This question has been bothering me for a long time. Seriously, North Korea has to be the creepiest freaking place on the planet at the moment. I’d rather time-travel to a combat zone in WW2 for a month than be in today’s North Korea for a day.
Safe to say, this nation and it’s place in the world has bugged the hell out of me for some time.
But I have to wonder about all the brouhaha going about regarding North Korea. I’m at the point where I’m sick of hearing these foreign policy platitudes from the government. They mean nothing, because nothing will change…at least not for the better in the foreseeable future.
Looking at it as rationally as I can, I don’t get why the government’s always going crazy about North Korea being nuclear. We’ve known they’ve been getting to that point for decades. Why the “prevention” speeches when they already have the capability?
Well, I guess they want to prevent them from testing more often, and launching over our allies. But seriously, are we in a position to stop them without resorting to our own nukes? And if we are, what’s stopping us from using them?
Ugh, I am so annoyed with this damned subject.
And then there’s the painfully naive soundbites about “going in and removing the nukes.” Those crop up so damned often I’ve lost count and started to tune them out.
North Korea is the intelligence black hole that Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler would’ve drooled over back in their days. How much collateral damage would be worth it in the end, ours and theirs?
They are nuclear. Let’s just get that straight. Pandora’s Box gave them a little something, too. Hell, if it weren’t for the nukes, would we even give a damn about North Korea? NK’s leaders know we wouldn’t. Nukes give NK a voice above the tinpot dictatorships that have come and gone in other nations around the world, names and nations only found in the back pages of a newspaper, a sidebar in the “world” sections.
But how much time is being spent talking about de-nuclearizing North Korea? I firmly believe that’s not possible. What the hell would they have to gain from being de-nuclearized? Nothing that I can see.
from abc.net.au
So where’s the incentive for NK to get rid of the nukes? Most nations don’t want to even touch them because of their nuclear capability. And even if NK discarded their nukes or had them taken, they still have the knowledge to produce, so that’s just a temporary measure.
All I hear are goals to de-nuclearize. How the hell is that supposed to be achieved? What would the governments that are clamoring for this expect to happen (and mainly it’s the U.S.)? What would happen afterward?
And frankly, other than to destroy the U.S. (as their propaganda has pumped out since the 1950s), what is the goal of NK in the end? Be left alone? Reunite with the South? I really wonder how the hell that would work out.
What does North Korea want, at this moment in time? If it’s to stick a radioactive sock in Dump’s mouth for a while, I won’t hold that against ’em.
But what else?
North Korea is nuclear. What do they think it would take to denuclearize them, and what could North Korea possibly gain by (willingly?) doing such a thing?
P.S.–I used to think Triumph of the Will was a creepy documentary about totalitarianism. Then I saw a BBC documentary about teen gymnasts in NK preparing to perform in the Mass Games for the “dear leader.” It’s called A State of Mind. To me, that elaborate, choreographed, devotional pageant the girls participated in was far creepier.
Then of course, watching Lisa Ling’s Inside North Korea Nat Geo special hammered it home (shudder).
One of the moments from the Mass Games that happen each year. Thousands of dancers, gymnasts, other athletes on the field in a carefully choreographed pageant. BBC has tons of photos of these choreographed moments.
The Chatty Introvert 
The North Korean leadership has been convinced for a long time that they must, as a matter of existential necessity, have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to the United States. The reason is in the history of the Korean War. The war was started by the North attempting to unify the country under their system. After initial setbacks (The North very nearly succeeded.) forces led by the US drove almost to the Korean borders with China and the USSR and were only turned back by the massive intervention by China to the current cease fire line. Both North and South Korea were devastated by that brutally fought war. Since then, the Northern leaders have believed the stated goal of the US and its allies to destroy their regime. They have no reason to disbelieve that it is our intention, if we think we can do it at an acceptable cost, to invade them. Until its recent apparent success in developing nukes, the North’s main deterrent for many years was the ability to destroy the South’s capital with conventional artillery. And, the external threat is the rational for all the measures they take internally to maintain their control. It is unlikely that the current North Korean regime could survive actual peace, if there were a way to persuade them that they were no longer under threat, which is unlikely. The possible good news in the North’s assurance to its people that they have an effective deterrent to keep the US at bay is that they might be able to wind down some of their militarism in favor of civilian economic development and improved living standards. But for that to be possible, the rest of the world, and one Donald Trump in particular have to back off the threats and talk of “bigger buttons”.
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