Actually, it's more like the retarded kid is running around waving a knife at everyone just to get attention - eventually, someone's going to get pissed off and take the knife away from the little fuck, if not punch him in the head. I sure hope people are more intelligent than to start the "Well, Russia/China/US/Britain/country X has nukes, so it's okay if North Korea does as well" fallacy. The possibility of nuclear war is still present, if not as horribly near as a few decades ago, and the world is not going to grow any safer with irritating little underdog dictators deciding their impoverished country has a point to prove to everyone else. Although I hate what's happened with the Iraq blunder, a forced government change in North Korea would not be a bad thing - hell, the US doesn't even have to be involved, Thailand can do it for all I care - they've got to be sick of Kim's shit. But I don't see things changing for the better over there without Kim dying or being forced out of power, and he's just going to keep trying to bully the world into doing things his way for the longer he stays in power. And regardless of if he has any or not now, if he's given enough time North Korea WILL have nukes. The strategy for world peace is not "everyone gets the bomb", but rather that the bomb ceases to be a part of international relations. If the only way to hammer that point across is by force... well, it's regrettable, but you can't reason with a madman.
geh... i think i agree with that the u.s. and russia have a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons....russia has so many it has trouble keeping track of them. the u.s. likes to use them, store them, horde them and give them cute names. i may be wrong, but i thought the reason nuclear weapons are frowned upon was because of the long lasting negative effect on civilian populations. radiation sickness, cancer, deformities and such. i guess my point would be, that depleted uranium munitions is a standard now. the u.s., the u.k., bla bla, bla fighting in iraq are basicly dumping the stuff in heavily civilian populated areas everytime they squeeze a round off. d.u. causes radiation sickness, cancer, deformities, and such. think about all the dirty bombs that could be made with the tons of d.u. now litered throughout iraq...if they didnt have wmd before they do now. then you have the tactic of targeting civilian populations...the u.s., the iraqi insurgence, al qaeda, isreal, palestinians, pakistan, india, bla bla, bla. the u.s. blows up a town here, a city there, and a water treatment facility. the iraqis kill reporters, civilian contractors. the u.s. kills reporters and bombs the red cross. al qaeda flys some planes into the wtc. the u.s. levels afghanistan with bombs made from depleted uranium. isreal uses helicopters to launch missles into crowds of people, palestinians blow up a bus in isreal, bla bla bla bla what difference will it make if north korea has nukes over conventional weapons? whats the difference between a tactical nuke and a moab, a daisy cutter or a bunker buster....both are just as powerfull, and both spread radio active material for miles. the u.s. has a new bigger and better bomb nicknamed 'mop' that is 40% larger than the moab(a 6,000 lb larger version of the daisy cutter.) wether a 30,000 pound d.u. 'conventional weapon' or a nuke lands in your back yard the end result is the same. you are dead as fuck...you and the city you live in.
the problem is s.korea has have presidents who were/are in line with n.korea... that guy who won Nobel piece prize after forking out a lot of money - seriously - is well known for his love for n.korea... and the present one isn't much different either as he came from bit of socialist back ground himself... they poured a lot of money into n.korea nuclear program - regardless whether they knew/know or not - and even now they think n.korea won't use it against s.korea or anyone else... i think the main us concern is it might give enough leverage for Japan to arm itself with nuke...
Can't.... Japan has certain guidelines to follow, as it has been assimilated, or whatever the fuck the borg said (I don't watch Star Trek).
but rules are there to be broken... adn if I'm not mistaken the para-military Japan has is already breach of the rules set down after WWII anyway...
Expect a drastic change in Japan's military doctrine within the next few years. Japan is slowly moving away from its pacifist role of the last sixty years and moving into a more assertive role. There are a number of reasons for this including the threat of N. Korea and the economic and military growth of China. There are also a new generation of young politicians who feel that they are not responsible for Japan's actions in WWII. This change has already started in certain areas actually. Japanese troops in Iraq (non-combat but a big step for Japan), talk of ratifying the Japanese constitution, and naming peace in the Taiwan strait a "strategic interest" in a joint US-Japan declaration. I suggest reading some of the articles in this section of Time Asia. It will explain it better. http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501050425/
I don't know guys, despots like Kim ILL Jung have a way of suddenly imploding for no particular reason. Just look at Idie Amin. The best policy I can see is to totally isolate N. Korea until either they're ready to deal or Kim dies. But that's no guarentee that he won't be succeeded by someone as bad or worse. I also highly doubt that North Korea would share nuclear weapons technology with people like Al Queda, as it's in the best interest of North Korea (more specifically in Kim's best intrest) to not do so. You don't give the village psycopath a gatling gun and turn him loose, even if you do want him to kill your estranged girlfriend. Becasue if he were to do so then there WOULD be a 100% chance of American retribution. If America gets nuked N. Korea is the first country that's gonna get it and Kim knows it. We should just kill them all.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050501/ap_on_re_as/japan_north_korea must be annoying to have a dumbass neighbor like N. Korea...more striving for attention.
Sounds like Tom Lehrs song Whos Next and whose to say General Mac Author was wrong he said we would be back