The act of war

[DallasBo]

 

The UN Security Council has voted in favor of imposing new sanctions on North Korea in the aftermath of the continued ballistic missiles' tests by this country despite international community's repeated warnings. The text of the resolution was proposed by the USA.

According to the document, the supplies of oil products into the DPRK in 2018 will be limited down to 500 thousand barrels, which is by 90% less than Pyongyang imported in 2016.

Meanwhile, North Korea has been living "under sanctions" for over a decade already. During the previous two years only the UN has restrained export of the North Korean coal to China by 60% and banned export of copper, nickel, silver, and zinc. It has also terminated international trips and froze assets of four companies and 14 citizens of North Korea including the head of the DPRK intelligence. The UN has also introduced constrains on investing the North Korean economy. These sanctions have already cost Pyongyang as much as one billion dollars. Under the new sanctions, export of labor force from North Korea is also banned and this is what will have its negative effect on Russia where quite a great number of North Korean migrants are working at the present time. Now they are to go back home during the nearest 24 months.

It's worth nothing, that the authorities of North Korea tend to send abroad mainly skilled workers, mostly engaged in building trade, so that to ensure foreign currency inflow into the country. After the introduction of international sanctions currency supply from other countries had drastically dropped. Up till now, the restrictions of the UN haven't involved this source of revenue of the North Korean government. Apart from Russia, thousands of labor migrants from North Korea are working on construction sites of China, Mongolia, and the Middle East.

North Korea qualified the latest UN Security Council sanctions imposed on Pyongyang as an act of war. In the statement of the DPRK foreign ministry these sanctions are called "complete economic blockade" that will be followed by "a thousand fold" retaliation, in particular, by further development of the nuclear program and ICBM launches.

Taking into consideration the sanctions' experience already available with the UN, there is every ground to believe that new sanctions will turn out to be ineffective, just like all the previous ones were. And, taking into account the achievements of Pyongyang in advancing of its national nuclear-missile program, which were proved by international experts, those sanctions may happen to be counterproductive as a matter of fact. Thus, Pyongyang has already responded to sanctions by successful tests of "the most powerful ICBM able to carry super-large heavy nuclear warhead" and of "H-bomb compacted enough to be loaded into ICBM". Shall we stay waiting for more victorious reports?

[Harbringe]

Its not a matter of whether they are effective or not. Because previous attempt to reign in NK were a joke. This goes all the way back to Clinton , we would do things like cut them off from the world banking system , which didn't matter because they didn't have any legitimate currency flows to speak of , because they are not actually manufacturing any products for the world market. Point is these things Trump is doing actually are effective , problem is they should of been done 10 - 20 - 30 years ago. The cutting off of the currency flow being generated by sending workers abroad and them sending money back was one of the ways they got around sanctions , same goes for the drug trade they are massively involved in , its all designed to circumvent efforts to reign them in. And allow the regime to continue on building their nuclear weapons.

 

And people on the left like to say 'Oh Trump is screwing up again and whatever' but its not just Trump , the Chinese and Russians are worried about this and have been discreetly moving men and material into the area. The reason for this change of heart in the Chinese is that there used to be a cadre of pro China officers and political people in NK , when Kim un Jong came to power he killed every last one of them and now China doesn't have the insiders they once did and realize this game they have been playing could turn around and bite them. Thats why they have been far more cooperative with sanctions then they ever have been in the past , because back then they thought they had a handle on the situation and could control the outcome , now they can't. And thats not to say the Chinese or russians are onthe Americans side on this , just that its extremely unstable and they are worried.

 

Simple truth is you can't be building nukes and then lobbing missiles over other countries as a show of force. And NK seems to think this is a legitimate form of diplomacy. All it would take is one malfunction (happens 1 in 3 times) and a missile crashing into Tokyo or some populated city and a few hundred dead (no nuke explosion) and this would quickly spiral into war. And thats just one of many ways this could fly out of control.

 

Personally I do think this is going to lead to war , mainly because we have allowed this whole situation to box itself into a corner and were too lazy or cowardly to do something about it when we could have.

[HeyYou]

China is still violating the restrictions though..... At last count, S. Korea had seized two ships that were illegally off-loading oil to N. Korean tankers......

 

And: Everything anyone else does, that is not in favor of N. Korea, is considered an 'act of war' by the N. Koreans. Or, at least, by their propaganda wing....... If NK wants a war, all they need to do is fire the first shot. Then, the 'problem' of NK will be solved very shortly thereafter. Of course, lil' kim is NEVER going to actually DO anything. As he knows that would basically equate to suicide.

[TheMastersSon]

The same inexplicable mass stupidity happened same time last century too (1917), and after 40+ years of reading about WWI I *still* don't understand what caused our country and most others to enter it, or even what our national stake might have been in the conflict. The most plausible explanation I've ever heard was from Noam Chomsky, who blamed either much or most of the global animus against Germany on British propaganda campaigns. These campaigns were hugely successful and military planners took permanent note. This same basic template for creating justification for war from absolutely or very close to nothing has been used ever since, e.g. GWB in Iraq etc.

 

One day I hope to understand what our own country would do, if three foreign countries first forcibly divided us into two and then spent a half century arguing about what form of government we should have. Something close to all of us would be like WTF, get out of my country etc. So the first and prerequisite step for any long-term solution in Korea is for all foreign powers to leave them to their natural selection process. Exactly as eventually happened in Vietnam, where the long-predicted national bloodbath when U.S. forces left never materialized. The country transitioned naturally into its required form of government (democracy doesn't work with people who eat dogs and cats) and we've been trading without issue with them since 1995. Likewise, whether a national bloodbath happens in Korea is not our concern nor is it under our control to stop if it's destined to happen at some point in the future. You can't fix stupid and our incompetent moron president is about to start WWIII trying to do so.

Edited January 14, 2018 by TheMastersSon

[HeyYou]

The same inexplicable mass stupidity happened same time last century too (1917), and after 40+ years of reading about WWI I *still* don't understand what caused our country and most others to enter it, or even what our national stake might have been in the conflict. The most plausible explanation I've ever heard was from Noam Chomsky, who blamed either much or most of the global animus against Germany on British propaganda campaigns. These campaigns were hugely successful and military planners took permanent note. This same basic template for creating justification for war from absolutely or very close to nothing has been used ever since, e.g. GWB in Iraq etc.

 

One day I hope to understand what our own country would do, if three foreign countries first forcibly divided us into two and then spent a half century arguing about what form of government we should have. Something close to all of us would be like WTF, get out of my country etc. So the first and prerequisite step for any long-term solution in Korea is for all foreign powers to leave them to their natural selection process. Exactly as eventually happened in Vietnam, where the long-predicted national bloodbath when U.S. forces left never materialized. The country transitioned naturally into its required form of government (democracy doesn't work with people who eat dogs and cats) and we've been trading without issue with them since 1995. Likewise, whether a national bloodbath happens in Korea is not our concern nor is it under our control to stop if it's destined to happen at some point in the future. You can't fix stupid and our incompetent moron president is about to start WWIII trying to do so.

Democracy seems to work reasonably well in South Korea, and they also eat dogs and cats.

 

There is no way you will get all three countries to pull out, and leave them alone. Just not going to happen. (although, the S. Koreans have something to the tune of 500K and change members in their army, the 25,000 or so we have there would be a very small dent in their forces.)

 

WWI Started with germany assassinating an austrian. They the proceeded to attempt to expand their sphere of influence militarily. We got into it when a German sub fired on a passenger liner....... (Lusitania)