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[Loud Whispers]

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD

[birdy51]

Looks like things might be cooling down a bit between North and South Koreas. Still a lot to take care of, but I hesitantly would say it's step in the right direction.

Reuter's Article

[smjjames]

It's going to take more than a truce and get-together at the Olympics to achieve unification. Definetly a step in the right direction, but it can unravel all too easily.

Anyways, given that the opening ceremonies are generally a telling of the host countries history and showcase of culture, I wonder how South Korea will portray post WWII.

[Paxiecrunchle]

I think anyone who believes a reunification will be a reality within the next 20 years to be hilarious.

[Teneb]

I think anyone who believes a reunification will be a reality within the next 20 years to be hilarious.

20? Yeah, no. 100? Maybe, if everything goes mostly right. But at the very least this could be a step towards ending the war between North and South for good.

[Reelya]

It's actually impossible to say. A lot happens in 20 years. You can bet nobody was seeing the Germany reunification as happening any time soon in 1980.

[Loud Whispers]

It's actually impossible to say. A lot happens in 20 years. You can bet nobody was seeing the Germany reunification as happening any time soon in 1980.

Dunno, most agents in Europe were actively executing plans to see reunification occur or falter in 1980; it was a real opportunity or threat to all sides involved, the West Germans were actively pursuing a policy of reintegration of East Germany, the East German government was failing to stop gorillions of East Germans from escaping and coming home with ideas of cyka blyat western decadence, the USSR was increasingly less able to defend its Western and Eastern flanks from American dick waving, without factoring in it also having to deal with increasing Chinese and European dick waving to boot. The biggest obstacle to North-South Korean unification is that North Korea is run by a personality cult that does not want reunification while South Korea was until 2017 run by cultists that did not want reunification. Worst of all, NK is now a nuclear state, so it's basically Dubyas fault for saying North Korea was on the freedom list

[Cyroth]

2020: To the surprise of everybody South Korea peacefully integrates into North Korea, the artillery along the DMZ is filled with confetti and burries all of the south under 50cm of pretty colors.
2022: Due to combined northern engineering and southern technology and E-Sports money New Korea lands on the moon for the first time.
2026: New Korea establishes first scientific colony on the mun moon.
2030: New Korea launches its first Mars mission, using the Orion Engine old north Korea developed under the guise of nuclear missile tests.
2031: the southern part of the country has finally cleared away all of the confetti.
2040: Korean mars colony is established.

[Loud Whispers]

2050: Korean mars colony descends into civil war, the state of North Mars Korea is formed
2060: North Mars Korea attacks Guam using their advanced space engines, powered by proletariat tears and rage
2070: The United States is powerless to stop North Mars Korea annexing North America
2080: The Russian Federation, NATO, China and Japan fall to North Mars Korean agrarian missiles
2090: The European states willingly surrender after being indoctrinated by North Mars Korean cartoons
2100: Unified Northern Southern Korea surrenders to North Mars Korea. Kim Jong-Un awakens from his slumber to sit upon his golden throne, fusing together communism with starcraft 2, using his insane APM to guide humanity through the void, to embark upon the great cultural revolution of the stars. Using the warp, humanity colonizes the stars

[smjjames]

No idea where you got the idea that NK doesn't want reunification, they do want reunification. They just want it on their own terms with the US not interfering and no US troops around.

Of course though, the absolute must do step towards reunification would be signing a peace treaty between each other because even though the shooting ended over 50 years ago, the two are still technically at war. And no, it's not one of those cases where war happened, the fighting stopped, but nobody did the official diplomatic documents declarimg peace.

In NK related stuff, Trumps South Korea ambassador pick was dumped after he opposed a limited military strike. Either this is the Trump admin doing bluster, he just wants a 'yes man', or they really are planning on doing a limited military strike.

From everything I've read, even a limited military strike would have all the sublety of tapping a hornets nest*.

*To be honest, I'm not sure whether the hornets would have a different reaction to a tap vs violently striking the nest. Not that I'd want to find out.

[Loud Whispers]

No idea where you got the idea that NK doesn't want reunification, they do want reunification. They just want it on their own terms with the US not interfering and no US troops around.

That's a fair point, I'll be more specific and say that NK and SK officially both want to work towards unification, but for political reasons are maintaining status quo

Of course though, the absolute must do step towards reunification would be signing a peace treaty between each other because even though the shooting ended over 50 years ago, the two are still technically at war. And no, it's not one of those cases where war happened, the fighting stopped, but nobody did the official diplomatic documents declarimg peace.

The shooting hasn't really ended, North Korea still shells SK clay every now and then. It's an armistice, no peace

From everything I've read, even a limited military strike would have all the sublety of tapping a hornets nest*.
*To be honest, I'm not sure whether the hornets would have a different reaction to a tap vs violently striking the nest. Not that I'd want to find out.

Not sure what counts as a limited military strike for Murricans. Also seems to be a bad move, surely the whole point of the military strike is that you eliminate their capability to retaliate, or else do not provoke them at all? The middle way runs a high risk of provoking all out war without eliminating their capability to cause havoc

[smjjames]

I don't know what their plans would be for a 'limited military strike', but it'd certainly involve something like sending a cruise missile (or two, or three) at some launch site. What Trump did with that Syria air base or even when Bill Clinton lobbed some cruise missiles at Iraq for retaliation on an attempted assassionation on George HW Bush could count as a 'limited military strike'

The problem though is that I don't think there IS any sort of safe middle ground, if there were one, we'd have taken it already. The difference from Syria and Iraq is that neither Syria or Iraq had any desire to take on the US military, but NK is on a hair trigger.

Even if we signalled with mile/kiliometer high neon letters that it was a limited strike and not a prelude to war, Kim Jong-Un isn't exactly obliged to restrain himself.

The real danger of a war isn't coming from an actual desire to wage war, but from a mistake or miscalculation that could spiral out of control.

[Teneb]

Also: NK has nukes. Iraq didn't have 'em, neither did Syria.

But really, if are going to attack someone you shouldn't leave them in a position to retalliate. Anything less and you'd be better off not attacking in the first place.

[smjjames]

That too, yes. Syria didn't want to retaliate and Iraq had gotten forced out of Kuwait a bit over two years after Clinton lobbed some cruise missiles at them

Either way, even if NK didn't have nukes, theres no way to guarantee that there won't be a massive retaliation. The most we got in the two examples above were protests and death glares, I don't see NK stopping there.

In general, a pre-emptive strike just seems like a bad idea because it's a situation ripe for miscalculation and things spiralling out of control when you think about the hair trigger kind of environment that NK operates in.

[Sheb]

NK also has an incentive for things not to escalate too much. After all, they'd lose a full-scale war. Still, they could lob a few artillery shells to Seoul or something in a smaller tit-for-tat response.