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[Reelya]

Well like I said the experts really doubt they can make a nuke small enough to actually count as a warhead. The mini bomb they showed basically looks like a joke. It's a metal ball less than 2 feet across, and a single person could probably pick it up. It's definitely not a hydrogen bomb, it could only be a low-tech fission bomb with a yield far less than the WWII era bombs.

They'd probably do more damage with traditional artillery than that "thing" they showed off, which was almost certainly a fake. If not a fake, the point is that it's about the same size as a tac. nuke such as the Davy Crocket, which had a yield of 10-20 tons.

~~~

You know what you should be expecting, North Korea will open talks with the USA and ask for bribes to stop with the missile shit. That'll be win-win for NK and Trump so he might go for it. They're almost certainly playing this the way Trump would. If you want the other side to make concessions, then you have to start the negotiations WAY past what you actually want. And some "ICBM vs America" baloney is a good bargaining position for North Korea to start from, because they can ask for resources in exchange for dialling back from something they had no real hope of achieving in the first place.

[Sheb]

Actually you could make the point that it's not rational for the NK to try to get ICBMs to the states because it might prompt the US to do a pre-emptive attacks, while right now having SK as hostage is more than enough deterrent against regime change attempts.

[Reelya]

My money is on the idea that North Korea are doing the "madman gambit", e.g. look scary then ask for concessions for not looking scary. They've tried it before.

NK really is crying for oil, so it's questionable how functional their military would be in an actual fight with just about anyone. They do have plenty of coal however so perhaps they can pioneer ... steam-powered tanks?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-china-oil-idUSKBN17F17L

It's estimated the US military goes through 340,000 barrels of oil per day. Contrast that with NK's estimated 15,000 barrels a day, but which includes total national oil consumption for all purposes. That doesn't leave a whole lot for actually driving tanks around and flying fighters. Sure maybe they've got a lot of old gear on the books, but it's almost certainly for show and not operational equipment.

[Sheb]

Yeah, but that argument would be more relevant if anyone was making the point that NK was about to steamroll SK. I think there is a tad more than just "looking scary". Having a nuclear deterrent is the ultimate insurace to Kim that he won't end up a la Kaddafhi.

[Reelya]

I wonder how much of this is also marketing, NK gets quite a bit of money from selling arms to developing nations. So anyone hyping up their abilities works for them in terms of selling more of that junk.

[Sheb]

Do they? AFAIK the arm business was largely shut up, although they still make some cash renting slaves and selling humungous statues.

[martinuzz]

It's estimated the US military goes through 340,000 barrels of oil per day. Contrast that with NK's estimated 15,000 barrels a day, but which includes total national oil consumption for all purposes. That doesn't leave a whole lot for actually driving tanks around and flying fighters. Sure maybe they've got a lot of old gear on the books, but it's almost certainly for show and not operational equipment.

Can't really compare the two. NK doesn't patrol half the globe with it's navy, nor do they have the vast distances to be covered on land like the US has.

[Strife26]

It's estimated the US military goes through 340,000 barrels of oil per day. Contrast that with NK's estimated 15,000 barrels a day, but which includes total national oil consumption for all purposes. That doesn't leave a whole lot for actually driving tanks around and flying fighters. Sure maybe they've got a lot of old gear on the books, but it's almost certainly for show and not operational equipment.

Can't really compare the two. NK doesn't patrol half the globe with it's navy, nor do they have the vast distances to be covered on land like the US has.

The point isn't that NK can win, the point and threat is the damage that the DPRK gets to do in its death throes. And the amount of destruction they can put into South Korea is considerable. And the loss to the troops who will need to crash the DMZ will be considerable. And the resulting refugee crisis as South Korea and China get to try to bring an impoverished, indoctrinated country into the 21st century will be considerable. 

[Strife26]

It's estimated the US military goes through 340,000 barrels of oil per day. Contrast that with NK's estimated 15,000 barrels a day, but which includes total national oil consumption for all purposes. That doesn't leave a whole lot for actually driving tanks around and flying fighters. Sure maybe they've got a lot of old gear on the books, but it's almost certainly for show and not operational equipment.

Can't really compare the two. NK doesn't patrol half the globe with it's navy, nor do they have the vast distances to be covered on land like the US has.

The point isn't that NK can win, the point and threat is the damage that the DPRK gets to do in its death throes. And the amount of destruction they can put into South Korea is considerable. And the loss to the troops who will need to crash the DMZ will be considerable. And the resulting refugee crisis as South Korea and China get to try to bring an impoverished, indoctrinated country into the 21st century will be considerable. 

Although apparently a lot of people there aren't indoctrinated (at least according to a lot of defectors). They just follow the propaganda so they don't disappear suddenly and turn up in some labour camp a month later.

There's no good metric for measuring indoctrination other than watching what happens when the worldview collapses. Godwin me if you'd like, but there's some very definite comparisons to the fall of the Third Reich and the general shittiness of killing fanatical teenagers.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Regardless, it's all but a certainty that any large-scale conflict with North Korea might kill some murderous assholes and would definitely kill thousands to millions of Korean civilians on both sides of the DMZ, certainly far more than any military deaths.

Such is the conceit of it all, I'm afraid. Any outside force that could topple the NK government would also topple that government's society, and important related elements such as having food. Despite what people say, it could get worse in NK, and was worse in the late 90s/early 00s.

[Strife26]

Regardless, it's all but a certainty that any large-scale conflict with North Korea might kill some murderous assholes and would definitely kill thousands to millions of Korean civilians on both sides of the DMZ, certainly far more than any military deaths.

Such is the conceit of it all, I'm afraid. Any outside force that could topple the NK government would also topple that government's society, and important related elements such as having food. Despite what people say, it could get worse in NK, and was worse in the late 90s/early 00s.

How many years of general shittiness need to go on before the apocalyptic destruction and subsequent rebuilding become justified? 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In my eyes, that might never be justified. The wounds placed on a society by its destruction in war can persist indefinitely if action is not taken to rebuild it, which I'm not convinced it would be. Can you truly see our government getting along well enough to approve hundreds of billions of "wasted tax dollars" in the wake of a major and possibly nuclear war, even if we get co-support from South Korea, Japan, or even China? I can't. I see that administration being swept out in populist economic rage and replaced with another America First type.

The utilitarian argument can go either way because we don't know the future. If it goes smooth, maybe intervention is justified. If it doesn't, even NK's shittiness is better than the suffering that would be inflicted by "fixing" it. And any conflict involving the possibility of nuclear weapons includes the possibility of shattering civilization or even driving the human race to extinction, which is most definitely not worth it.

I hate to say it, especially being from a much freer nation, but the North Koreans might have to do it themselves for a positive outcome. Not that we shouldn't pull some spygames to help the reformist faction, though this of course comes with its own risks.

[martinuzz]

The newly elected South Korean president seems to take a less friendly approach to the US. She has declared that the deployment of the US missile shield will be put on hold until environmental concerns are asessed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/world/asia/south-korea-thaad-missile-defense-us.html

[martinuzz]

Otto Warmbier has been released by North Korea last week, and transported back to the States on tuesday. He is in hospital in a coma.
According to North Korea, he 'became ill after his trial last year, was given a sleeping pill, and never woke up'.
So looks like he's been in a coma for a year, before being released.

His parents say he has been brutalized by the pariah regime of North Korea.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40271202

With Trump's short fuse, this might becoma a casus belli

[Sheb]

I've read he got struck down by botulism.