North Korea

[Warbler]

This one is going largely under reported in our media but is a burning issue in America and most certainly in the far east.

China is reported to have deployed 150,000 troops to the border, whilst America having recently deployed THAAD to south korea is in the process of a sustained naval build up under the plausibe guise of 'exercises' as well as having 30,000 troops stationed there already.

For his part Kim is threatening to nuke them and making 101 other aggresive noises, whilst Trump calls him "naughty"

Now whereas I've always opposed intervention in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, this particular one has me much more conflicted about what the right course of action is

 

[Grey]

I don't understand why N Korea isn't content with a lower profile. Why does it feel the need to annoy its neighbours?

 

[Warbler]

Status I think. The North long ago abandoned any pretence to being a political model. So far as I can see its a slightly mad, medieval, dynastic monarchy. I think there's other structural issues too. Isolating regimes have a tendancy to take their own domestic strength as an indicator as to how strong they are. A combination of lack of reference points plus an army of sychophants telling a supreme leader what they want to hear can lead to them over-estimating themselves

I've been paying closer attention to this for a few weeks now as it was becoming apparent that something was changing, but only in the last 48 hours has our own media finally latched on to it

The bottom line really is that the north are going to succeed in developing an ICBM capable of hitting America's west coast. Americans can laugh as much as they like about Kim targeting fish in the Sea of Japan, but the moment they bring California into range they'll soon stop laughing. On his current development tracjectory Kim is likely to achieve this during Donald Trumps administration(s). This probably gives Trump between 18-24 months to do something.

For decades the view had always been that the risks of intervention going wrong, were greater than the risks of doing nothing, and that if left to their own devices the regime would inevitably collapse like other similar ones have done. This whole calculus is changing though. There will reach a point soon where its judged that the risks of doing nothing are greater than the risks of intervention. If the north is successful in miniaturising a nuclear warhead, then America has a really serious problem.

Put bluntly Trump can't, and won't allow this to happen. Throw in the fact that he appears to have reversed his appalling poll ratings in the last 10 days since he started throwing his own missiles and bombs around, and the narcisist who obsesses on approval proxies seems to have found the way to Americas heart. Bombing people = popularity

I'm not sure I'm seeing many good outcomes here.

For now at least he has a small window where the South Koreans are in the midst of an election and China is temporarily it seems adopting a more neutral positon.

 

[SlimChance]

I've a question. Would any presidental candidate on either ticket be doing anything different with foreign policy right now or is it a given when you assume office that they follow the well worn path?

 

[Warbler]

It's easier for a President to pursue their own foreign policy then it is to start mucking about with things that require congressional approval

The big change in Trumps direction in the last 10 days has come from Ivanka largely seeing off Bannon, who now joins Conway in room 101 (hopefully to be followed by Miller and Sessions shortly)

Trump is reportedly dropping three times the number of bombs/ drone attacks that Obama averaged, but this might also be a feature of the battle for Mosul

I thought the most pyschotic candidate on display was probably Ted Cruz, but as regards pursuing things diffferently I think that with regards to North Korea they'd all be pretty much coming into line. This one looks intractable to me

In Syria I think Hillary would have been the most aggressive, and I can't pretend that I'm not a little bit concerned that Trump seemed to alter direction based on an emotional reaction to Fox news broadcasting pictures of "beautiful little babies" being gassed. That shows a certain ignorance and weakness in Trump. I this was such an affront to him then he should never have been on the ticket he was on in the first place. That it seems to have come as such a revelation to him suggests he's ill-informed. Incidentally, more people (including children) were killed by the rebel car bomb attack against civilian evacuees that followed a few days later

Coming back to North Korea though, I don't see this ending well. I think Trump is gearing up for an action now inside the next 3-4 months, initially I thought 18-24 months, but I doubt he's going to run that risk now. Time is increasingly not on his side.

It might work of course, but it could go spectacularly wrong. I think to some extent that when the music finally stopped playing Donald Trump was the one left standing, and that's the situation we face. Still, at least he knows more than the Generals remember! I somehow suspect he might have learnt since that he doesn't

 

[SlimChance]

You haven't really answered the question. What would anyone else on the tickets be doing differently right now?

 

[Marb]

Now whereas I've always opposed intervention in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, this particular one has me much more conflicted about what the right course of action is

Where've you been, Warbler.

What's your analysis on North Korea and Syria these days?

 

[Warbler]

Same as it ever was

Syria was always going to get messier once other players had been empowered. The answer was to navigate to the least worst, bad option straight away. If they'd done that, it would have been over by now. The problem there however was that if things had been left to their natural course of events, ISIS would have won and Jordan would be in peril today. America has now got a difficult to decision to make having promoted and supported the Kurds. They'll basically have to knife them in the back now, or risk losing Turkey even further (who might be a lost cause anyway)

As regards North Korea? I actually think there is an accommodation here, but whether America will accept it is another issue

I've got a theory (hardly unique) that this nuclear test they ran in December (their most powerful to date) actually did do a lot of damage to their testing facilities. Remote sensing reported a lot of secondary seismic activity consistent with tunnel collapses etc They haven't tested since. I do wonder if they've inadvertently destroyed a lot of their testing facilities or killed engineers etc? They've become noticeably less bellicose since