Is Korea really a threat ?

I think the biggest fear to the US is that they sell/leak that knowledge to “Terrorists”. But to me, the best way to stop them from building nukes is just to not bother them. Dont put trade restrictions just because they are communist. Americans talk about freedom and no discrimination but they just want to shoot everyone who talks about communism or socialism.

Axis of Evil.. Remember that? I would be all up in the nukes if I was PRNK or Iran. This isn’t a coincidence. We won’t fuck with a country with nukes.

Doubt they will ever use them. It is simply leverage.

seems to me that N. Korea is a convenient problem for the USA

Directly? No. Even if they had the tech to fire a nuke at us, we have a lot of tech that could shoot said nuke down. PLUS, we’ve got a few thousand of our own we can send right back at them (and if they fired first not even China would back them up). Even militarily. Their army is AROUND the same size as ours, but it’s drastically out gunned in technology (not to mention our troops are volunteers entirely, and not conscripts). Not to mention South Korea would likely be on our side in any armed conflict with North Korea, and their military is AT LEAST equivalent to the Norths (excluding of course WMD tech).

Indirectly is more where North Korea is a concern. They could sell a nuclear missile, or the tech to make one (though that’s not exactly a huge mystery anyways), to a terrorist or a nation that would actually use it (though if NK won’t, I dunno who will).

@arturodiaz We Americans don’t want to shoot everyone who is communist or socialist. We’re very suspect of communism, but only because the only existing communist nations are run by dictators, and all of our experiences to date haven’t exactly been pleasant.

As far as socialist countries, some of our best allies are socialist. The recent spike in “anti-socialism” nonsense is just some crap that the FAR right wing of our nation is trying to drum up in order to bring down Obama (they’ve really got nothing else to cling too, so they’re preying on peoples fear of change). .... Not that I think we actually are headed towards socialism (in fact we pale in comparison to most of our european allies) .... But it’s only a few nut jobs in this country that think Socialist nations are bad.

i’ll elaborate on my point a bit; i call it a ‘convenient’ problem because as westy says, it is no real threat to the western/developed powers of the world.

however, it can be used as justification for the increased reach and military spending and development of these western/developed powers. if N.Korea were not a problem, would S.Korea and that region of asia be so accommodating of foreign/american military presence?

@westy81585 There have been also many capitalist dictarorships. Pinochet, Porfirio Diaz, Batista just to name a few. The difference is that capitalist dictarorships were very benefitial to your interests, not so much their own country’s people. So I don’t think is a matter of ideology, more of a matter of money and resources. Who gives me benefits is my friend, everyone else can,will and should be bombed. By the way, “suspect” really comes short to describing your attitude toward communism. You teach your kids that communism is all evil. Your government discriminated several of his own citizens just for being communists. BTW, who of your allies are socialists? France?

Also, only a few nuts? There probably millions of americans who still believe communism is the source of evil.

North Korea….....oops!

Anyone can be seen as a threat. Panic only occurs when someone makes an announcement that they are a threat. Just like Iraq… nobody was thinking about Iraq when the attacks on the WTC happened. Then Bushy and his team completely switched gears. The only difference with North Korea is that we know they have nukes. But if our Intelligence are doing their jobs, we should know ahead of time if they really are a threat, and be prepared to stop an attack. Although, who even knows… the government can make the CIA “officially report” this crap to start a war. That’s how we got into Iraq, so it’s not just me being all conspiracy theory about it. Basically, judge for yourself, and be very skeptical.

@arturodiaz You’re preaching to the choir man, I know there are bad capitalist dictatorships (and even that we’ve backed up some of them in the past). I won’t sit here and defend it except to say that sometimes you have to go with what you view as the lesser of two evils… A deal with the devil so to say.

And we don’t teach our children that communism is evil. Haven’t in 20+ years. We still are suspect of it, but lets be fair, there are 4 communist nations right now and the only one we’re on good terms with is China (and even they have some blatant flaws that go simply against everythign we believe…. the illegality of Christianity for example).

And the discrimination against communists in the 50’s was drawn out to be a massive witch hunt, and crazy talk. In fact McCarthyism (he was the senator who pushed the anti-communist movement back then) is now a slur in american politics.

And socialist, well Sweden for example. Germany and France are more socialist than we are. A lot of our South American allies…. There’s a list of them… My point is that nowhere close to the majority of Americans have a negative view of these countries, or even socialism (we don’t want to become it, but that’s just a matter of choice).

And you’re right, there probably are millions of americans who believe communism is a source of evil (when most of us just think it’s been unfortunately used by predominantly “bad” rulers)... But when you consider there’s somewhere on the range of 305 million americans, it ends up being a very marginal percent of the populace (I would estimate less than 5% of the total).... which I would wager is on par with other nations in our position…..

Not to mention, it’s not like all these other countries have a great view of us… I mean look at yourself, you seem to have a pretty negative view of the US.

It does seem that China has more to fear from Pyongyang than the US. As it is, the Chinese government is having difficulty managing its Korean refugee population. North Korea is poorly governed: if the administration collapses, as it well might, it will because of its own incompetence, not because it is communist. Should the country implode, China will be dealing with the enormous problems that will follow: refugees by the million, civil war, etc.

The only thing that makes me nervous about NORTH Korea is,
obviously, they’re trying to make a point and can not be expected to make rational decisions.
When we hear that death rattle… What have they got to lose?
I’m afraid they might want to go out with a bang!.

And, what effects China and there “neck of the woods” does effect the western world as well.

I see what bea2345 is saying. If North Korea collapsed it would be a huge problem for China and South Korea (moreso than it would for the US). But something definitely needs to be done about their regime, cuz this is getting dangerous.

It certainree ees.

This is a big, fat wagging of the dog.