like a retarded child, they will continue to whine if whining works... or even if it doesn't.

2) They make a huge mistake. Either a planned 'threat' goes horribly awry, or they do something that simply cannot be ignored.

The problem is that both are likely and only reinforce one another. The most likely scenario is that each time they want something they will rachet up the trolling levels until "something" colossally stupid occurs that NK didn't intend. Like say... a faulty missile dumping a nuke on a place it was only supposed to buzz over. The damn thing won't even have to explode for it to set off a hell of a chain reaction.

Worst of all, the conventional logic that China and Russia will bring NK back down to earth is getting pretty ragged. It seems their influence is in inverse proportion to NK's insanity levels.

Play with fire radiation...
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Saturn on June 18, 2009, 11:51:42 AM
When have they gotten something other than more sanctions from pulling this shit?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 18, 2009, 12:04:55 PM
I'm interested to see what would happen if they do launch a missile test towards Hawaii. 

That seems like something that would be a massive game-changer. 
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on June 18, 2009, 12:08:11 PM
LOL
:advice:
PEARL HARBOR
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 18, 2009, 12:10:18 PM
INCUR THE WRAITH OF THE YANKS
:advice:
STEAL THEIR MREs
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on June 18, 2009, 01:43:04 PM
The trick is to fight North Korea is such a way that doesn't atomize South Korea. They may be too crazy/far away from everyone else to be a threat, but they have enough conventional arms pointed south to make nukes a redundant farce.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 18, 2009, 01:47:14 PM
It really depends on how operational all that shit is.

That said, I couldn't blame anyone for not wanting to make that particular gamble. 
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on June 18, 2009, 01:50:07 PM
Is it "they" that have their weapons pointed at South Korea, or one incredibly overcompensating troll?

I mean yeah the country as a whole might have a bad reaction if we slipped 'em the old poison cigar but chances are the next guy will be a lot more responsive to the logic of "We will destroy every particle of every thing you have."
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 18, 2009, 02:22:37 PM
Despite the numbers of weapons the DPRK has in old conventional howitzers, I would imagine the assault on the DPRK would be an air forge Gen's wet dream. 

They have MoaB's, Bunker Busters, and a lot of other impressive munitions stockpiled that is reaching the end of its shelf life - And they're not allowed to use it for Afghanistan..

A premptive bombing campaign with aircraft that move too high or too fast for the DPRK to respond in kind would greatly reduce their city-levelling capacities.   
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 18, 2009, 05:24:29 PM
See, one of the biggest problem we have is that we are reaching the limit of what sanctions can be imposed.

NK is about as isolated as you can make a country without putting it in a bottle. Sanctions simply don't have the room to get much harder because the general entire population is perpetually a hairsbreadth away from the 'about to starve' threshold.

I guess it all depends on how silly NK wants to get!
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Thad on June 18, 2009, 05:32:42 PM
And of course the bitch about sanctions is that they squeeze the citizenry a whole lot more than the leadership.  KJ's not going to miss any meals.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on June 18, 2009, 06:26:11 PM
Fucker won't even notice until somebody tells him they're out of honeyed water.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on June 18, 2009, 06:29:55 PM
Or Hennessy. I hear he's one of the biggest importers of the stuff.

HOLY SHIT EDIT: That's one of the things that always burns my ass about the North. While he's watching Hollywood movies, collecting Ferraris, and indulging in all kind of imports, the people he's fooling with this Juche bullshit are slaving on farms and eating boiled grass when they aren't forced to lick photos of the Dear Leader.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on June 18, 2009, 06:53:44 PM
Just embargo DVDs. That'll light a fire under his ass.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on June 19, 2009, 11:20:36 AM
I smell the plot of a 1980s Airplane movie about running crates of movies to North Korea. At the end of the movie Tom Selleck's character has a change of heart (as inspired by the plucky female reporter) and dumps all the crates over a rice paddy before flying off into the sunset.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Kazz on June 19, 2009, 12:32:17 PM
Can't we just liberate NK already?  He's committed enough human rights violations by now, hasn't he?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 19, 2009, 01:00:47 PM
I'm pretty sure that invasions on that basis and that basis alone are rarer than a full belly in Pyongyang.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: JDigital on June 19, 2009, 02:12:29 PM
NK isn't threatening Israel and doesn't have oil
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on June 19, 2009, 10:05:34 PM
Also we're still interested in not seeing the Seoul turned into a crater.  That, and we don't want to piss off China (particularly over something with no material gains in sight).
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on June 20, 2009, 07:52:34 AM
I seriously doubt China would give even half a shit at this point. North Korea is like the loud, irritating neighbor who steals tools from your shed, asks to borrow money all the time, picks fights with all his neighbors, and then when someone fights back and he looks over his shoulder at you, he expects you to join in. Maybe if this was right after North Korea moved in, you know, before his irritating ways really got under your skin, but at this point you're really just ready to watch North Korea get a good beating. Maybe after the guy's done you can go over and get all your tools back.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 20, 2009, 10:12:16 AM
I think that invasion will become a very real possibility the day that China and the US can agree to do it together.

That seems unlikely now, but should China ever see NK as a real threat, they may just find that politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Cyan Prime on June 24, 2009, 07:31:12 PM
This looks bad BOGUS! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_91)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 24, 2009, 07:38:06 PM
Quote
The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind.

Words cannot describe.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 24, 2009, 07:51:13 PM
Yes they can (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._McCain,_Sr.).

This McCain line is synomyous with service toward's one nation.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 24, 2009, 07:55:39 PM
You know... I actually thought 'nah, that must mean someone else, maybe someone from WWII?', so I did a quick search on Wikipedia, typing "John S. McCain". I was directed to John McCain's page and saw the tag at the top say "Redirected from John S. McCain" and so I thought, "Hm, I guess it is that funny." and went ahead and hit 'reply'.

 ::(:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Koah on June 24, 2009, 09:01:51 PM
This looks bad BOGUS! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear_91)

Quote
North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map
Quote
"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

Have they started believing their own propaganda?

...

...this probably isn't my place to ruminate but I'm going to try.  Just keep in mind that I'm no expert at these things and wholly expect this post to be debunked to a hilarious degree and/or end up in Jail.

So lessee here: Their military is about 1.2 million men strong (110,000 in the Air Force, 46,000 in the Navy - for comparison's sake, the SK standing army is about the same size as all four active branches of the US armed forces combined) with about 3.5 million in the state-organized militias (or I suppose you could call them partisans, if things come to that).  Roughly 4,500 tanks, 1,700 aircraft, 650 seafaring vessels (23 subs)... most of their aircraft dates back to at least the late 1980s in design, ditto their tanks (some of which are even older), with the navy mostly being a bunch of leftovers from Russia and China, some of which date back to the 1930s.  That's what's threatening to fuck with us (by "us" I mean "U.S.").

Oh, and at least 800 ballistic missiles, but... well, everyone knows about them. :whoops:

Considering how our tanks (the Abrams, mostly) performed in Desert Storm against the same tanks the DPRK is using we've probably got them beat there.  Same with- ...actually, in terms of technology, we do have them beat; most countries that aren't still using leftovers from the Cold War are either allied with us or know how dangerous it would be to start a war with us.  Plus they haven't been doing much in the way of military drills out of fuel concerns (the issue not being readiness or training, but rather actually having the gasoline needed to do all this stuff); China cut off oil exports to them in '06 and while Russia is still exporting petroleum to NK, the amount has dropped drastically in recent years and will probably stop entirely if war actually flares up.  Though they do have their own oil fields, the sudden spike in demand that war brings could hamstring them something fierce.  Assuming of course that the reason haven't been drilling is that they're running low, rather than that they've been saving it up.

About 60 to 70 percent of their forces are along the South Korean border, but there's a lot - and I mean a lot; at least 11,000 - of underground bunkers.  Not only there, but across most of the country, so it's not like they're going to be nice enough to leave everything out in the open for us.  What's worse, North Korea has one of the densest air defense networks in the world, so things may not play out quite as much like Desert Storm as the USAF (bless their hearts) might hope.  Plus, y'know, 3.5 million man militia armed with mortars and AA Guns scattered across the country.

Barring the Navy letting some landing craft hit Hawaii out of pity North Korea is going to be fighting a defensive war.  Between the potential for an army of up to five million people, thousands of bunkers, a huge anti-air network and mountainous terrain, things could get ugly.  Although the Army's probably had about fifty years to refine their invasion plans.  Qui desiderat pacem praeparat bellum and all that.

Call me crazy, but part of me thinks that they could be trying to goad us into war just so we use South Korea as a staging point, then use that as justification to roll south.


:tldr: At least this post wasn't intended to be malicious.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 24, 2009, 10:27:47 PM
A few notes:

1)  An army marches on its stomach.  NK is proven to be unable to feed its population in peacetime.  Expect things to get worse in wartime.

2)  Tanks don't work as well in jungle.  Ask the Israelis how their push into lebanon went in 06.  This is important as the Merhav 4 is a more modern and respected tank than the decade-old Abrams.

3)  Fixed defenses eventually fall.  Ask the french in WWII. 

4)  A side effect of endless COINops, Canadian doctrine for urban fighting has evolved into something to which destroys the garrison advantage of defending forces.  I would suspect the american's doctrine to be on par at the bare minimum, if not supreme as they have had more hands on through two nations, as opposed to the hottest province of one. 

NK would not be able to invade SK without Chinese assistance.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 24, 2009, 10:30:50 PM
You know... I actually thought 'nah, that must mean someone else, maybe someone from WWII?', so I did a quick search on Wikipedia, typing "John S. McCain". I was directed to John McCain's page and saw the tag at the top say "Redirected from John S. McCain" and so I thought, "Hm, I guess it is that funny." and went ahead and hit 'reply'.

 ::(:

The reason why Senator McCain's torture time during any political debate was relevant to service was because his father was also high in the local hierarchy.  He refused to be released until his brothers in arms were the same.  Nothing like a 3rd Generation Patriot..   
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Catloaf on June 24, 2009, 10:53:14 PM
So, what exactly is the US doing to piss Korea off to the point where they're blaming us, for wanting to start a war?

Not giving Kim enough Cognac to bathe in round the clock?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Fredward on June 24, 2009, 10:57:39 PM
2)  Tanks don't work as well in jungle. 
Quote
Korea

 :wat:

Geography more serious. Korea's on a latitude with Pennsylvania and Oregon.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on June 24, 2009, 11:15:42 PM
We have a bad habit in the US of assuming that the Korean War was exactly like the Vietnam War but a little earlier and somehow or another we won that one.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Koah on June 25, 2009, 01:19:25 AM
A few notes:

1)  An army marches on its stomach.  NK is proven to be unable to feed its population in peacetime.  Expect things to get worse in wartime.

Ooh, good point.  Didn't think of that.

Quote
2)  Tanks don't work as well in jungle.  Ask the Israelis how their push into lebanon went in 06.  This is important as the Merkava is a more modern and respected tank than the decade-old Abrams.

Taking into consideration Fredward said, fighting in North Korea is going to be like fighting in Oregon, and however difficult navigating the terrain might be for modern armored fighting vehicles I can't imagine that a country using tanks that are about as old as the country itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T55) would fare much better when push came to shove.

Quote
3)  Fixed defenses eventually fall.  Ask the french in WWII. 

The Maginot Line, right?  That's because the French were still in the WWI mindset of defensive wars and the the Germans didn't break down their defenses so much as go around them - the French set up fortifications between Belgium to Switzerland - roughly along the border between France and Germany - but left the forests of the Ardennes (north of the line) wide open because they didn't think that the forests were penetrable.  One million Germans said otherwise.

I'm not sayin' that they're impenetrable, just that using the French in WWII as an example of the fallibility of fixed defenses is misleading.  Especially since "go around" isn't as viable an option.

Quote
4)  A side effect of endless COINops, Canadian doctrine for urban fighting has evolved into something to which destroys the garrison advantage of defending forces.  I would suspect the american's doctrine to be on par at the bare minimum, if not supreme as they have had more hands on through two nations, as opposed to the hottest province of one. 

If by this you mean "the US armed forces have a lot of experience dealing with insurgents in urban areas," then yeah, that sounds about right.  They might actually have an easier time of it as compared to other theaters since the quality of life in NK is shit and the people know it, even if they can't say as such.

Quote
NK would not be able to invade SK without Chinese assistance.

Which is highly unlikely, considering that if China's not willing to export goods to NK they probably won't provide military support in a fight.  Especially if it threatens any possible relations with the US.

Now that I think about it, NK might be doing all this precisely because it knows (or believes) that the US won't call its bluff and attack.  There's a lot of possible (or plausible) explanations for why Jong-Il is doing this, though whether it's because he's :justasplanned: or :derp: is open for debate.

Something like that, at least.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 25, 2009, 03:08:03 AM
You know... I actually thought 'nah, that must mean someone else, maybe someone from WWII?', so I did a quick search on Wikipedia, typing "John S. McCain". I was directed to John McCain's page and saw the tag at the top say "Redirected from John S. McCain" and so I thought, "Hm, I guess it is that funny." and went ahead and hit 'reply'.

 ::(:

The reason why Senator McCain's torture time during any political debate was relevant to service was because his father was also high in the local hierarchy.  He refused to be released until his brothers in arms were the same.  Nothing like a 3rd Generation Patriot..   

I remembered that. I just didn't remember his father's name.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 25, 2009, 03:22:36 AM
Any invasion of NK is always going to come down to three things:

1) Food
2) China's involvement
3) Just how effective is that state-issued brainwashing anyway?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Ted Belmont on June 25, 2009, 05:49:48 AM

2)  Tanks don't work as well in jungle.  Ask the Israelis how their push into lebanon went in 06.  This is important as the Merhav 4 is a more modern and respected tank than the decade-old Abrams.


The Abrams is 30 years old.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on June 25, 2009, 06:02:42 AM
Maybe the chassis is, but they've been packing that thing with the latest tech since the beginning. 
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Transportation on June 25, 2009, 06:11:06 AM
A few notes:

1)  An army marches on its stomach.  NK is proven to be unable to feed its population in peacetime.  Expect things to get worse in wartime.
NK gives priority to the army in food rationing. It is essentially a feudal state in this regard. In lots of regards actually, but I digress.

Quote
2)  Tanks don't work as well in jungle.  Ask the Israelis how their push into lebanon went in 06.  This is important as the Merhav 4 is a more modern and respected tank than the decade-old Abrams.
Explain this to me because I am not the most military literate in this regard but:

A: Jungles did not stop tanks last time?
B: How many tanks/infantry do we have on the Korean peninsula right now? A war with NK starts with a massive artillery bombardment at...everything basically. I'm doubting many of the bases would survive. Sea lift capacity is a US strength, but it would take time for reinforcements to arrive.

Quote
3)  Fixed defenses eventually fall.  Ask the french in WWII. 
No one builds them expecting them to survive. They're meant to be a sponge for the opponent's military strength. Both the US and the USSR built mountain fortresses during the Cold War. They were meant to suck up ICBMs and thus reduce how many could be used on other targets, not invincible fortresses.

The border is mined to all hell for a reason.

Quote
4)  A side effect of endless COINops, Canadian doctrine for urban fighting has evolved into something to which destroys the garrison advantage of defending forces.  I would suspect the american's doctrine to be on par at the bare minimum, if not supreme as they have had more hands on through two nations, as opposed to the hottest province of one.
Quote
NK would not be able to invade SK without Chinese assistance.
See B. I fail to see how they couldn't overwhelm the initial defense forces. I mean, Seoul is right fucking there.

We have a bad habit in the US of assuming that the Korean War was exactly like the Vietnam War but a little earlier and somehow or another we won that one.
Most people barely know anything about the Korean War. It was actually extremely unpopular at the time and calling it a victory rather than a stalemate is a tad silly.

Any invasion of NK is always going to come down to three things:

1) Food
2) China's involvement
3) Just how effective is that state-issued brainwashing anyway?
4) US and allied forces going into a meat grinder not seen since Vietnam.
I mean I suppose that could be implied but no one's mentioned it.

Also NK has stores of chemical weapons. :victory:

No, seriously, they will have to invade SK, implode into civil war, or actually attack something before we do anything. Or have anything resembling popular/geopolitical support, for that matter.

The North Korean leadership probably values being de facto gods of their little country. So beyond sword-rattling to keep an external pressure on the populace* I doubt they'll do anything too risky.

*Iran does/did this too but the two countries aren't even remotely comparable.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 25, 2009, 06:22:18 AM
Maybe the chassis is, but they've been packing that thing with the latest tech since the beginning. 

True, even the T54/T55 have been upgraded to achieve non-irrelevant battle capabilities in modern times (they still roll over and die to modern armour, but in the hands of a skilled force could still provide an adequate infantry backup... of course any country with the wherewithal to train troops to do that is also smart enough to not be using half-century-old tanks, regardless of how upgraded they are).
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 25, 2009, 06:42:05 AM
See B. I fail to see how they couldn't overwhelm the initial defense forces. I mean, Seoul is right fucking there.

Don't forget that SK doesn't exactly take that threat lying down. They are a modern and relatively prosperous state (10th largest economy in the world) with a decently strong and substantially-sized military of their own (650,000 active and 3,000,000 reserve, with the fifteenth largest defense budget in the world according to most quoted figures I've seen). They also have about double the population of NK, for what that's worth.

I couldn't say what morale would look like for an invasion North, but at the very least they too will defend their own. And SK's technology and equipment is unquestionably superior to the North's. In a knock-down drag-out fight just between the two Koreas with no outside involvement, I would still bet on South Korea. 

Any invasion of NK is always going to come down to three things:

1) Food
2) China's involvement
3) Just how effective is that state-issued brainwashing anyway?
4) US and allied forces going into a meat grinder not seen since Vietnam.
I mean I suppose that could be implied but no one's mentioned it.

1) While the NK military does get preferential rationing, it's an open question as to how long they could sustain themselves when cut off from the world entirely and as to just how much civilian death they (or the west) will tolerate. I think we can all agree that no war will be taking place unless China has abandoned them.

4) Certainly possible, but not assured. I think 1) 2) and even 3) are all relevant determining factors there and that actually stating 4) straight out is kind of redundant. If the average NK soldier can be convinced to give up quite easily, then there's a chance for the meat grinder to be avoided. It's REALLY hard to predict this kind of thing in advance though, see: Iraq War I (they will resist bitterly!), Iraq War II (We can do this with three guys and a jeep!), etc. Call it wishy-washy arguing if you will, but I refuse to call anything a certainty here.

Quote
Also NK has stores of chemical weapons. :victory:

Assuming they work, this is pretty relevant, yeah.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Doom on June 25, 2009, 10:17:39 AM
Quote
Navy Stuff

Most modern surface battleships are horrendously outdated for practical use. Sending them towards NK is a death sentence. It's something like "it's easier to send 100 jerks with missiles on fishing boats out than it is to gun down those 100 jerks and they're going to blow up a target 10,000 times their own value."

Quote
4) US and allied forces going into a meat grinder not seen since Vietnam.

This this this. If you thought public support faded quickly for Iraq.. the first few media reports of anything but absolute victory would cause torturous sways of public opinion.

Quote
Iraq War I (they will resist bitterly!), Iraq War II (We can do this with three guys and a jeep!)

Wasn't this the other way around? Iraq War I was dudes surrendering to camera crews while kicking Saddam in the junk and boogie out, Iraq War II was three guys and a jeep busting into Baghdad, then getting blown to smithereens over too many years and counting because Guerilla War?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Kashan on June 25, 2009, 10:24:45 AM
Wasn't this the other way around? Iraq War I was dudes surrendering to camera crews while kicking Saddam in the junk and boogie out, Iraq War II was three guys and a jeep busting into Baghdad, then getting blown to smithereens over too many years and counting because Guerilla War?

I can't tell whether you're being serious, but the quote was obviously about the contrast between the predictions of how the wars would turn out and how the wars actually turned out as an example of it being difficult to tell how easily the other side will give up.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Doom on June 25, 2009, 10:28:13 AM
Oh, my bad. Thanks much.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on June 25, 2009, 10:43:17 AM
We interrupt this otherwise intelligent discussion to bring you a goofy news update: a no-doubt state-staged 100,000 strong anti-US rally in North Korea!

Quote from: Yahoo durrr
SEOUL, South Korea — Punching their fists into the air and shouting "Let's crush them!" some 100,000 North Koreans packed Pyongyang's main square Thursday for an anti-U.S. rally as the communist regime promised a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" for any American-led attack.

Several demonstrators held up a placard depicting a pair of hands smashing a missile with "U.S." written on it, according to footage taken by APTN in Pyongyang on the anniversary of the day North Korean troops charged southward, sparking the three-year Korean War in 1950.

North Korean troops will respond to any sanctions or U.S. provocations with "an annihilating blow," one senior official vowed — a pointed threat as an American destroyer shadowed a North Korean freighter sailing off China's coast, possibly with banned goods on board.

...

Quote from: A country with zero economy that can barely keep themselves fed
"Let's crush them!"
"fire shower of nuclear retaliation" for any American-led attack... on the anniversary of the day North Korean troops charged southward, sparking the three-year Korean War in 1950.
"an annihilating blow..."

(http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m78/yoji_00/pffflol.jpg)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 25, 2009, 12:31:28 PM
At this point I actually want them to board that damn ship and call their bluff.

If they don't, it makes most everything done to NK under the auspices of the UN worthless. If the US is too fearful to even inspect a single ship as per the lastest (watered-down) UN Directive, then I think we can all expect that NK is pretty much going to get it's way on everything forever, or at least until they drive China round the twist.

Sure, we all participate in a collective fiction where they bully us and ruin the lives of their own people for maximum personal benefit, but the world needs to do a little pushing back, to show these jokers where the boundaries are.

And if in the end it turns out that they are willing to decare war over that one ship, then the NK leadership is actually a lot less stable and sane than they've been suspected of being, so might as well get the inevitable over with.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on June 25, 2009, 04:13:51 PM
The only thing that could make this any more perfect is if Franz Ferdinand was playing in Pearl Harbour for the 4th of July festivals.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on June 25, 2009, 04:43:06 PM
Quote
4) US and allied forces going into a meat grinder not seen since Vietnam.

This is the funniest thing I've ever read.  Seriously, good laugh, guys.  Americans can steamroll North Korea, just like we took Baghdad.  It wouldn't be guerrilla style fighting like Vietnam, and it wouldn't be neighboring insurgencies like Iraq.  None of North Korea's neighbors are particularly looking to get into that region to start sectarian violence.

The biggest problem in starting a war with North Korea at this point is the initial damage they could do to South Korea.  And it'd have to be a surprise attack, because if the South could mobilize at all the North would be done for before they had the time to hit the switch.  Sure, they have huge numbers but they couldn't fight a multi-faceted war by any stretch of the imagination.

Robert Koehler's article about the military aspects of both sides (http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/06/21/south-korea-would-win-war-with-north/) is a good read.


Also, all that bluster about "fire shower of nuclear retaliation" and "wiping America off the map" is shit North Korea says all the time.  It's less about provoking the US to do anything and more about just making themselves feel good.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Transportation on June 25, 2009, 07:33:24 PM
Quote
4) US and allied forces going into a meat grinder not seen since Vietnam.
This is the funniest thing I've ever read.  Seriously, good laugh, guys.
Well, we haven't really seen any scary wars since Vietnam, so it's not really hard to put a "not seen since" there.

Quote
Americans can steamroll North Korea, just like we took Baghdad.
...North Korea's weaponry is in a much finer state than Iraq's. They didn't fight a war a decade ago and are autarkic enough that their military is maintainable with or without most sanctions. I mean, most of it's going to be bombed but they've been building in bunkers and mountains and all over the place. It's what most of their budget is for.

Quote
It wouldn't be guerrilla style fighting like Vietnam
Why not? The current power structure has a vested interest in the current regime and ceding North Korea to NATO+ would be stupid beyond belief for China or Russia.

I suppose the only real way they'd be completely alienated is if a nuke was tracked back to them. And even then you'd have hardliners who think they can regain power by outlasting the Coalition (probably everyone with an army if the reason was nuclear) in an occupation. They wouldn't have foreign support in this case, but I'm sure they could live off ammunition reserves long enough to have a favorable post-war government. Maybe.

Frankly, toppling a government like the eternally militarized NK right next to an industrialized SK is unprecedented and would not exactly be easy to contain either. I'm not saying they'll win or anything but this article make it seem like a walk in the park.

Quote
The biggest problem in starting a war with North Korea at this point is the initial damage they could do to South Korea.  And it'd have to be a surprise attack, because if the South could mobilize at all the North would be done for before they had the time to hit the switch.  Sure, they have huge numbers but they couldn't fight a multi-faceted war by any stretch of the imagination.
Why wouldn't they be the first to strike? Any invasion scenario involves having them already attacked something or other. They'll be firing first. That's the whole point of all that artillery and thus wipe out industry/military/command areas and throw the South Koreans into disarray.

I think they're getting around to moving their capital elsewhere but moving all their command structures around will take some time.

Quote
Robert Koehler's article about the military aspects of both sides (http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/06/21/south-korea-would-win-war-with-north/) is a good read.
That budget figure on the bottom is rather misleading from, well, every possible standpoint. NK doesn't publish reliable figures and currency conversions are pointless for a society that intentionally isolates itself from the international market. And outdated doesn't mean useless as the article is implying.

tl;dr Humanitarian disaster in a control with an abundance of weapons. I can't really see that as being simple, hence the meat grinder comment.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on June 27, 2009, 11:55:38 PM
It's not Afghanis-tan (or even with any real topic), but hey.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on June 30, 2009, 12:11:15 PM
I guess someone on board misbehaved since they turned the boat around. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090630/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_nkorea_ship) In seriousness, I wonder if they're just throwing us for a loop here.

Quote from: some senior administration official who's been tracking this stupid pleasure cruise
The whole thing just doesn’t add up. My worry is that we make a big demand about seeing the cargo, and then there’s a tense standoff, and when it’s all over we discover that old man Kim set us up to look like George Bush searching for nonexistent W.M.D.

Granted, this the Kingdom of Batshittia North Korea we're dealing with, but one of the dumbest things you can do is underestimate someone. I wouldn't be surprised if this was some kind of hand-waving, but it's not like this has distracted us from their planned fart in Hawaii's general direction or those journalists they arrested earlier.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on June 30, 2009, 12:36:02 PM
Well, there are a lot of reasons that might have heappened. It might even be the case that the intended recipient wasn't happy about the heat that the Kang Nam was bringing to their doorstep, so perhaps they cancelled their order.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on July 07, 2009, 10:28:57 AM
So.

Our Blow Shit Up Day has come and gone.

Why hasn't Mr. Kim Jong Il given us his fireworks?  He's late.  IF there's anything I hate, it's tardiness.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on July 07, 2009, 10:48:10 AM
I thought they spat a salvo of seven missiles a few hundred kilometers off the eastern coast... for freedom and Juche or something.

Who knows, maybe they're running behind trying to make more duct tape to keep their rockets together.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on July 07, 2009, 12:01:49 PM
I'm a fan of orange juche, myself.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on July 30, 2009, 12:05:52 PM
I guess the world must not be paying enough attention to the North, seeing as they flipped out and kidnapped another band of innocents (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJaGkz8yS9KE) for "outrageous transgressions" or whatever. I haven't been keeping up with it these days.

So, with Congress taking a break in August to dodge health care reform, can we take an afternoon to sanction Cadillac imports to the North? That should get Li'l Kim's attention.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Kazz on July 30, 2009, 03:52:09 PM
Kim Jong-Il learned a valuable lesson from the Iraq conflict:

Nothing is more lucrative than losing a war to America.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on July 30, 2009, 04:33:47 PM
That's been common knowledge for at least half a century. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on July 31, 2009, 07:45:44 AM
Oh fuck, I must read that.

Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on August 02, 2009, 11:21:34 AM
Oh man...

Triple bonus score for invoking The Mouse That Roared.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on August 02, 2009, 12:23:19 PM
I concur on this one hard.  It's been my obsession for the last three days to find it and buy it.

It's on order now.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Classic on August 21, 2009, 01:03:01 PM
I got a copy used for less than $1... :nyoro~n:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on September 02, 2009, 09:49:23 AM
As I suspected (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090902/ap_on_re_us/us_nkorea_journalists_freed). The reporters crossed over an ill-defined border for less than a minute, went back onto Chinese soil, and were captured by troops who marched over said quasi-border into China to capture them.

I'm starting to suspect that these "hostile acts" the North asserts they committed might be nothing more than being foreign and within the proximity of starving guards looking to earn a bigger ration.

So, the moral of today's story is: IN THE NAME OF THE MAKER, DON'T EVEN GO NEAR NORTH KOREA, THOSE GUYS ARE CRAZY :ohshi~:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on September 02, 2009, 10:22:17 AM
Obviously the reporters keyed the NK troops' jeeps before they left.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on September 05, 2009, 08:30:43 AM
Highly illuminative and detailed travelogue through NK (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/inside-north-korea-will-these-people-see-change/article1276923/).

While things are still embarssingly abysmal, it's nice to see the truism that the more extreme things get, the more they tend to collapse under the collective weight of their own absurdities.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on September 12, 2009, 02:58:59 PM
Quote from: Time Magazine, dated 21 SEP 2009
HIGH WATER, RISING TENSIONS -- North Korea marked its 61st anniversary Sept. 9 by vowing to "mercilessly annihilate the US imperialists" in response to any aggression, just days after Pyongyang announced its continued pursuit of a uranium-enrichment program.  The hermit state also opened a dam on the Imjin River without warning on Sept. 6, sending 40 million tons of water across the border into South Korea, where six people were swept away.  Seoul has demanded an apology, calling the North's excuses for releasing the water "not acceptable."

They see me trollin', they hatin'...
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on October 18, 2009, 10:49:45 AM
This vice guide to North Korea (http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3)

This is a pretty funky 20-min travel guide of what the place looks like.

EDIT:  it's actually 60 minutes.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Kazz on October 18, 2009, 11:15:13 AM
Actually it is split into 3 parts.  It is an hour total.

This is required viewing for everybody, ever.

You know, after I watch a zombie movie, I get this feeling of relief like "Man, I'm glad the world isn't like that, and people are all thinking and feeling and behaving normally and I can interact with anyone."

I totally got that feeling after watching this.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on October 18, 2009, 12:46:44 PM
Wait what? Vice magazine did something useful?

 :wat:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on October 18, 2009, 05:02:40 PM
I really think that's the greatest concentration of  publicly available video humint on the DPRK at this point.  .

They did do something useful- good dog, here's your biscuit!
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on October 18, 2009, 05:21:53 PM
"Abbey Road... I understand those bastards now!"

Someone fucking rescue The Tea Girl.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on October 18, 2009, 05:32:02 PM
Honestly?  I think the tea girl has the best gig in the whole country.  They actually give her enough money to be fit and afford makeup!
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Kazz on October 19, 2009, 05:27:26 AM
If North Korea opened trade with the rest of the world, their primary export would be empty chairs.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on October 19, 2009, 10:26:35 AM
What the fuck is the point of the Barrage? Did they build it for the express purpose of causing floods and famine?

Best part was the monuments filled with dynamite.

MICHEAL BAY

PRESENTS

THE DMZ

(monuments explode. a lot.)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on October 19, 2009, 10:30:04 AM
By RPGs launched by US Soldiers.

And then he does a tribute shot of the Iwo Jima flag.

Then the hill that they plant the flag on explodes.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on October 19, 2009, 10:32:19 AM
Quote
By RPGs launched by US imperialists
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on October 19, 2009, 10:33:26 AM
One day, peaceful, enlightened aliens are going to land on accident in North Korea, and the results will be comedic
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on October 19, 2009, 11:01:38 AM
at least until the peaceful, enlightened aliens decide that the human race is too sick to live and blasts us from the face of the galaxy.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on October 19, 2009, 12:38:51 PM
no that's what would happen if they landed in canada
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on October 19, 2009, 05:42:48 PM
The Barrage is a lock system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nampho_Dam) like the Panama Canal, with the intended side effects of preserving the fresh water supply and facilitating irrigation.

It has completely fucked up on those second two points.

Stuff like this is why it's really weird to look at the country, since it's hard to take them seriously even when you watch and see shit like HUGE STANDING ARMY THAT'S TRAINED AND CONDITIONED TO MURDER YOU.  You still wonder if their guns can even fire straight.

It's not that North Koreans are incompetent - not even close - but it's a sad example of what happens when a nation completely isolates itself while trying to maintain a modern infrastructure.  Without a healthy influx of information from the rest of the world they basically have no way of knowing what the hell they're supposed to be doing.

Living in North Korea is like living in the post-apocalypse.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Kazz on October 19, 2009, 05:47:21 PM
Craziest thing was that the country was full of excellent performers and amazing spectacles that the rest of the world is never allowed to see.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on October 19, 2009, 06:07:52 PM
Quote
Living in North Korea is like living in the post-apocalypse.

stop it, now i want to go there
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on October 19, 2009, 07:31:05 PM
I always thought it was like some retarded, broken version of Airstrip One. It's got all the totalitarianism, the bravado and back-patting of the mass games, and the total erasure of the dissidents, but... I don't know how to describe it. None of the competence, I think. It's not like 1984's Oceania that stands as a global superpower you'd be insane to dismiss, but more like some illiterate redneck neighbor who only appears to wave his shotgun around on the front porch and begrudgingly accept money he wastes on beer.

You still wonder if their guns can even fire straight.

If they don't, you can't really blame it on their guns; a quick Wiki says their small arms are almost entirely Russian or Chinese-made. They've got familiar faces like the AK and Dragonov, as well as weird shit like this that looks like it was found in a Fallout dumpster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPD).
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: SCD on October 19, 2009, 08:35:51 PM
Brentai:  or we could ignore the fact that they are armed at the infantry level to soviet military style specifications ( see "how to make war" + other factors in how assaults are carried out) and jump straight for the statistic that's common to all modern wars.

Most death and main comes from shrapnel. 

We got the Mk-19's!

We're good!
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: The Artist Formerly Known As Yoji on November 02, 2009, 03:16:29 PM
Oh, Li'l Kim! That'd be just like you! (http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/10/analyst_says_bill_clinton_met.html) (Bill Clinton may have possibly met with Kim Jong Ill double during his heroic, Rambo-esque raid)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on November 08, 2009, 05:26:15 PM
South Korean woman passes driving test on 950th try (http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/2009/11/jeonju-woman-passes-drivers-exam-on.html)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on May 07, 2010, 07:53:25 PM
Kim Jong Il possibly less batshit insane these days. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703338004575229673261187434.html?mod=wsj_india_main)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Esperath on May 07, 2010, 09:05:00 PM
If by less batshit insane, you mean "have nuclear talks, receive billions in aid in return for a pledge to stop refining radioactive ores, break said promise after receiving aid, and then start the entire cycle again," then sure.

Actually, that's not insane at all.  That's brilliant.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on May 08, 2010, 07:08:44 AM
Er, this is because he's broke.

Last week, Kim traveled to China, cap in hand (again), to grovel for more money. China's exasperated leaders agreed like they always do, but a huge condition was a return to the six-nation talks, as well as who-knows-what other concessions.

So yeah, not sanity (other than the pragmatic sanity of self-preservation)... just some arm-twisting.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Detonator on May 08, 2010, 12:46:07 PM
So yeah, not sanity (other than the pragmatic sanity of self-preservation)

That definitely seems like a step up, really.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on May 08, 2010, 06:54:52 PM
Well if anything will get Kim's attention, it's something that'll actually affect the flow of luxury goods to his palaces.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on July 13, 2010, 07:06:45 PM
South Korea deploys killer robots along the border (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/southkorea/7887217/South-Korea-deploys-robot-capable-of-killing-intruders-along-border-with-North.html)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on July 13, 2010, 07:09:42 PM
Well that's to be expecWAIT SOUTH?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on July 13, 2010, 07:14:13 PM
I can only assume that it will hurt North/South relations.

Lost amongst all the bravado and crazy of the North is that South is also engaged in hating the other side.  It's just that the North are so much better at it.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on July 22, 2010, 08:22:52 AM
Also, South Korea has decided to start making citizens pay for the sins of their fathers. (http://www.japanprobe.com/2010/07/16/south-korea-punishes-people-for-ancestors-crimes/)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on September 30, 2010, 04:11:08 PM
It's official: the youngest son has been named heir.

That usually works out okay, right?
Title: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on November 23, 2010, 06:53:11 AM
So!  How about that North Korea (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/23/nkorea.skorea.military.fire/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1)?
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Shinra on November 23, 2010, 07:12:10 AM
Apparently, Kim Jong Il's finally reached the point where he's too sick to run the country, speculation is that his son, Kim Jong Un is responsible for this outing. If this is how the new administration is going to respond to things, I suspect North Korea's time as an independent nation is coming to a close. Say what you want about the Illster, he knew how to work the system. NK has never had much in the way of resources, technology, or money. By being just crazy enough to make the world think NK was dangerous, he could leverage trade negotiations, leverage the lifting of sanctions, etc, etc, without actually opening himself up to getting flicked off the proverbial shoulder like the tiny fly NK is.

I suspect Un probably thinks too highly of NK's position in the China/NK alliance and thinks that if they go to war with SK, China will swoop in to save them from the inevitable, overwhelming counterattack from SK's many allies. Given that China is already putting their hands up and saying shit like 'Both sides need to work harder on peace negotiations' while the rest of the world is literally telling NK they will burn their shit to the ground if they try anything, it's pretty obvious how this is going to go.

The biggest economic superpower in the world is not going to set their massive piles of money on fire to save a nation of backwards dirtfarmers from a fight they picked for no reason.
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Mongrel on November 23, 2010, 07:19:37 AM
I suspect a few advisors will grab him by the neck if he think of anything again.

Unless he's already MAD WITH POWER.

Normally I'm loath to suggest that any state declare war on another purely for social improvement. The loss of life and massive disruption usually outweighs the benefits of any change in government. Even Iraq wasn't badly enough off that invasion was morally justifiable on the basis of "we must save them from their government".

But the people in NK live so perpetually close to ruination and death that I find it hard to hope for anything but their government being stupid enough to finally resume the war. Hell, if SK is lucky enough, it'll be more like a massive aid mission than outright combat (for god's sake, something like less than 50% of the NK military even has rifles, let alone anything needed to fight a fully modern force like SK's) - though I'm not stupid enough to actually predict that would be the case. It's an open question as to how much of the population is Juche-loopy.
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on November 23, 2010, 07:25:05 AM
It's more likely and probably better for everyone involved that NK will fall apart on it's own.  It's just that it CAN'T HAPPEN SOON ENOUGH.  Like, 50 some-odd years ago.  >:(
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Shinra on November 23, 2010, 07:30:36 AM
I honestly think that the NK military leadership is deluded enough that they think they can take and hold the south without the international community destroying them. Considering that the country is run purely on propaganda, it's really hard to say just how aware of things NK leadership is. Obviously Kim Jong Il knew that they were a gnat on the proverbial backside of the world, but who's to say that the younger war-hawks in his military administration did?

It's really hard to say how this is going to play out, but I think that ultimately, whatever happens will (at least immediately, if not in the long term) probably be very bad for the people of Korea if they don't manage to come to any kind of peace agreement quickly.

The biggest question I have is, in the event of a real war here, do we have a massive insurgency from all the people being brainwashed by propaganda over the years, or do the people of NK rise up and help overthrow the government when they realize an end is in sight?
 
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Mongrel on November 23, 2010, 07:31:37 AM
See though, they almost fell apart happen several times already (each time the country almost starved to death).

Only the government didn't come even remotely close to falling. Nobody outside the bubble was really comfortable with letting the entire population of NK die off, so they sent massive food aid.

Some countries have authoritarian systems that are so strong it will take hundreds of years for them to fall naturally. As long as you can live with that, then sure, there's not much of a case for war.
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Mongrel on November 23, 2010, 07:34:45 AM
EDIT by way of post: I wonder if the best analogy here for the NK government is that of a dealer who becomes unhinged after getting hooked on their own shit (Juche).
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Thad on November 23, 2010, 08:01:51 AM
We already have a North Korea thread.

Somebody care to splitmerge?  The Merge Topics link is blocked by Websense for being a game site.
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Pacobird on November 23, 2010, 09:03:19 AM
You all are kind of underestimating the NK military here.  We are talking about the 5th (4th?) largest military in the world, whose troops, perhaps more importantly, come from a region that by all appearances resembles a cult more than a country.

In general you want to try to avoid a military confrontation here not necessarily because you'll straight up lose but because victory will be so phenomenally costly that you'll forget why it was you bothered.
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Büge on November 23, 2010, 09:22:38 AM
Yeah, we're looking at the destruction of Seoul, at the very least.

Welcome to North Korea by Peter Tetteroo and Raymond Feddema / Documentary Educational Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6E3cShcVU#)
Title: Re: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Mongrel on November 23, 2010, 09:37:58 AM
The problem is that yes, you can wage war without modern equipment - I don't think we need to discuss terrorism - but due to ideology, the North would almost certainly seek to wage a conventional war of equals, for which they would be woefully unequipped. I suspect victory would be costly in terms of massive life loss, but that most of the loss would be Northern. I would expect a lot of human-wave type stuff, yes.

It is worthwhile to recall the potential threat of nuclear strikes, though it's anyone's guess as to how crazy things will get there. It's also worth questioning how many days the North Korean army would be able to feed itself before starving or running out of bullets.

Anyway, it's certainly worth pointing out that chances are high that sooner or later some North Korean in a leadership position will order something they cannot take back. Such is the danger of living in the echo chamber - even for the leadership. So unlike most dictatorial regimes, you cannot always count on a pragmatic sense of self-preservation to keep the peace. Not that that's an excuse for SK or the US to become an aggressor.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 23, 2010, 10:50:19 AM
I just remembered one fairly important point I had forgotten earlier: Although a sensible person might find the actual nuclear capabilities of NK in a real war to be a debatable point, it's worth remembering they also have the world's third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons. While a whole pile of that stuff may be well beyond use, you can't discount that threat at all.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on November 23, 2010, 11:04:28 AM
The chemical weapons are definitely an issue, but NK apparently still has no delivery vehicle for a nuke.

The issue isn't that they can win a war with the south, because they can't, but how much damage they would do.  Taking the fight into NK would be a nightmare, on the other hand.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on November 23, 2010, 11:18:21 AM
You all are kind of underestimating the NK military here.  We are talking about the 5th (4th?) largest military in the world, whose troops, perhaps more importantly, come from a region that by all appearances resembles a cult more than a country.

In general you want to try to avoid a military confrontation here not necessarily because you'll straight up lose but because victory will be so phenomenally costly that you'll forget why it was you bothered.

Having a huge military is only impressive when half of your army's job isn't 'be the guy who holds a few rounds of ammunition so you can pick up your buddy's gun when he dies'
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 23, 2010, 11:54:14 AM
Taking the fight into NK would be a nightmare, on the other hand.

They might not destroy Seoul, but Buge's point isn't unwarranted - Seoul is damn close to the border. The South Koreans would have absolutely zero option but to push north as hard and as far as they can, while doing their best to bomb missile sites as hard and as fast as they can. It's the only way to have a half-decent shot as making sure the South's civilian population is somewhat protected.

I learned something interesting today. While I knew that NK's Air Force is largely made up of obsolete planes (their combat aircraft are a handful of no-frills MiG-29's, with little in the way of fuel or spare parts), the real problem with NK's air force is that they're so afraid of defections that North Korean combat pilots are only allowed to log seven hours of flight time.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: François on November 23, 2010, 11:58:06 AM
If I was an evil son-of-a-bitch in charge of NK's military I would fill every orifice of these planes with chemical weapons and send them on kamikaze runs.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: inyandep on November 23, 2010, 12:02:50 PM
Having a huge military is only impressive when half of your army's job isn't 'be the guy who holds a few rounds of ammunition so you can pick up your buddy's gun when he dies'
hence, why stalingrad was a major coup for the germans

oh no wait i completely forgot your point, maybe you didn't have one

and please don't act like it's all mother russia/general winter; most of NK is probably similar to renaissance europe technologically these days. ever see a tank drive down a swampy road in spring? no, you don't, because it doesn't. get it
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on November 23, 2010, 12:21:42 PM
Russia was, theoretically speaking, still on equal footing, technologically with the rest of the world.

North Koreans are using russian surplus and shoddily made chinese firearms, mixed with world war II rifles. They are decades behind the rest of the world. It is not an exaggeration to say that the north korean military is a God Damn Joke, whose ONLY advantage is numbers.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on November 23, 2010, 04:28:28 PM
The problem may be less what the North Koreans can do but what the UN and US will do in response.  Remember that the first and last nuclear bombing in history was enacted to keep an east Asian societying from literally kamimazeing itself to extinction.  God knows what could happen this time.

Then there's the last Korean War, aka "Vietnam before Vietnam was Vietnam".  The First Biggest Blunder in the Book is in that position for a reason.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: patito on November 23, 2010, 05:42:25 PM
As someone mentioned earlier int he news, North Korean artillery emplacements are pretty hard to hit and generally well made, plus they are aiming directly at Seoul, so yeah, going to war with North Korea means that Seoul would probably go down in about a day. This doesn't mean they would win a war, just that they would do a lot of damage before they are taken down. So yeah, even if they aren't the most modern military the South really wouldn't be in good shape after fighting them. You people forget that even a shoddy rifle can be very dangerous when it's being wielded by the country next door.

Speculation is that they are only doing this to get attention so peace negotiations are resumed and they can have something to bargain with.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 23, 2010, 05:47:10 PM
I think, when it comes to North Korea, my main fear is that a full-scale war on the Korean peninsula is probably inevitable, simply due to the fact that they've been huffing their own fumes for years.

When I say I hope NK to launches an attack, it's not because I gleefully want to see explosions or want to dance on the regime's grave. I just want them to get the hell on with it and get it out of the way.

Also, if I were O-Dawg, I would be damn well calling SK and China and asking them "So what do we do if these guys really do go on tilt to the point SK simply can't hold back any longer?". Because letting a hot war start on China's immediate land border is bad news on a scale I don't care to contemplate.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on November 23, 2010, 09:26:16 PM
The Merge Topics link is blocked by Websense for being a game site.

Wait, is this something that only started happening AFTER the word "game" stopped being in the URL?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Thad on November 23, 2010, 09:54:15 PM
The Merge Topics link is blocked by Websense for being a game site.

Wait, is this something that only started happening AFTER the word "game" stopped being in the URL?

The whole site was blocked back then.  Now it's just bizarre, seemingly arbitrary bits and pieces.  Like most days I can't open up the index but I can pull up individual sub-boards.  And sometimes the Media board is blocked as a streaming media site.  And that one time I tried to split the Mega Man thread with the porn link in it and the Split page returned an error for Adult Content (but the thread itself didn't).

Point is, Websense is stupid.  It made international news about a year ago when it blocked the entirety of cisco.com as a hacking site.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Dooly on November 23, 2010, 10:47:02 PM
Maybe you should stop browsing forums from work.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: NexAdruin on November 24, 2010, 02:53:33 AM
I think, when it comes to North Korea, my main fear is that a full-scale war on the Korean peninsula is probably inevitable, simply due to the fact that they've been huffing their own fumes for years.

When I say I hope NK to launches an attack, it's not because I gleefully want to see explosions or want to dance on the regime's grave. I just want them to get the hell on with it and get it out of the way.

Also, if I were O-Dawg, I would be damn well calling SK and China and asking them "So what do we do if these guys really do go on tilt to the point SK simply can't hold back any longer?". Because letting a hot war start on China's immediate land border is bad news on a scale I don't care to contemplate.

It's my understanding that China has been urging North Korea to knock it the hell off for quite some time now, and don't know how to respond to this situation any more than we do. Convincing China to drop all stakes in North Korea wouldn't be hard, would make any war against North Korea easier, and would keep China from declaring war on the USA.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Saturn on November 24, 2010, 02:57:18 AM
Also, if I were O-Dawg, I would be damn well calling SK and China and asking them "So what do we do if these guys really do go on tilt to the point SK simply can't hold back any longer?". Because letting a hot war start on China's immediate land border is bad news on a scale I don't care to contemplate.

Yeah, having a repeat of October 1950 (when china decided to get involved) would be the absolute worst possible thing (HELLO WORLD WAR III)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 24, 2010, 07:12:23 AM
Well, for all we know that phone call has already taken place, but there's a part of me that suspects it may only happen now, in the wake of this artillery barrage.

It helps to remember WHY NK is a nominal ally of the Chinese: as a buffer state against a strong US ally on their direct border.

The loss of NK to SK would be a blow to China, no doubt about it. The main issue is that the US is allied so strongly to the US that their involvement in any shooting war is a flat given. But this may make China EXTREMELY uncomfortable (hell, I'm sure even SK going it alone would make them pretty upset already).

The main issue here is China's veto at the Security Council. If it comes down to a provocation so strong that SK must respond or face mass domestic unrest, then they may go to war regardless (or at least up the stakes with an Israeli-style massive retaliation). I'm pretty sure any such retaliation would need to be approved through the UN Security Council, and there's simply no guarantee that China would abstain (I'd doubt they'd actually vote for it). China's building ties with all kinds of governments in distress, so throwing one of them under the bus might still look bad. If they don't let SK respond, and SK decides it has to, regardless of whether or not it's been sanctioned by the UNSC, things could get really "interesting".

I guess it would all depend on exactly how crazy NK got and what it decides to do. Like if NK dropped a nuke on someone, obviously nobody would defend them, but that's just the extreme end of a fairly long sliding scale.

It's also worth pointing out that Japan's response is pretty important. They're quite worried about NK missile attacks and are the other large power in the region (and another US ally). If both Japan and SK start calling for an attack or full-scale war, China may begin to feel isolated and start getting funny about things.

So reaching out early - well before there's a Sarajevo 1914 moment, where one crazy idiot determines the course for all of us - is crucial. I pray SOMEBODY has the wisdom to do so.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on November 24, 2010, 07:57:36 AM
All this talk about how we could crush NK and just roll in and takeover sure does remind me of 2002.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 24, 2010, 08:07:19 AM
I don't think anyone would assume that killing or capturing one million fanatics is a cakewalk - no matter how unarmed/underarmed they are are.

Well, I HOPE no one's making that assumption.

EDIT: Luckily, the decision to invade NK will ultimately rest with the Government and people of South Korea, rather than the United States Congress.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: NexAdruin on November 24, 2010, 08:11:08 AM
All this talk about how we could crush NK and just roll in and takeover sure does remind me of 2002.

That's assuming we're out to conquer and not destroy.

Personally, I'd prefer destroy.

But I'm batshit insane.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Ted Belmont on November 24, 2010, 09:46:37 AM
I don't think anyone would assume that killing or capturing one million fanatics is a cakewalk - no matter how unarmed/underarmed they are are.

Well, I HOPE no one's making that assumption.

EDIT: Luckily, the decision to invade NK will ultimately rest with the Government and people of South Korea, rather than the United States Congress.

:lol:

EDIT: is that seriously the lol emoticon?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 24, 2010, 09:49:58 AM
Yeah, that was the original one. The animated one we got afterwards was disappeared in the Great Forum Software Update.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on November 24, 2010, 09:53:10 AM
I really don't think China sees the US as a military threat anymore though.  Economic, yes, sociopolitical, yes, but now that they've finally grasped how capitalism works they seem to realize that, as long as you don't go around shouting threats like their wayward stephchild, the West will do everything possible to avoid a military confrontation.  It's just bad business.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 24, 2010, 10:07:48 AM
It's not that they think the US will attack them or anything. It's that nations have a sense of personal space same as individuals do. Maybe not the whole thing, but at least the bits directly adjacent (lol, Tibet). It's the same reason Russia was uncomfortable with US missile bases in Poland or western "meddling" in the Ukraine.

They'd be very concerned in the same way the US would be 'concerned' if Mexico or Canada suddenly descended into full scale civil war*. And that kind of concern makes people antsy. It would be best for all concerned to avoid making a REAL world power 'antsy', if possible.

*Sorry, can't think of anyone relevant for the other NAFTA folks to have a purely theoretical war with. I mean, who's gonna invade them? Guatemala? Well, uh, besides the US anyway.

Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on November 24, 2010, 10:11:42 AM
As a country that's stripped itself of most natural resources and is the distance of the pacific ocean away, I'm pretty sure there are more pragmatic reasons China has for not invading us.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on November 24, 2010, 10:15:16 AM
All this talk about how we could crush NK and just roll in and takeover sure does remind me of 2002.

Yeah, but to what end? Iraq had oil fields. What are you going to do with North Korea, put up animation studios?

Yeah, that was the original one. The animated one we got afterwards was disappeared in the Great Forum Software Update.

I blame Frocto.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on November 24, 2010, 10:23:50 AM
As a country that's stripped itself of most natural resources and is the distance of the pacific ocean away, I'm pretty sure there are more pragmatic reasons China has for not invading us.

That is on the long shots as far as possibilities, yes.

That is not however an excuse for not taking China's opinions on a war on it's doorstep (with one of its allies, however nominal that alliance) into account.

All this talk about how we could crush NK and just roll in and takeover sure does remind me of 2002.

Yeah, but to what end? Iraq had oil fields. What are you going to do with North Korea, put up animation studios?

Yeah, I think just about everyone will agree that a war with NK is nothing but a river of pure unmitigated trouble, with no real benefit for anyone BUT the few North Koreans who would survive.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: inyandep on November 24, 2010, 02:11:04 PM
if we try to invade NK, it'll be just like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujtp-70zQME#)






right down to the child soldiers using cold war era equipment
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Thad on December 01, 2010, 10:31:52 AM
Maybe you should stop browsing forums from work.

What, and miss all the hilarious and nonsensical filter messages?

I can't access the Tax and Spend thread due to Adult Material.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: François on December 01, 2010, 10:43:53 AM
US leaks reveal China's frustration with N.Korea (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCpzzARlymM#noexternalembed)

(Oh, hmm, embedding is disabled. This is a short Agence France Presse video featuring a North Korea analyst from a Seoul university.)

Paraphrased for clarity:

Quote
They are not serious, I would say, because they did not reveal anything new. The attitude of China towards North Korea has been known for the last few years. The Chinese have been saying it privately a number of times, and here they didn't even make a great secret of it: they will probably support North Korea as long as it stays afloat, but once it hits a wall, once it goes down, they understand that there is no alternative to the unification under Seoul's control, and they are ready to accept it.

It's good news in that they're probably gonna drop NK like the steaming turd it is as soon as they figure it has no chance of winning, but there's still the question of what is it going to take to get there. Do they think it has a chance now?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on December 01, 2010, 12:06:16 PM
It's going to be almost distressing when NK rejoins the outside world.

"This...is Starcraft."

MIND.  BLOWN.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 01, 2010, 01:12:22 PM
Well, we'll see.

I'm actually quite glad to have a real confirmation that the Chinese have adopted a very sensible and pragmatic outlook here.

It was the likeliest scenario, and what a sensible person would hope for (well, beyond them actually applying active pressure to NK), but nothing's confirmed until it's confirmed - you know?

It's also interesting that pretty much everyone involved (except NK themselves) is operating under the assumption that NK will eventually collapse under its own weight. Not that that's a bad assumption to make.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on December 01, 2010, 08:44:30 PM
The only reason it hasn't already is because China has been supporting them.  If China stops doing that, game over.

The problem is that in this scenario NK will probably freak out and bomb everything in range trying to get somebody, anybody, to come in and attempt pacification.  China's less of an ally to North Korea and more the hand keeping pressure on the handle until a bomb squad arrives.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on December 02, 2010, 04:31:35 AM
My post is largely humorous, but it does hint at a major problem.  In the video that Buge linked, they say that NK has a population that has been deluded in to believing the hype and propaganda about the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung.  To force-feed them all red pills now would be dangerous as they discover that the world does not, in fact, revolve around The Great Leader.


EDIT: Thad, you're a preemptive genius. (http://www.corporate-sellout.com/gatrix/)


Microsoft Matrix Spoof (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86j8zOsmNFE#)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on December 02, 2010, 06:20:59 AM
My post is largely humorous, but it does hint at a major problem.  In the video that Buge linked, they say that NK has a population that has been deluded in to believing the hype and propaganda about the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung.  To force-feed them all red pills now would be dangerous as they discover that the world does not, in fact, revolve around The Great Leader.

Looking at that video made me realize that North Korea is probably the closest example to Nineteen-Eighty-Four we can get. We don't know if the people in that video actually believe the stuff they are saying or doing, but they appear to.

China's less of an ally to North Korea and more the hand keeping pressure on the handle until a bomb squad arrives.

Lethal Weapon (Toilet Bomb) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47_PSg28IL4#noexternalembed-ws)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on December 18, 2011, 07:32:48 PM
Dear Leader is dead.

Long live Dear Leader.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/18/world/asia/north-korea-leader-dead/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 (http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/18/world/asia/north-korea-leader-dead/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)
Title: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: on December 18, 2011, 07:36:22 PM
Kim Jong-Il (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16239693)

Crazy megalomanical psychopaths everywhere have lost their idol.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on December 18, 2011, 07:50:13 PM
Now what happens?
Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: Mongrel on December 18, 2011, 08:09:18 PM
Will I sound like Catloaf if I say I wish it had happened in a drainpipe?

EDIT: Wow, Vaclev Havel and Kim Jong Il on the same day. It's like some kind of freaky karmic polar inversion.
Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: on December 18, 2011, 08:13:05 PM
Not really, Kim Jogging was a complete unequivocal monster who deserves the slew of disrespect and jokes that are flooding the tubes right now.
Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: Mongrel on December 18, 2011, 08:22:14 PM
One of the more painful lessons history teaches is that sometimes the only thing you can do is wait around for somebody to die.

Stalin died in bed too, I suppose.
Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: Büge on December 18, 2011, 08:23:42 PM
But what now? Is his successor as pants-crapping insane as he was?
Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: Mongrel on December 18, 2011, 08:28:29 PM
His successor is among the more feckless and spineless of his sons and is rumoured to be a wastrel. He was kind of dragooned into the job after the older sons were deemed to be "Unsuitable" for various reasons.

At this point, we can hope for two things. Either his son will be crazy enough to actually force action (which is almost certain to turn out badly for everyone), or maybe he'll be a figurehead and the military will turn the country into a more conventional Junta (which would actually be an improvement from the lunatic land of Oz they've got now).

Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: Mongrel on December 18, 2011, 08:37:36 PM
The thing to remember is that he wasn't half so insane as is claimed - nor will his son be. They know what regular western living is like and are the worst kind of hedonists.

The thing is, they use the world's most lunatic repressive regime to maintain a luxurious lifestyle at the expense of millions of people, who are cowed through regular old force and coercion, but also through that loony ideology.

In it's own perverse way, it's very smart. Dictators are either toppled by prosperous neighbours (for reasons noble or ignoble), or by internal revolution. The thing about revolution is that there has to be some tiny breathing room to start. A spark of hope or a tiny space people can hide in (be it a metaphorical space to hide ideas, thoughts, or communications, or a real space to hide materiel, information, or people). The Kims know how to play their neighbours like a fiddle and have always oppressed so hard that literally nothing is possible in that wasteland of a state.

When you said earlier that that state is the closest anyone has ever come to a living incarnation of 1984, you basically had it perfect. And in that book, nuclear bombs falling is actually a note of hope.
Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: Brentai on December 18, 2011, 09:01:12 PM
Personally I give it about a month before China boots him off the chair and finally annexes the country.

They won't change any of how the place is run though.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on December 19, 2011, 02:52:16 AM
we get to find out how crazy the glorious leader's grandson is?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on December 19, 2011, 03:45:38 AM
Dude started his military career as a 4-star general.

Probably been drinking as much Kool-aid as anyone else in that country.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Zaratustra on December 19, 2011, 05:05:17 AM
"North Korea censors -their- internet and I don't hear them complaining!"
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on December 19, 2011, 05:12:11 AM
Most Koreans don't have electricity and think that Kim Il Sung was of divine origin.
Title: Re: Re: The new obituary thread
Post by: Royal☭ on December 19, 2011, 05:49:22 AM
Ha ha as if China gives a shit.


Also he's looking at the angels now (http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 19, 2011, 07:09:50 AM
Dude started his military career as a 4-star general.

Probably been drinking as much Kool-aid as anyone else in that country.

Rather than copy-pasting my stuff from the obit thread by way of reply, I'm just going to wait for Thad to move those posts here.

EDIT: For what it's worth, the single greatest sign the Kims were never drinking Kool-Aid is the fact that they conveniently never seem to get around to finishing that war (or starting others). If they were actually huffing their own fumes, they woulda gone nuts years ago.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on December 19, 2011, 11:51:29 AM
I've seen a lot of discussion about this today. The consensus right now is that if Kim Jong Un is not the incredible monster that his father is, he's probably going to get overthrown in a coup, with the most likely antagonist being his sister and her high ranking husband. If he is the same  incredible monster, expect him to kill his generals and shell south korea to make a point.

Expectations that things are going to change for the better in SK are pretty naive, though. The population does not want change (they have been brainwashed extremely effectively) and the government does not seem to be growing a conscience anytime soon.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on December 19, 2011, 12:55:43 PM
Expectations that things are going to change for the better in SK are pretty naive, though. The population does not want change (they have been brainwashed extremely effectively) and the government does not seem to be growing a conscience anytime soon.
Well, that's kinda what a sixty-year ceasefire does to you.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on December 19, 2011, 01:35:48 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/6jRn9.jpg)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Sharkey on December 19, 2011, 04:01:09 PM
(http://sharkey.gamespite.net/kim.jpg)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on December 19, 2011, 04:34:00 PM
North Korea is populated by an absolutely wasted people. They have been so indoctrinated that if you gave them freedom they'd probably mill about until a few of the braver of them started oppressing one another, and the oppressed would feel relief, because the world is right again.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 19, 2011, 06:27:12 PM
Decontamination in small batches has worked out okay (see the refugees who have escaped to China, SK, etc.).

I think maybe we don't give the North Korean people enough credit for knowing their country is fucked up wrong, though their frame of refence is certainly well-tilted.

Like there's an understanding that something is not right, because hey, we're all starving and dying and so are all their relatives. But the ability to properly figure out or understand why has been suppressed as harshly as just about anything. Usually the US is scapegoated in the NK media and SK gets off comparitively mildly, but even that doesn't fully convince every citizen.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on December 19, 2011, 06:55:12 PM
There's also no evidence that this is not the natural order. Certainly the Dear Leader is (was) perfect, and so things couldn't be better anywhere else.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 19, 2011, 08:42:00 PM
While broadly true, we don't know how many fragments of the outside world leak in. Clearly some people know things are better outside, or they wouldn't be trying to flee. And not just the upper-echelon folk who would reasonably be expected to be in the know.

In recent years, common folks are paying human smugglers to get them out. It's hard (like $40,000 per person), but some of the proletariat are getting the cash together (there's very small and limited free-market stuff in NK... maybe comparable to Cuba). Who knows how well the Army can stop this sort of thing, considering most of them have fewer bullets than Barney Fife. I doubt the guards on the border with China are high on the quatermaster totem pole.

The important thing here is that human smugglers actually exist and make a living, which means there's some limit to the regime's reach and fair demand for the service. Maybe the regime looks the other way on purpose because it's easier to just let troublemakers get rid of themselves, but the state is so crippled and wasted, Occam's razor probably applies (i.e. that the smugglers are colluding with, or buying off mid-level elements of the army).
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: DestyNova on December 19, 2011, 08:56:38 PM
Now what happens?

 An announcement that he has transcended his mortal body and now watches over his people from the heavens.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mothra on December 19, 2011, 10:41:24 PM
Really though! I'm genuinely baffled to hear they straight-up told the country he died of a heart attack on a train, like any old mortal chump, rather than weaving the tale of how he exploded into brilliant divine radiance, choosing to finally transcend his earthly form to rule from the heavens, where he has always been.

All like, rising as stardust into the night sky, his face forming from the stars and winking like in Dragonheart.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on December 19, 2011, 11:02:01 PM
Quote
"I can't believe it," a party member named as Kang Tae-Ho was quoted as saying. "How can he go like this? What are we supposed to do?"

Another, Hong Sun-Ok, said: "He tried so hard to make our lives much better and he just left like this."

Their attitudes seem to reflect less reverence and grief and more rage and abandonment.  I guess if my God was an incarnate being with terrible hair, I'd be pretty upset if he left my world a broken shitstain and went and died of too many cheeseburgers too.

These people don't worship the Kims so much as they have formed some sort of emotional codependency on the Kims.  It's really a pretty good strategy if you want unbroken loyalty, since they can really hate you as much as they want and they still won't turn on you.

Anyway Jong-un seems to have all the ambition of a soggy paper towel and he's not in a terribly good political position anyway so unless he turns out to be a straight up Larsa I'm guessing that Sul-song's gonna be playing him like Jim Henson with his hand up a plush butthole.  At least until China taps her on the shoulder and tells her to quietly move aside before things get ugly.

I mean yeah, the land itself is of less than zero value to them, but a system of perfect human control and populace that's been pushed to the absolute limit of human ability?  You KNOW they love that.  Also pretty much any outcome that doesn't involve them taking control and leaving Jong-un as a puppet dictator is going to end up highly inconvenient for them.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 19, 2011, 11:25:13 PM
I don't know for sure that China will bother though. Not if they don't have to. NK is so crazy that even China is fairly wary of them by most accounts.

China just figures "better the totally lunatic devil we know and have some strong leverage over, to some crazy western-friendly devil we don't."

China actually called Kim Jong Il on the carpet a couple times when he was getting extra crazy. The Standing Committee's probably hoping they can keep that going, though I bet they don't care if it's the generals or Kim Il-Puffy in charge, so long as the regime is stable and kowtows properly to Beijing.

NOW, that said, this MAY be a chance for Beijing to increase their direct influence - if we assume that at least some of the time Kim Jong Il was willing to annoy or disobey Beijing, then China may be able to prop up the winner in a power struggle, to Beijing's benefit. But we may never know just how personally beholden Kim was to China. If he was already in up his eyeballs, there may be little functional change for the Chinese.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: François on February 10, 2012, 02:02:47 PM
Internet rumor has it that Kim Jong-Un was assassinated in the NK embassy in Beijing. (http://gawker.com/5884033/chinese-twitter-says-kim-jong+un-was-assassinated-this-morning-in-beijing)

It's based on Chinese twitter reports, and apparently that type of rumor is common, so you can take it with a grain of salt.

If it was true though, I wonder what manner of repercussions it'd have.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: TA on February 10, 2012, 02:05:06 PM
The rumor is also that the PLA is crossing the China/NK border.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on February 10, 2012, 02:11:53 PM
it'd be a brilliant move from the Chinese. They get to expand their borders and seize the natural resources of north korea and the rest of the world would look at them as heroes for squishing a piece of shit dictator and his regime. The NK don't get a whole lot freer, but at least the chinese brand of slavery is a little less soul crushing.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Classic on February 10, 2012, 02:16:41 PM
The Dalai-Lama wants to have some words with you Shinra.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on February 10, 2012, 02:21:17 PM
The Dalai-Lama wants to have some words with you Shinra.

If you are seriously making the argument that the Chinese treat the Tibetans worse than Kim Jong Il and family treat(ed) the North Koreans, I think you need to go turn on a tv, read a book, or just point your browser to wikipedia and read for a while. The fact that we even know about Tibetan oppression is proof positive that the Chinese people have it better. The only things we know about what goes on in NK comes from escapees, and what we hear is just the tip of the iceberg.

And if you think I was making the argument that the Chinese people are free at all or that their regime wasn't tryrannical, you need to learn to fucking read:

Quote
The NK don't get a whole lot freer, but at least the chinese brand of slavery is a little less soul crushing.


Edit; just perspective, anyone caught in NK using a cell phone for the next 3 months will be tried as a war criminal and executed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9040152/North-Korea-threatens-to-punish-mobile-phone-users-as-war-criminals.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9040152/North-Korea-threatens-to-punish-mobile-phone-users-as-war-criminals.html) source.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Thad on February 10, 2012, 02:22:30 PM
Shinra.  Be nice.

Classic.  Avoid the sarcastic one-sentence posts.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on February 10, 2012, 02:23:25 PM
 ::(:

Ok boss.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on February 10, 2012, 02:25:40 PM
I wouldn't sweat it anyway guys. This has an obscenely high probability of being 100% bullshit as it is. The rumours of the Chinese crossing the border are (if anything) a bigger indicator that this is just bunk. 
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on February 10, 2012, 02:30:37 PM
I wouldn't sweat it anyway guys. This has an obscenely high probability of being 100% bullshit as it is. The rumours of the Chinese crossing the border are (if anything) a bigger indicator that this is just bunk.

Well, that much is almost certainly true. If the Chinese were managing a stealth invasion of NK, I suspect Chinese internet would mysteriously be down and Chinese phone service would be mysteriously undergoing maintainance until they were ready to declare NK Chinese territory.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on February 10, 2012, 02:35:09 PM
Exactly.

Which is not to say the PLAoC wouldn't cross the border were the Kim to be whacked (be it by them or by someone else), but there's be some public excuses/statements justifying it first. It might even take several weeks. But they would have to have some kind of justification to sell to the world, even if it was flimsier than a North Korean dinner plate. It's all about the appearences.

I just think the Chinese are smart enough to know there's a really bad rate of return for directly attacking NK. Even if you assume the PLA would just roll in with little or no resistance. They're faced with a country that's essentially desolate. It'd be way worse than when West Germany merged with East Germany (that analogy is a bit more appropriate to SK/NK, but you get the idea). Even if they wanted to do no more than enslave the country they'd still have massive work to do to bring it up to even a minimum level for abuse.

The only thing that would soften the blow is the fact that China is so much larger it could spread the pain a bit better.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Classic on February 10, 2012, 04:16:55 PM
Sorry, that wasn't very helpful nor clear.

I did indeed read everything you wrote. I just found your choice of words funny.
the chinese brand of slavery is a little less soul crushing.

The Dalai-Lama wants to have some words with you Shinra.
Considering that the reshaping and remodeling of the Tibetan Buddhism, is one of the big goals of China's imperial genocide, it's funny that you'd use the phrase "soul crushing" when the idea of a soul is a spiritual or religious construct.

I am in no way accusing you of diminishing China's human rights violations.
Though I confess I am uncomfortable that you're trying to compare the human rights violations of an impoverished autocracy (with serious religious overtones) to human rights abuses and negligence within China's "prosperous" and undisputed continental borders, when the stuff that seems the worst occurs in their de facto colonial holdings (where they in theory have less editorial control over news).
In short, even if you had a perfectly accurate rubric for determining which regime had worse human rights violations, why would you bother making the distinction when they're this close?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on February 10, 2012, 06:53:35 PM
one of North Korea's problems is that they don't actually have any modern natural resources. The reason nobody invades NK is because it is the very definition of "more trouble than it's worth". You have a population that's been systematically rendered as socially retarded as possible and who are starving besides, no natural resources to exploit, and the the fact that they have shitty nukes is irrelevant in the face of the fact that they have 60 year old guns that could shell Seoul into rubble with good old fashioned explosives from behind their own borders.

When the shit finally does hit the fan in North Korea, it's going to be a generational clean up process.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Rico on February 10, 2012, 07:11:09 PM
So it's like that Civ game where you have shit for luxury or strategic and you just hang in at the bottom of the scoreboard until you build Manhattan Project and nuke whoever's in the lead?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: R^2 on February 11, 2012, 12:15:53 AM
I'm disappointed in all of you for not making a "Kim Jung Un dead" joke.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: McDohl on February 11, 2012, 05:02:53 AM
Perhaps we're all the better men for it.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Thad on February 29, 2012, 08:13:35 AM
North Korea agrees to halt nuclear activities for food (http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/29/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-deal/index.html)

Heeeeeey.  Assuming it's not just more bullshit, this is a pretty immediate step in the right direction.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Caithness on February 29, 2012, 09:38:17 AM
Isn't "halting" their nuclear activities how they make a living?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on February 29, 2012, 10:39:10 AM
More continue living than making one. As I said before, they're seriously fucking starving in N. Korea. Hitchens once said, after visiting N. Korea, that the work force is much like slave labor, because all property is communal (technically), excepting that slaves get fed. 
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Catloaf on December 29, 2012, 08:35:02 AM
Women become more powerful in North Korea while everyone suffers. (http://www.npr.org/2012/12/28/168193827/out-of-desperation-north-korean-women-become-breadwinners)
tl;dr: Prison if you don't go to work; If no work to do, you have to pay them to go to work and do nothing; monthly salaries that aren't enough to buy a kilo of rice; Women deal in grey/black market just to scrape by (and incidentally keep the cops fed via bribes), essentially keep husbands as pets. Also, almost all their husband-pets beat them regularly whilst complaining about not being able to disobey their wives due to complete economic dependency.

Ironically, it was governmental actions intended to subjugate women that led to this.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 29, 2012, 10:00:57 AM
Man, every time you think that country has finally found the final wall of crazy (haha, who are we kidding), they go and break through.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on December 29, 2012, 01:19:40 PM
Women become more powerful in North Korea while everyone suffers. (http://www.npr.org/2012/12/28/168193827/out-of-desperation-north-korean-women-become-breadwinners)
Quote
"Women, because of their prominence in the market, are at the forefront of acts of civil disobedience," Noland says, emphasizing that civil disobedience is still extremely unusual in North Korea. "The protests are generally reactive and defensive in nature, but women are very prominent in them."

The extra burden women carry is beginning to have social consequences, with young women hoping to delay marriage to avoid taking on a husband. For men, their emasculation within their own households is now a fact of life.
I wonder if this could lead to positive social reform.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 29, 2012, 01:54:25 PM
The only path that leads to positive social reform in North Korea leads through an implosion.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Healy on December 29, 2012, 04:49:41 PM
I remember reading something similar about Vietnam like ten years ago; there, though, the situation was that the Vietnam War pulled nearly all the men from their jobs, and the women kept working after the war because ??? (Look I read it a long time ago, okay.) But last I heard people in Vietnam can still eat.

So hey, changing the subject, wasn't there supposed to be some kind of missile test scheduled around this time? What happened to that?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mazian on December 29, 2012, 06:01:39 PM
So hey, changing the subject, wasn't there supposed to be some kind of missile test scheduled around this time? What happened to that?

They actually pulled off a partial win, successfully lobbing a satellite into orbit, though it's tumbling and out of control.  South Korea has been fishing parts of the rocket's lower stages out of the ocean (http://allthingsnuclear.org/debris-from-north-koreas-launcher-what-it-shows/) to see how it was made; it bears a lot of similarities to the old Scud missile.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Healy on December 29, 2012, 06:14:53 PM
Oh yeah, I heard about that! So where are they gonna go from that, supposedly?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on December 29, 2012, 06:37:14 PM
Oh yeah, I heard about that! So where are they gonna go from that, supposedly?

Socioeconomic collapse into a failed State scenario.

Alternate possibility: Amazon Women of Pyongyang.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Zaratustra on December 29, 2012, 07:24:05 PM
GLORIOUS BEST KOREA SATELLITE KEEPS EYE ON ALL AREAS OF SPACE AND EARTH
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on February 02, 2013, 02:44:42 PM
http://now.msn.com/north-korea-does-not-like-women-with-big-breasts (http://now.msn.com/north-korea-does-not-like-women-with-big-breasts)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on February 04, 2013, 08:03:33 PM
I like small TITS and I cannot lie

you other fascists can't deny
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Ziiro on February 05, 2013, 03:51:33 PM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9849231/North-Korea-video-shows-US-city-under-attack.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9849231/North-Korea-video-shows-US-city-under-attack.html)

Quote
North Korea, poised to conduct a nuclear test any day now, has posted a video on YouTube depicting a US city resembling New York engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.

All to the sounds of "We are the world". Also, the "New York in flames" is from Modern Warfare.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on February 05, 2013, 04:15:29 PM
I like the "joyfully re-unified" Korea there too. Every time I think I've got the measure of how crazy North Korea is, they manage to surprise me. Never change, guys. Or better yet, do change, like right away.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Thad on March 04, 2013, 10:50:50 AM
Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/03/kim-jong-un-wants-obama-to-cal.html
Former deputy assistant secretary of state and ABC News consultant Col. Steve Ganyard, USMC (Ret.) told ABC’s Martha Raddatz the State Department’s decision not to debrief Rodman is “ridiculous.”

“There is nobody at the CIA who can tell you more personally about Kim Jong Un than Dennis Rodman," Ganyard said, "and that in itself is scary.”
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on March 04, 2013, 11:29:12 AM
Rodman saw exactly what the North Korean handlers wanted him to see.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on March 04, 2013, 11:31:18 AM
Which is, I think Ganyard was pointing out, more information than anyone at the CIA has about Kim Jong Un.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on March 11, 2013, 08:10:27 PM
It may just be more noise, but, uh, NK just announced it's scrapping the armistice.

As of this moment, NK is technically in a state of open war with South Korea and their allies.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Friday on March 11, 2013, 08:30:31 PM
I thought they always have been? I mean, a cease fire doesn't mean the war is over, just on pause.

So I guess they hit unpause, but haven't yet touched the D-Pad?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on March 11, 2013, 08:47:17 PM
So I guess they hit unpause, but haven't yet touched the D-Pad?

Yeah, basically.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on March 11, 2013, 09:19:49 PM
They've done it before, a number of times. Hopefully it's just saber rattling again, though I wish they'd stop, because one of these days someone is going to take them up on it.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on March 11, 2013, 09:24:22 PM
I'm pretty sure that they have never actually torn up the armistice completely, though they "suspended" it in 2003 and 2009, so arguably this is not that different.

I mean, It's all for show anyway. The special border industrial zone where South Koreans employ North Koreans is still open for business. The problem is that for North Korea sometimes "for show" also randomly means "do something really stupid that gets people killed".
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on March 12, 2013, 08:14:28 AM
Yeah, but really, North Korea threatens to turn South Korea into glass on almost a daily basis. The biggest thing the North Koreans do is bomb islands near them occasionally. Neither side wants to ever go to war. North Korea knows they can't win, but like to act like they're in charge for The People. South Korea knows they could win, but would incur a heavy loss for a few months and North Korea unloaded on them, and then would have to take in all of North Korea's subjects and integrate them. Neither sound really wants that.

So remember, if you ever see North Korea totally flipping its shit and trying to threaten the south, remember, it's not for you or South Korea. It's for The People.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Smiler on March 12, 2013, 08:16:31 AM
North Korea is just trying to help us you guys. (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3a8_1362925707)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on March 12, 2013, 08:56:17 AM
Yeah, but really, North Korea threatens to turn South Korea into glass on almost a daily basis. The biggest thing the North Koreans do is bomb islands near them occasionally. Neither side wants to ever go to war. North Korea knows they can't win, but like to act like they're in charge for The People. South Korea knows they could win, but would incur a heavy loss for a few months and North Korea unloaded on them, and then would have to take in all of North Korea's subjects and integrate them. Neither sound really wants that.

So remember, if you ever see North Korea totally flipping its shit and trying to threaten the south, remember, it's not for you or South Korea. It's for The People.

They also have a secondary goal of trying to goad the US into negotiating directly with them instead of having the UN come down around their ears, because whenever they get direct negotiations, the US basically pays them off to be quiet for a few years.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Sharkey on March 21, 2013, 12:40:52 PM
[화면과 시] - 전쟁의 아성에 불벼락치리 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyapeCiOl9A#ws)

The production value of these things never ceases to astound. The narrator, however, is seriously fucking into it. She feargasms at least nine times here.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Zaratustra on March 25, 2013, 10:08:37 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/03/22/report-north-korea-ordered-its-foreign-diplomats-to-become-drug-dealers/?tid=socialss (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/03/22/report-north-korea-ordered-its-foreign-diplomats-to-become-drug-dealers/?tid=socialss)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on March 25, 2013, 10:18:42 AM
Jeez, the bit about using meth as a substitute for real medicine.  That whole country is like a macroeconomic glorious trainwreck.  I almost hope it keeps struggling on forever as a sort of living cautionary tale.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Classic on March 25, 2013, 01:53:31 PM
Hasn't Russia been doing that since... like... Catherine the Great?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Zaratustra on March 25, 2013, 05:15:22 PM
Jeez, the bit about using meth as a substitute for real medicine.  That whole country is like a macroeconomic glorious trainwreck.  I almost hope it keeps struggling on forever as a sort of living cautionary tale.

Well, even if it became a democracy tomorrow it'd still have to struggle with being a country with no natural resources and an impoverished, practically unemployable population. It'll be East Germany ten times over.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: on March 25, 2013, 06:35:49 PM
South Korea can have them re-enact Starcraft matches for their amusement for jobs.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on March 25, 2013, 10:48:12 PM
Or just have them become the working class of an increasingly over qualified South Korean population. On the one hand, this might perpetuate class divisions and old prejudices, but on the other hand the North Koreans would have jobs and food.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on March 25, 2013, 11:00:04 PM
I don't think the North Koreans are actually lacking in trade skills, just opportunities.  They're really the most well-trained motherfuckers on the planet.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on March 26, 2013, 07:51:18 AM
My point exactly. They're the perfect 20th century workforce, which is what South Korea needs for their 21st century population. They have very skilled workers for every industrial application, there just aren't any in NK itself. The idea would be that, upon reunifying the country, the North's lack of would be moot, and Korea's economy could actually improve with the boom in available labor. As I said, this could well perpetuate the prejudice and mistrust between the North and the South, with the North essentially becoming Korea's hicks, but the stories coming out of NK seem to indicate that, honest to god most people just want to be able to work and feed their families.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on March 26, 2013, 09:23:35 AM
Last I heard the main motivation for going to work in NK is not going to fucking jail, since the wages aren't actually livable.  Being reduced to indentured servitude for the Southerners wouldn't be much of a step down for them; I think they'd even be happy with their "reunification" if we can just keep them from smelling even the barest whiff of a Western presence.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on March 26, 2013, 09:38:35 AM
Yes, that is what I am saying.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Caithness on March 26, 2013, 05:34:17 PM
and Korea's economy could actually improve with the boom in available labor.

According to my understanding, a boom in available labor (without a matching increase in demand) leads to high unemployment and depressed wages for everyone.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on March 26, 2013, 08:42:26 PM
Well, there would at least be some increase in demand given that North Koreans typically don't own anything worth a damn.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Royal☭ on March 26, 2013, 09:32:21 PM
Somehow, increasing the unemployment rate to over 30% with people who can't afford anything just doesn't seem like it would work for anybody.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on March 26, 2013, 10:19:39 PM
Obviously it'd be rough at first, and probably for a while. Sooner or later things would have to improve though. I mean, given how badly off they are right now, you'd have to fuck things up AMAZINGLY for things to not improve over their current situation and I don't think there'd be permanent damage to South Korea.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: TA on March 30, 2013, 06:13:31 PM
I guess we're at war now. (http://live.reuters.com/Event/North_Korea/70001409)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on March 30, 2013, 07:21:36 PM
 :slow:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on March 30, 2013, 07:33:26 PM
Call me when shots are actually fired. Or at least when they actually close the Kaesong industrial complex.

I mean we have now finally reached the point where they've pushed the hyperbole so far that there is literally no statement left that they can make which will be taken seriously. 
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Bal on March 31, 2013, 12:14:43 AM
Technically we were never not at war with North Korea. The end of the conflict was resolved with a cease fire, not a peace treaty. Though that declaration you linked there is some seriously lunatic, propaganda nonsense.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Thad on March 31, 2013, 01:47:55 PM
Well, if we're speaking in technicalities, we never declared war on NK at all and haven't made a formal declaration of war since WWII -- hence "the Korean Conflict".

But yeah, we've had our troops on the border for over 60 years and you're right that it's been a decades-long ceasefire and not a formal peace agreement.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 01, 2013, 05:38:40 PM
The best joke I saw all day was simply:

Quote
NORTH KOREA: APRIL FOOL
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 03, 2013, 08:25:28 AM
Okay well, they just closed the Kaesong complex. Looks like we're following the established bullshit script so far. The real question is if they feel like they need to lob a few shells at some unfortunate South Koreans to "show they mean business".

What's worrying in that case is if they decide they want to target Seoul, rather than some isolated target. If NK makes that mistake, they could prompt a Thatcheresque response from SK's new president.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on April 03, 2013, 09:27:19 AM
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/inside-north-koreas-environmental-collapse/ (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/inside-north-koreas-environmental-collapse/)

How is the population still alive?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Sharkey on April 03, 2013, 10:52:27 AM
At least nobody here is doing the "But NK can hit Seoul! Millions would die in minutes!" thing. Which is apparently mandatory everywhere else. Nevermind that the longest range NK artillery could only hit the comparatively much less populated northernmost outskirts, or that that artillery had an absurdly high failure rate, or that the location of those emplacements is very well known and wouldn't be in existence very long. I'm not saying it would be a completely bloodless curb-stomp battle for SK, but the threat there is consistently overstated.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on April 03, 2013, 11:00:41 AM
I had to assure some visitors last night that no, NK cannot nuke San Diego from where they are.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 03, 2013, 12:43:39 PM
At least nobody here is doing the "But NK can hit Seoul! Millions would die in minutes!" thing. Which is apparently mandatory everywhere else. Nevermind that the longest range NK artillery could only hit the comparatively much less populated northernmost outskirts, or that that artillery had an absurdly high failure rate, or that the location of those emplacements is very well known and wouldn't be in existence very long. I'm not saying it would be a completely bloodless curb-stomp battle for SK, but the threat there is consistently overstated.

The main problem is that any shots will probably be fired first by NK. Maybe those batteries suck and work for very long, but even one shell anywhere near Seoul may drive an already-pissed SK into over-retaliating.

Now, if I was smart (which I'm not), and I ruled SK (which I don't), I'd be really trying hard to try and get China on board with some kind of plan - any kind of plan. Because these days, even the Chinese are sort of looking down there and going "Oh god, they're just fucked". Maybe you involve the US, maybe you don't. But if you do, you still talk to China first and talk to them alone, then bring up US cooperation after the fact.

Of course, for all I know SK has been trying to do that all along and has been getting nowhere. But China is certainly more receptive now to that kind of overture than they've ever been.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 03, 2013, 12:48:51 PM
Ahaha. The lastest headline this afternoon is "North Korea approves nuclear strike on U.S." :lol:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Sharkey on April 03, 2013, 01:16:38 PM
Ahaha. The lastest headline this afternoon is "North Korea approves nuclear strike on U.S." :lol:

Is that how it works? I propose that we give ourselves permission to turn North Korea into cotton candy with our minds.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 03, 2013, 01:42:37 PM
"It's ahhh, whadjacallit.... cyclemalogical warfare."
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Defenestration on April 04, 2013, 06:41:57 AM
Anonymous gains access to North Korea's Twitter and Flicker pages. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22025724 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22025724)  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57577904-83/anonymous-hacks-north-koreas-twitter-and-flickr-accounts/ (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57577904-83/anonymous-hacks-north-koreas-twitter-and-flickr-accounts/)

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uriminzokkiri (http://www.flickr.com/photos/uriminzokkiri)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/uriminzok (https://twitter.com/uriminzok)
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 04, 2013, 10:33:30 AM
That is, uh... that is actually pretty fucking significant.

Of course right about now, the US State department has its head in its hands, if for no other reason than the sheer wastefulness of Anonymous' hack. Imagine what the CIA or State department could have done with serious inside access. Or, if they already do have access, this will only ramp up counter-efforts by NK, making their job harder.

Assuming this is that deep a hack. Some rumblings on the BBC site indicate that maybe a Chinese decoy was hit instead? I dunno, that bit's kind of confusing.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on April 04, 2013, 10:58:47 AM
Yeah, like Anonymous would trust THE GOVERNMENT with that kind of access.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Healy on April 10, 2013, 09:37:53 AM
So, is anyone keeping up with the recent missile news? I'm starting to think they might actually pull the trigger this time around.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on April 10, 2013, 09:48:44 AM
I suspect this originally started as posturing. But I think we are past that point. The only thing we can hope is that if he does launch an attack, it either fails spectacularly or takes a minimum of human life.

A personal pet theory I have is that as soon as NK launches an attack, China invades and annexes the country. South Korea would probably make a huge stink about it, but I think the EU and America would breath collective sighs of relief at it not being their problem. NK has apparently been sitting on a lot of natural resources for years that they can't really do anything with, not to mention a relatively docile people who are already accustomed to treating the Chinese as allies. What might take decades of work for other countries could take a few years for China.

While it would suck for the NK people to go from one communist regime with no respect for human life to another, I don't know what kind of alternatives there would be. I think the reason we haven't seen war so far already is how much of a fucking nightmare it would be to get involved in a conflict with them. It's easy to write off the North Koreans as backwards dirt farmers, but they have one of the largest (if not the largest) standing armies in the world. They have nearly two thousand tanks on par with the Abrams and have spent years preparing for a ground war on their own soil. A ground war with them would be a fucking nightmare, their countryside is bristling with anti-air batteries, and I don't think anyone wants to nuke them.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Healy on April 10, 2013, 10:12:51 AM
An online friend of mine is currently teaching in South Korea and I'm really worried for his health and safety if fighting does break out.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Büge on April 10, 2013, 10:39:39 AM
NK has apparently been sitting on a lot of natural resources for years that they can't really do anything with

Like what? They've depleted their arable land. Much of their wood goes towards fuel since they can't get cheap soviet oil. Their animal population is practically nil. What is it, rocks?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: patito on April 10, 2013, 10:40:27 AM
Rocks of various kinds are very valuable, yes.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Kazz on April 10, 2013, 10:42:33 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_North_Korea#Resources_and_land_use (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_North_Korea#Resources_and_land_use)

Quote
Natural resources include coal, petroleum, lead, tungsten, zinc, graphite, magnesite, iron ore, copper, gold, pyrites, salt, fluorspar and hydropower.

yes, mostly rocks
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Ziiro on April 10, 2013, 12:36:15 PM
I have a few friends active in the military over there. It's concerning, to say the least.

Most interesting theory I've seen so far as to why it is occurring this way: Posturing turned insanity because he can't control the military like his father. The military is so high on their own bullshit they might actually pull the trigger.

The most politically probable (and frankly, best) solution I've seen so far is that China rolls in from the north and annexes it before shit actually hits the fan. The alternative outcomes really don't do much in China's favor. Most of them end up up with shit tons of refugees pouring in and the United States Military active in their front yard.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 10, 2013, 01:05:41 PM
I suspect this originally started as posturing. But I think we are past that point. The only thing we can hope is that if he does launch an attack, it either fails spectacularly or takes a minimum of human life.

A personal pet theory I have is that as soon as NK launches an attack, China invades and annexes the country. South Korea would probably make a huge stink about it, but I think the EU and America would breath collective sighs of relief at it not being their problem. NK has apparently been sitting on a lot of natural resources for years that they can't really do anything with, not to mention a relatively docile people who are already accustomed to treating the Chinese as allies. What might take decades of work for other countries could take a few years for China.

While it would suck for the NK people to go from one communist regime with no respect for human life to another, I don't know what kind of alternatives there would be. I think the reason we haven't seen war so far already is how much of a fucking nightmare it would be to get involved in a conflict with them. It's easy to write off the North Koreans as backwards dirt farmers, but they have one of the largest (if not the largest) standing armies in the world. They have nearly two thousand tanks on par with the Abrams and have spent years preparing for a ground war on their own soil. A ground war with them would be a fucking nightmare, their countryside is bristling with anti-air batteries, and I don't think anyone wants to nuke them.

Just as a minor point, I do think that the NK military won't be nearly as useful as it looks on paper.

Of course a non-zero number of those tanks and artillery pieces and missile batteries will actually fire when their triggers are pressed, and some of those may even hit their marks, but how many is a big goddamned question mark. Also, unless China decides to support them outright in a war, they'll be starving in the dark with no gas in a week. And if China DOES support them, then we've all got way way bigger problems.

Also, FWIW, the Chinese may have massive issues as a repressive state, but a Chinese bootheel would be fucking Candyland compared to what they've got now.

I still say the best possible solution is for NK, China, Japan, and the US to all sit down together - in secret if need be - thrash out a "desired outcome" that everyone can agree with, then and get a plan in place to manipulate, prod, or outright shove NK there. Is that likely? No. But now that China is getting more and more freaked out by the lunatic living in their backyard shed, it's no longer impossible. The motivation is there among all parties. If China can be soothed, real progress might actually be possible.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mazian on April 10, 2013, 01:28:20 PM
Just as a minor point, I do think that the NK military won't be nearly as useful as it looks on paper.

Of course a non-zero number of those tanks and artillery pieces and missile batteries will actually fire when their triggers are pressed, and some of those may even hit their marks, but how many is a big goddamned question mark.

There are probably some hints from when they shelled Yeonpyeong Island a year and a half ago - in their first wave, only 40% of the shells hit the island at all, from ~17 km away.  It's not a very big island, but still, it's not like it's a moving target.  Their second (smaller) wave did much better, 100% hit rate.

I thought I saw a claim that about a quarter of those shells were duds, though now I can't find a source again, so grain of salt.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 10, 2013, 01:54:03 PM
Yeah, I mean, sheer volume means you can't discount them; they'll do some damage for sure. But expecting efficacy that rivals a competent professional modern army seems like a bad bet here.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on April 10, 2013, 10:31:19 PM
Yeah, I mean, sheer volume means you can't discount them; they'll do some damage for sure. But expecting efficacy that rivals a competent professional modern army seems like a bad bet here.

FWIW, you don't need good efficacy when you have an army of 3 million infantry and six thousand tanks. I think SK would be in for a serious hurt if the North decided to roll out tomorrow. Seoul would fall overnight, though I think that the south could eventually draw them into a stalemate long enough for the US to land troops to reinforce them.

There's no ground war scenario based out of south korea that isn't a nightmare, though. Even if we are outgunning them ala Iraq, the NK army is fucking huge. Unreliable equipment and poorly fed soldiers don't mean much when you have 3 million of them and a good percentage think, literally, that their leader is God and the only reason he experiences suffering is the enemies he is fighting right now.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 11, 2013, 12:04:42 AM
I don't know... food and gas are a very serious question. Sure they wouldn't kick in for a couple days, and you can do a lot of a damage in that time, but in a war a few days can either be forever, or nothing at all.

We are talking about a population where 80 percent of these people are thought to be malnourished to begin with and many will lack any sort of training or initiative to deal with adverse situations. Their generals are the product of politics and none have any combat experience whatsoever. When they were shelling stationary islands, nobody was shooting back at them at first but in a real hot war, we're going to see things shake out differently, I think. Maybe as you say Seoul will still fall and things will be as bad as you describe, but I think there's a fair chance that won't happen and a non-zero chance of a total military collapse by NK. Also, I think South Korea has a very fair chance of acheiving total air supremacy at least over its own territory, which is death for many of those invading tanks.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on April 11, 2013, 12:19:33 AM
God damn, do I ever wish the War Nerd wasn't subscription-only nowadays.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on April 11, 2013, 03:46:50 AM
So... an entire countryside full of malnourished, mindlessly attacking human figures lacking the basic ability to operate modern equipment, laughable on their own but terrifying in terms of their sheer numbers, relentlessness, and inability to be reasoned with in any way.

Welp.  Guess we finally got our zombie apocalypse.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: patito on April 11, 2013, 03:51:27 AM
I thought you were going for a zerg thing, since korea and all.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Brentai on April 11, 2013, 03:56:46 AM
TOO WHEEZY
PRAYDICK TABLE
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: R^2 on April 11, 2013, 07:32:53 AM
China to everybody: be cool (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90883/8202601.html).
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Smiler on April 11, 2013, 07:34:22 AM
Yeah, I mean, sheer volume means you can't discount them; they'll do some damage for sure. But expecting efficacy that rivals a competent professional modern army seems like a bad bet here.

FWIW, you don't need good efficacy when you have an army of 3 million infantry and six thousand tanks. I think SK would be in for a serious hurt if the North decided to roll out tomorrow. Seoul would fall overnight, though I think that the south could eventually draw them into a stalemate long enough for the US to land troops to reinforce them.

There's no ground war scenario based out of south korea that isn't a nightmare, though. Even if we are outgunning them ala Iraq, the NK army is fucking huge. Unreliable equipment and poorly fed soldiers don't mean much when you have 3 million of them and a good percentage think, literally, that their leader is God and the only reason he experiences suffering is the enemies he is fighting right now.


Does this scenario also assume that South Korea has no army and afterwards NK comes over to America and kicks our asses too?
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on April 11, 2013, 09:51:58 AM
Yeah, I mean, sheer volume means you can't discount them; they'll do some damage for sure. But expecting efficacy that rivals a competent professional modern army seems like a bad bet here.

FWIW, you don't need good efficacy when you have an army of 3 million infantry and six thousand tanks. I think SK would be in for a serious hurt if the North decided to roll out tomorrow. Seoul would fall overnight, though I think that the south could eventually draw them into a stalemate long enough for the US to land troops to reinforce them.

There's no ground war scenario based out of south korea that isn't a nightmare, though. Even if we are outgunning them ala Iraq, the NK army is fucking huge. Unreliable equipment and poorly fed soldiers don't mean much when you have 3 million of them and a good percentage think, literally, that their leader is God and the only reason he experiences suffering is the enemies he is fighting right now.


Does this scenario also assume that South Korea has no army and afterwards NK comes over to America and kicks our asses too?

Quote
though I think that the south could eventually draw them into a stalemate long enough for the US to land troops to reinforce them.

Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mazian on April 11, 2013, 10:26:02 AM
FWIW, you don't need good efficacy when you have an army of 3 million infantry and six thousand tanks.

[citation needed]?  Sources I can find agree on about 1.1 million active-duty North Korean military personnel -- all of them, not just infantry corps -- against about 720,000 South Korean and already deployed U.S. troops.  Combine the technical and training advantages of the South Koreans with the sixty years they've had to prepare defenses against ground invasion, and I think the North would need an awful lot of efficiency indeed.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: François on April 11, 2013, 10:44:50 AM
China to everybody: be cool (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90883/8202601.html).

This makes me wonder what would the US reaction be if somehow Mexico started threatening China and Beijing sent naval forces in the eastern Pacific to protect hypothetical South American allies/interests. I'm not trying to make a clever point, just idly thinking about it.

Though I bet it wouldn't be "everybody be cool" for long. :whoops:
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Shinra on April 11, 2013, 11:13:52 AM
FWIW, you don't need good efficacy when you have an army of 3 million infantry and six thousand tanks.

[citation needed]?  Sources I can find agree on about 1.1 million active-duty North Korean military personnel -- all of them, not just infantry corps -- against about 720,000 South Korean and already deployed U.S. troops.  Combine the technical and training advantages of the South Koreans with the sixty years they've had to prepare defenses against ground invasion, and I think the North would need an awful lot of efficiency indeed.

It seems I was misinformed on that number, yeah. Sorry! I don't remember where I read it.

With the numbers evened out a lot more, yeah, I do believe you're right.
Title: Re: Pretend That North Korea Is Fucking Scary
Post by: Mongrel on December 13, 2013, 07:52:05 AM
Anybody noted the recent lawnmower job on KJ Um's uncle-in-law?

My first thought was "Guess he was on the losing end of the internal family power struggle". Well, turns out there may be a bit more to things than that: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/13/north-korean-blood-feud-is-richard-iii-with-nukes.html (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/13/north-korean-blood-feud-is-richard-iii-with-nukes.html)