Simple Question of International Import

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

What are the odds that this gets a LOT worse by the traditional spring time offensive season when a young general's fancy turns to invasion?

Brief timeline:

North Korea is accused of torpedoing a South Korean warship.

South Korea fires at North Korean fishing boats crossing the maritime border North Korea refuses to recognize.

North Korea is revealed to have highly modern facilities for nuclear material enrichment.

Not to mention, North Korea is facing the challenge of passing along the regime to a third generation of the Kim family.

North Korea is known for rattling its sabre and demanding to have attention paid to it when it is being ignored, but this is looking like a very different than recent years -- South Korea really has to retaliate...and half of South Korea's population lives in the Seoul metropolitan area within artillery range of the DMZ.

So a question -- is North Korea suicidal or are they betting that this behavior can get them some more winter grain shipments?

Comments

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Actually no.

North Koreans acknowledged that juche might not be appropriate for other countries, but they claim it provides a moral and philosophical basis that is highly appropriate for Korean society, given the history and culture of that country. North Korea does not seek to impose juche on any other country, but they also wish to be left alone to implement it in the DPRK without outside or foreign influence. The fact that they lack outside influence makes the concept of juche extremely incompatible with globalisation, seeing as its main driving force would be foreign trade. (http://socyberty.com/issues/north-korea-and-anti-globalization/)

I think you fail.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

I think I'm not. You cite is correct, except that North Koreans (AFAIK) belive there is only one Korea, with South part of it being occupied.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I have no doubt that they believe so.

You may also believe there's one Soviet Union and all its minions should bow down and kneel before Comrade Zodski. That still doesn't make it fact.

Even if there's one Korea, which one should it be?

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Let's go with the one without all the starving babies.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

SK has super-skillful StarCraft players. 'Nuff said.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I can see it now. NK decides on invasion and sends their troops, but are they met by SK's standing army? NO! instead they are met with millions upon millions of little remote-controlled robots. Little do they know that SK's military has actually been sponsoring this StarCraft training in order to create an unstoppable force of remote operators to control their robotic army via click and drag GPS map interface.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

LET THEM COME!!!

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[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

My GW1 marine vet friend said of Afghanistan. "WTF? We should be dropping x-boxes. Millions of x-boxes from the skies...."

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

There IS one Russia (former USSR+Finland+Poland), its just temporary broken, that is no problem to us. You'll see it in 2012. It is because we have the geopolitical idea.
DPRK have the geopolitical idea. USA have the geopolitical idea. United Kingdom have the geopolitical idea.

ROK DOESN'T have the geopolitical idea. See the point?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, there is one Soviet Union. Russia was broken almost a century ago due to the stupidity of its own leaders. The ROK by this point has a legitimate government that has the backing of its masses and more importantly is geared to parliamentary rule. It was not that way in 1950, but 1950 was a faraway time.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And in any case, Russia will never assume the political power it had in 1945 in any of our lifetimes. Its soft power is weakened due to the overall political crisis, its hard power is a pale ghost of what it was in the 1980s.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

Did you forget that Russia is the only country that has more then 16-century victorios history? This crisis is sad but necessary time to rearrange and adapt the idea. Ideas make nations. Remember the Roman Empire. They occupied a huge territory but then they lost their initial idea and couldn't adapt it in time. And barbarians squashed the Empire.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Whether you'll adapt entirely depends on how soon some of your people stop being deluded lunatics and start living in reality.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

In fact, that's the consequence, but not the source of a problem

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

LOL, no country has a history more than a couple of centuries old. The UK is the oldest country in the the world. And yes, this would be the Roman Empire whose eastern half the old Russia claimed to be the successor state to and to whom the Ottomans actually *were* that successor state, slavery included? The Romans created the most efficient system ever in the system of the Augusti/Basilei/Sultans.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

And where are all of these Ottomans, Romans, British Empire, German Empire?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Oh I see. You're just one of the hordes of Russian nationalists who believe the world is gonna be turned on its head in 2012 and Russia has a special mission in the Galaxy.

I'm done here.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Poland might like to have a say in that. Finland too.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

Indeed. That will be their own decision.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

and America will be there to help, you can count on that. So, better be ready.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

There IS one Russia (former USSR+Finland+Poland), its just temporary broken

Funniest shit I've seen all month. Do you think the Holy Roman Empire is just temporary broken too?

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

No, as I can see :)
Where are these citizens of Rome?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

He's referring to the Heiliges Romisches Reich Deutscher Nation, not the Senatus Populusque Romanus.

[taurus-1.livejournal.com]

Ah, you mean the 'Third Reich', isn't it? Yes, they tried in 1939. Our glorious ancestors have failed them. BTW, the global German idea 'Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles' made the German nation from ruins of Veimar republic to the most militant nation in the world in just 5-7 years. They have fucked up the Europe in less then a month.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And the South Koreans believe the same thing about the North. The devil of it is that even without the USSR they're both right: the single peninsula's been occupied for the last 50 years by two alien regimes in one of the worst single legacies of WWII left. The thing is that South Korea has moved on from the days of Syngman Rhee to become *more* and not less free. North Korea got even worse after Kim Il Sung kicked the bucket.