[baklavabook]

it's funny you say 'you cannot blame the Chinese for supporting NK in the past', yet you say 'US as a history of using them and invading foreign countries.' Judge both by the present. US is still the most powerful democratic country that supports innovation, freedom, etc. China is supporting a NK dicatorship which terrorizes its own people, closing off and becoming belligerent, electing a dicatatorship, and threatening other countries.

[zaqokm321]

> US is still the most powerful democratic country that supports innovation, freedom, etc.

I would like to believe that, but personally I think that the US supports innovation and freedom when it is in their best interests.

> China is supporting a NK dicatorship which terrorizes its own people, closing off and becoming belligerent, electing a dicatatorship, and threatening other countries.

Saddam Hussien Shah of Iran Mohamed Morsi Islam Karimov Manuel Noriega

That is a short list of about 30 leaders in modern history which the US has supported which are dictators (or Authoritarian), all have human rights abuses and are belligerent.

As far as NK threatening other countries NK is still at war with SK. I do not know the last time NK invaded a country but I am pretty sure the US has been involved in several invasions and incursions of many countries over the past 50 odd years.

[RobertoG]

The USA is supporting and have supported (and put in power) dictatorships frequently.

Nobody like to talk about Arabia Saudi for instance, a regime style not so different from NK. People related by blood in charge of everything, all opposition repressed.

About the "threatening other countries" thing, in my opinion, this is the reason we are in this situation now.

Why would the NK regime would be so interested in nuclear weapons in the first place? I bet they get seriously interested when they realized they were part of the "axis of evil" and when they saw what happened in Iraq.

[guildwriter]

You're thinking too small if you think this is just about self protection.

> "No. The goal of [North Korean] nuclear armament is not mere security from U.S. attack, which conventional weaponry trained on Seoul has preserved since 1953—and through far greater crises than George W. Bush’s little “axis of evil” remark in 2002. As every North Korean knows, the whole point of the military-first policy is “final victory,” or the unification of the peninsula under North Korean rule. Many foreign observers refuse to believe this, on the grounds that Kim Jong-un could not possibly want a nuclear war. They’re missing the whole point.

North Korea needs the capability to strike the U.S. with nuclear weapons in order to pressure both adversaries into signing peace treaties. This is the only grand bargain it has ever wanted. It has already made clear that a treaty with the South would require ending its ban on pro-North political agitation. The treaty with Washington would require the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the peninsula. The next step, as Pyongyang has often explained, would be some form of the North–South confederation it has advocated since 1960. One would have to be very naïve not to know what would happen next. As Kim Il-Sung told his Bulgarian counterpart Todor Zhivkov in 1973, “If they listen to us, and a confederation is established, South Korea will be done with.”"

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogatio...

[RobertoG]

I don't understand how that would happen.

First, North Korea can't force the U.S. to do anything, the only they can hope for is to make an invasion too expensive to consider.

Second, even if the U.S. accept (why would they?) to leave South Korea, then what? Do NK have the capability of invading SK? That would be their end.

[guildwriter]

North Korea doesn't have to force the US. North Korea just has to convince South Korea to sign a peace treaty. From there getting the US to leave is easy.

North Korea doesn't have the capability at present to invade SK. Having nuclear arms makes invasion unlikely and it gives them a seat at the table as a legitimate nuclear power. With that as a position of security, it's not hard to see how NKorea can leverage that into them getting stronger.

Why would the US accept? Can you imagine the political fallout for the President and party in power if they're forced to keep acquiescing to NKorea anyways? Or if they decide to invade NKorea and deal with the aftermath? NKorea doesn't have to launch a missile to present a legitimate threat and project power around the world.

[RobertoG]

It seems to me that we agree that all the issue it's basically about self-protection from external threads.

[guildwriter]

No we don't. Self protection is just a small part of the overall strategy.

[viraptor]

> Judge both by the present

That's a bit short-sighted. The government changes pretty often. So does public opinion. One day it is a democratic country, another it could migrate towards dictatorship. There's a reason a lot of laws are created to protect you from gov abuse, even though we would assume the gov is not out to get you. Same idea should extend to international politics.