What should "we" do to North Korea

[bengangmo]

Setting the ground rules first:
1) "We" means the rest of the world acting in concert
2) "To" means positive action (not sanctions etc etc)

I guess the whole world knows by now that North Korea has tested a nuclear device, as well as another round of missile tests. It seems pretty clear that they should now be considered a nuclear power (or soon to be nuclear power)

Given that sanctions don't seem to have worked so well so far, what action should the rest of the world take, and what action in reality do you think it would be possible to arrange.

As a follow-up question, with Obama's new more inclusive policy, do you think it is now easier for the US to take a more agressive stance against North Korea?

I personally would like to see some form of military reprisal against them, maybe to the stage of regime change - and wouldn't mind too much the US leading the charge so long as it had very broad based approval. (i.e UN Security Council, EU or Nato)

[blank]

Shouldn't be have space based anti-missile platforms by now? In which case, everytime Nork "tests" a nuclear missile, we test the platform...

[gravitycrash]

Nothing substantial will happen until China gets serious about it. I believe China likes having South Korea and Japan freaking out. Which doesn't make sense to me because Japan could probably build a nuke in less than 6 months if it really felt threatened. Then it would be China's turn to freak out.

[Ratel]

Why should "we" do anything? What's with the obsession with North Korea? What about India, France, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, Britain?

An enemy of the US does not automatically make them "our" enemy. The US has lost many, many friends in the past 8 years, and before that the US has been pissing off a whole bunch of people.

You might want to ask yourself, who started this whole fuck up. What motivated the Russian Federation and China to develop their own nuclear weapons? Could US aggression be the reason?

[Moon Dog]

Agree on Pakistan being more of a worry. There is a true nuclear capable country on the verge of disarray.

Well South Korea is threatening to uphold the UN sanctions on importing plutonium into North Korea buy stopping their ships. North Korea is threatening military action if they do and is restarting it's facility to generate their own plutonium.

I think we need some dicks to fuck some assholes before we're all covered in shit ? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdq577iClbU)

[Who_me?]

Unfortunately for those promoting regime change, China is N. Korea's ally and although they don't like the nuke testing either, we really don't want to do anything provocative there.

[sailor]

Setting the ground rules first:
1) "We" means the rest of the world acting in concert
2) "To" means positive action (not sanctions etc etc)

I guess the whole world knows by now that North Korea has tested a nuclear device, as well as another round of missile tests. It seems pretty clear that they should now be considered a nuclear power (or soon to be nuclear power)

Given that sanctions don't seem to have worked so well so far, what action should the rest of the world take, and what action in reality do you think it would be possible to arrange.

As a follow-up question, with Obama's new more inclusive policy, do you think it is now easier for the US to take a more agressive stance against North Korea?

I personally would like to see some form of military reprisal against them, maybe to the stage of regime change - and wouldn't mind too much the US leading the charge so long as it had very broad based approval. (i.e UN Security Council, EU or Nato) Your assumption that somehow the USA represents the entire world is totally off the mark. Given that the rest of the post makes no sense.

If America were to take unilateral military action it would just piss off most of the world. And a broad agreement supporting America is not really possible. Other countries have other views. Not everybody thinks America's predominance is a good thing. Go figure.

[Muskrat Love]

The problem with doing anything with North Korea is that they have enough artillery pieces within range of Seoul (at least 13,000) that they could put an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 shells in Seoul in the first hour of fighting. Seoul and it's surrounding metropolitan area is home to about 24 million people, so we are talking at least a hundred thousand civillian deaths in the first few minutes, and probably millions before we had a chance to stop them. We can't do a surgical strike to chop off the head of this monster, because the people manning these artillery pieces almost certainly have orders to start firing if they are cut off from command. The artillery is scattered over such a large area and entrenched so heavily that, even with a full scale US attack we would not be able to shut them down in time to prevent a major loss of life.

About all we could do to minimize this would be to do a surprise nuclear attack with multiple warheads blanketing the entire area that's able to fire artillery at Seoul. This would result in the deaths of millions in North Korea and require a massive evacuation in South Korea to avoid fallout.

It's a tough situation. There's really nothing we could do that wouldn't result in one of the bloodiest situations in world history.

[bengangmo]

@Sailor - I am myself pretty much anti US and their policies of global hegemony, however given the threats that North Korea is making, I do take it as a pretty big promlem - they are pulling out of treaties, and threatening to attack neighbouring countries.

@Ratel - well, personally I really don't take Iran so seriously right now, for the others you mentioned - sure they have a "better" nuclear arsenal, but at the same time they are not being so belligerent right now, which is what worries me about the North.

In reality given their military might there is probably little that can be done, but if a decent coalition could be built with China's support, is there anything at all we can or do we just have to accept their actions?

If we seriously think that thier most recent threats aren't linked to the successful test and an attempt to assert more power, then I think we are deluding ourselves.

[Muskrat Love]

There is already research being made into anti-artillery defense systems. If we ever developed something that could reliably stop or defuse incoming artillery shells then North Korea would not be nearly as large a threat to South Korea, but there's a lot of practical problems with intercepting large, heavy, unguided ballistic shells that make it a lot more complicated than stopping missiles.

[declan]

There is already research being made into anti-artillery defense systems. If we ever developed something that could reliably stop or defuse incoming artillery shells then North Korea would not be nearly as large a threat to South Korea, but there's a lot of practical problems with intercepting large, heavy, unguided ballistic shells that make it a lot more complicated than stopping missiles.

Badtz

Might be feasible with between one and a hundred shells, couple of hundred thousand, is beyond the scope of that system.

Declan

[Muskrat Love]

Badtz

Might be feasible with between one and a hundred shells, couple of hundred thousand, is beyond the scope of that system.

Declan

Right. So we can do nothing that threatens Kim Jong Il's regime without the certain knowledge that our actions will result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Of all the evil dictators in the world, he's the one who needs nukes the least.

[Ichigodaisuki]

Leaving reality alone for a minute, is possible to just kill him and replace him?
Moon Over Parador (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095654/) pops to mind.
Maybe it does go exactly like that, but North Korea is a tough game.

Or how about micro-EMP's? Electro-magnetic pulses? Plant them in rice bags, donate them across the border, then set them off by low frequency carrier wave?

[declan]

Right. So we can do nothing that threatens Kim Jong Il's regime without the certain knowledge that our actions will result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Of all the evil dictators in the world, he's the one who needs nukes the least.

There is no easy way and lots of equally bad choices. Basically out of all the evil dictator types out there , he is the one person that is said to be most likely to pull the trigger on a nuke.

Declan