North Korea nuke test

[Defiant1]

Perhaps its possible to be completely unaware of such activities, I mean, most of us, scattered about the world, have not seen much effect from all this bomb talk.  But, even if this IS a scare, with these heightening tensions.  It could mean a gigantic mess, basically.  I don't mean to be flippant, but, with a tad of assumption...  a lot of people could die.  I have a friend that lives in South Korea, and he, and others who are from there, as well as people IN there, are not liking the prospects at all.  His personal opinion is that if North Korea uses their weapons,  that they will attack America first.  He says that Kim has a hatred for Americans, and that he doesn't care about losses, because he's old himself.  

Historically, its about time for another war.  Everything works by cycles, and if you barely do any homework, you can read them.  War-time follows them just like everything else.  Technology is getting too powerful to only affect a certain group of people.  If war breaks out, its not going to just be one or two nations.  Anyway, I'm not saying anything is really happening, this is kind of a movement towards a scary direction, but, it could all blow over, and all these countries could fondle their nuclear weapons without using them, ever.  

I dunno, this is kind of frightening.  I'm American, I don't think we're invincible.  I don't think we're right all the time, and, I KNOW for a fact that we're not globally loved.  Whatever.  What do you guys think?  Besides the useless and inane country bashing, does anybody have any thoughts to what might happen next?

[Vildern]

It's indeed most alarming.


I still think that the chance they'll use nukes is small. As for the best course of action, not pissing them off would be the smartest one now, methinks.  :p

[techie775]

well from what i've heard, the US isn't the only one who isn't cool with N.Korea having nuclear weapons. I live in the US too, and i'm just glad we aren't the only ones who are against this. But I hope nothing bad happens and terrorism doesn't profit from this.

[Vroomfondel]

One of my friends is an immigrant from S. Korea and he's pretty worried about what's going on over there. I'm part Korean, so I've been following this pretty closely. It's possible that he might attack the US, but I doubt it. Assuming that he has the missile capabilites to reach America (note: I'm talking about missiles that work, not ones that drop a minute into flight ) he's not going to risk losing everything on an attack, no matter how tramautic it will be to the American people.

[Klytos]

Whatever happens in response to North Korea all hinges on whether the Chinese side with them or side with the rest of the world. I recall during the 50's they sided with the North Korean's.

[Skyshark]

The difference between the Second Gulf War and a hypothetical Second Korean War is that the North Korean Army is about 1 million strong (not including reservists charged with defending their country, which brings the total to approximately 4.5 million) and are absolutely loyal to Kim Jong-Il and the DPRK. They also produce their own military equipment, so they are fairly well armed (due to their self-reliance way of living, known as Juche). This war would not be a push-over at all and the casualties will be much higher.

Couple this with the fact that they absolutely despise Japan and the US and are quite keen to obliterate the US army bases in South Korea, level Seoul with approximately 10,000 or so artillery pieces they have aimed at it, take aim at other cities in South like Daegu, Busan, Daejong and Gwangju and then proceed to try and flatten Tokyo, Osaka and other Japanese cities within reach. They'd also have no hesitation to launch an attack at any time, as they are technically still at war with South Korea and the US (as there was no formal peace treaty, but an armistice that has lasted over 50 years).

Unlike the first Korean War, they most likely will not have the backing of China this time around (it was the Chinese that was responsible for driving back the Allied forces in the first war when the Soviet-allied sides were forced to retreat into Russia and China near the end of the war). From what I've read, the Chinese army have cancelled the leave of troops stationed in the east part of the country and have started them on chemical warfare training. Japan has also done a bit of fence-mending with them lately with China. China are also displeased with North Korea about the missile testing back in July, mainly because they told them not to do further testing after firing the first lot of missiles and North Korea then proceeded to launch. Russia will most likely adopt a similar stance. Both countries aren't too comfortable with having another nuclear power on their doorstep with a volatile temperament, either.

In a way, I'm grateful I decided to hold off going to SK for a year due to a friend's wedding (couldn't guarantee I'd make it back if I went, due to timing). If I were there, I'd be ****ting bricks right about now about getting blasted by the Norks (particularly as I was planning to go to Seoul and teach English there) and trying to get out of the country at the earliest opportunity.

If something does break out, it will not be pretty (and that's a very drastic understatement on my part).