North Korea Says War With South Would Go Nuclear 608
A reader writes "According to reports from the Uriminzokkiri, the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a war with South Korea would involve nuclear weapons, and '[will] not be limited to the Korean peninsula.' The article goes on, 'The Korean peninsula remains a region fraught with the greatest danger of war in the world. This is entirely attributable to the US pursuance of the policy of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea).'"
Re:Mod Up Please (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. a lot of this has to do with the power handover. From what you hear, Kim Jong Un is relatively incompetent (though not like we'd be able to get first hand sources from anyone) This sabre rattling (the boat attack, the shelling) has a lot to do with that.
As far as the nuclear parking lot consequences, he's already let millions of his countrymen die over decades because of bad policy and outright killings. if you remove empathy for countrymen and you substitute needing to retain power, it makes NK's talk a lot less crazy. It's a calculated risk that he can bring the US to the table to extort more food and that they won't initiate a nuclear campaign (again).
Re:I'm sure they're (Score:5, Interesting)
Or I could be talking complete nonsense and am simple unaware of the magnitude of NK's regular levels of crazy.
Re:This is tech news? (Score:5, Interesting)
I for one would prefer for DPRK to know it won't have allies if push comes to shove. Generally speaking, when little guys realize their big brother won't help them in a fight, they act less aggressively. But of course posturing plays an important role in negotiating a better deal.
There is the risk that information might destabilize their control and lead to violence. There is also the risk that the US and China plotting in secret to overthrow a nuclear power would lead to violence as well. Which situation is more dangerous, who can say?
Fanatic civilians? (Score:5, Interesting)
All of this always makes me think of an article that ran a few years back (not on slashdot) that was interviewing several people who had managed to defect/escape from NK into China and other places. These were average citizens...
One of them told how her job was to collect the pamphlets that were dropped by US planes, and how she feels so incredibly foolish now, because she and all of her coworkers had to use sharpened sticks to pick them up. They did this because they had been told that the US pamphlets which espoused democracy and freedom were covered in some kind of an acidic solution that would eat away their skin if they touched them.
She acknowledged how (in the light of having escaped and seen the world around her for the first time in a more impartial manner) very silly it was to believe such a thing, but reiterated that everyone who worked with her truly believed this to be true.
This sort of thing makes me very nervous about the idea of invading North Korea. The people are so incredibly ignorant of the world around them and we know so little about them besides the fact that they're not well educated and starving, that it seems dangerously possible that going to war with them would mean going to war with an entire country of zealots...this does not seem like a good option.
Re:I'm sure they're (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, you're quite certain, but why? As a former Nuke/Chem/Bio defense officer with the US Military, I can assure you that an attack on US soil with nuclear weapons would result in the big metaphorical glass parking lot becoming reality. They can take out a city center or two. We can and probably would literally kill 100% of their popualtion, unless our Comander in Chief excercises almost litterally inhuman restraint. We regularly trained back when I was in to drive M1A1 series tanks through four hour old craters just for the scenarios where the government opts to hunt down any and all survivors of the initial exchange and wants them all dead before any get a chance to surrender. We're talking the deaths of every man, woman and potentially every day old infant in North Korea as a matter of official doctrine. Although I have hopes we would do better than absolute genocide, I sure wouldn't bet on it, because the 300 Million + surviving Americans are mostly going to be wondering why we even try to avoid fallout drifting into South Korea or China, let alone what happens to the North. I trained from some of the response plans in the 1970s and they're finally public. We had plans that dedicated a Megaton for every village of over 500 people. Hell, in the 50's we had plans that involved seeding their croplands with radiocobalt isotopes so nothing would grow for a thousand years, and then crashing the nuclear powered, plutonium fueled, unmanned bombers that delivered it into their cities after they had spent a month each flying back and forth over the whole country. We've gotten more precise since then and started giving a damn about not poisoning the whole planet, but not less lethal. North Korea stands to lose literally 100% - it doesn't get any worse than that.
Re:Mod Up Please (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, he damned sure won't retain power if he sets off a nuke. His regime's lifetime will be measured in minutes at that point.
The only context in which it makes sense for the DPRK to threaten nuclear war is if they actually want to be taken over by a coalition of Chinese and South Korean forces. What else could it mean, when they adopt tactics and rhetoric that leave their neighbors no other responsible option?
Re:This is tech news? (Score:5, Interesting)
When was it demonstrated that North Korea actually had nukes? I only remember a failed test and a lot of posturing. Googling turns up nothing, although I may not be looking correctly. What am I missing?
Re:I'm sure they're (Score:5, Interesting)
> You know, I thought you were serious until you put this part in.
> Now I'm just laughing... We barely have "unmanned bombers"
> now, much less in the 50's.
It was called Project Pluto [wikipedia.org], although IIRC there was a different name for the airplane/cruise missile that was to use the Pluto ramjet. After spending some time working on precision targeting systems, the designers realized that the weapon didn't need to hit any specific target; it just needed to fly back and forth over the enemy's terrain at low altitude where the combination of supersonic shock waves, direct radiation, and exhaust fallout would do more than enough damage. The autopilots of the 1950s were more than sufficient for that task.
The project was canceled in part due to concerns about its existence being overly proactive (as stated in the Wikipedia article), but also because the designers finally realized that even in the non-eco 1950s there would be nowhere on the planet that they could test it.
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