|
TenementFunster posted:the random dioramas of Dokdo sprinkled throughout various metro stations and museums were one of my favorite parts of Korea. i made sure to always get a picture I love those too! I also end up taking a picture of them even though I know I've already got photos of them, haha. There's a massive model of Dokdo along the coast not far from where I am. Much taller than a person, each island about the size of a bus or bigger. As well as several other smaller models and monunents elsewhere along the coast. It's also sprinkled all over town on various things. There's even a Dokdo "business room" not far from the office of the Dokdo Foundation, which is also very near me. It's kind of funny to me to see the massive Dokdo sign in a place called Jukdo (which is the Korean reading of Takeshima, Japan's name for Dokdo). And Dokdo-ro, a monthly (?) publication to get all your Dokdo news that I see in one of my schools all the time. Not to mention all the Dokdo-based things the kids make themselves. There's also a "4D" Dokdo virtual reality tour you can go on at one of the museums with one of those stationary roller coaster things. I also really like that when they fired that French guy a while back for teaching "French culture" by kissing students, the article about it read like his real crime was when he claimed Takeshima belonged to Japan. Kind of mad they scheduled my trip to Dokdo during rainy season and then were shocked when it drizzled a bit and their backup "plan" was to just have us tour the small city I already lived in for anything Dokdo related. So I still haven't gotten to see this mystical island of irrefutable Koreanness. I might encounter more Dokdo things day-to-day because I live in the prefecture that claims it as its territory, but it's amazing how much they want these islands (well, probably the island's nearby resources rather than the land itself). Edit: I also really love that this thread's tag (only in the app apparently) says "Asia" and then has the Japanese word for "Japan" on it. Shadow0 fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Nov 16, 2018 |
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 02:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 12:00 |
|
|
What does Kim want to do with building more missile sites and more high-tech nukes? He already has enough leverage to protect his country from foreign aggression. ....... Oh wait the NYT article was loving disingenuous.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 06:41
|
|
|
Grouchio posted:What does Kim want to do with building more missile sites and more high-tech nukes? He already has enough leverage to protect his country from foreign aggression. . What does India want to do with their nukes? What does Israel want to do? What does France want to do? It's all the same sort of thing.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 06:59
|
|
|
Grouchio posted:What does Kim want to do with building more missile sites and more high-tech nukes? He already has enough leverage to protect his country from foreign aggression. It only gives him more leverage in negotiations, especially since the US really hasn't really provided any sort of deal. Also, North Korea capabilities obviously still have head-room to go.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 11:27
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:It only gives him more leverage in negotiations, especially since the US really hasn't really provided any sort of deal. Also, North Korea capabilities obviously still have head-room to go. And even though the US DOD has repeatedly and in unclassified docs/hearings said there’s no guaranteed nuclear capability decapitation strike the US could pull off on the DPRK, why risk such a thing being possible in the future?
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 15:01
|
|
|
NYT report on N. Korea’s “great deception” riddled with holes and errors quote:Blue House spokesperson Kim Eui-kyum stressed that Pyongyang “never promised to dismantle its missile bases, nor did it sign any agreement obliging it to dismantle its missile bases.” American imperialists: We had to torch this alliance to save it!
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 16:50
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:And even though the US DOD has repeatedly and in unclassified docs/hearings said there’s no guaranteed nuclear capability decapitation strike the US could pull off on the DPRK, why risk such a thing being possible in the future? Why not press your advantage then? North Korea is still vulnerable economically and more advanced capabilities only give them more leverage to try to try to get the sanctions ended/further cooperation with the South.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 17:12
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Why not press your advantage then? North Korea is still vulnerable economically and more advanced capabilities only give them more leverage to try to try to get the sanctions ended/further cooperation with the South. You mean the sanctions that only exist because they rebuilt the weapons program in the first place? It's been a stupid move the entire time.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 17:39
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Why not press your advantage then? I mean, clearly that is the path they are taking. And it’s not dumb. Without a crystal ball, hard to say how it turns out long term.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 17:42
|
|
|
fishmech posted:You mean the sanctions that only exist because they rebuilt the weapons program in the first place? It's been a stupid move the entire time. If they got rid of their weapons program, they would almost certainly be under at least some sort of sanctions for years if not decades in the future. The US has never had a normalized relationship with the DPRK. It is arguable that the US may even up the pressure if they got rid of their program. mlmp08 posted:I mean, clearly that is the path they are taking. And it’s not dumb. Without a crystal ball, hard to say how it turns out long term. I guess, but at the same time, they have realized a strategy that has paid at least some dividends. Right now they can't be invaded, nor they can be ignored, and sanctions are enough to hurt them but not disable them. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Nov 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 17:51
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:I guess, but at the same time, they have realized a strategy that has paid at least some dividends. Right now they can't be invaded, nor they can be ignored and sanctions are enough to hurt them but not disable them. Yeah. One doesn’t have to be pro-DPRK to understand their reasoning and how this general track has worked for them so far.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 18:06
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:Yeah. One doesn’t have to be pro-DPRK to understand their reasoning and how this general track has worked for them so far. Granted, I also think that brinkmanship (which this still is essential) is extremely dangerous and certainly not the preferred way of doing things. Also, I really doubt any real progress is going to be made during this presidency although it is still possible on the peninsula itself.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 18:21
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:If they got rid of their weapons program, they would almost certainly be under at least some sort of sanctions for years if not decades in the future. The US has never had a normalized relationship with the DPRK. It is arguable that the US may even up the pressure if they got rid of their program. They're also guaranteed to be under some sort of sanctions program indefinitely as long as they have the weapons program. Also yes, North Korea has refused to surrender to the US or a number of other countries yet, which is going to keep them from having normalized relations. It's on them to give up. Ardennes posted:Right now they can't be invaded, nor they can be ignored, and sanctions are enough to hurt them but not disable them. They had this before they restarted their nuclear weapons program in the 2000s as well. Except they also had way less sanctions on them then. Is this really so hard to remember, the way the peninsula was fully denuclearized from about 1992 to about 2005, and at the same time noone was invading North Korea even when the entire economy collapsed for most of the 90s and everyone was starving? Let's be real here, there was a perfect time to topple what was left and nobody took it, and then there was quite a number of years afterward where things recovered but there was no nukes and still noone took it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 18:55
|
|
|
fishmech posted:Also yes, North Korea has refused to surrender to the US or a number of other countries yet, which is going to keep them from having normalized relations. It's on them to give up. Lmfao
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 19:09
|
|
|
fishmech posted:
Their deterrent isn't just nuclear, though. They got a lot of assets stashed inside mountains, particularly artillery and possibly bio/chem weapon warheads.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 19:49
|
|
|
Tias posted:Their deterrent isn't just nuclear, though. They got a lot of assets stashed inside mountains, particularly artillery and possibly bio/chem weapon warheads. Which shows how the nuclear program was unneeded.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 20:06
|
|
|
That depends, I think. US/SoKo may be dumb enough to attack through a chem/bio landscape, but no one wants to tangle with nukes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 16, 2018 20:16
|
|
|
I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate how apparently Victor Cha was the mastermind behind the report. Remember him? The guy who was going to be ambassador to South Korea, then Trump soured on the guy, and we got to hear stories about how this was because Trump was warmongering and Victor Cha was a sensible Republican who was going to keep him in line and doom was forthcoming? Yeah, apparently that was all horseshit and Cha actually left for the exact opposite reason. Meanwhile the new South Korean ambassador was appointed back in June, and no one noticed or cared.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 03:27
|
|
|
Some Guy TT posted:I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate how apparently Victor Cha was the mastermind behind the report. Remember him? The guy who was going to be ambassador to South Korea, then Trump soured on the guy, and we got to hear stories about how this was because Trump was warmongering and Victor Cha was a sensible Republican who was going to keep him in line and doom was forthcoming? Yeah, apparently that was all horseshit and Cha actually left for the exact opposite reason. Meanwhile the new South Korean ambassador was appointed back in June, and no one noticed or cared. You know he wasn't behind the New York Times story; he was just behind discovering the missile bases. The actual report doesn't make any claims that North Korea is deceiving anyone Also, what was the real reason Cha left? Do you have a link?
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 03:40
|
|
|
That's an extremely credulous take. I consider this one to be more realistic-Korea Expose posted:CSIS can’t claim complete innocence here. It published the report, at a time of sensitivity for the denuclearization talks, clearly knowing its assertions would get picked up by the media. The quotes in the Times piece from the report’s co-author Victor Cha—a man who cannot harbor much love for Trump after having seen his nomination for the position of US ambassador to South Korea yanked in January—have all the appearance of a calculated hit. Evidence provided throughout the piece. But to answer your question most literally no, we don't and probably never will know for sure why Trump withdrew Victor Cha's nomination. This is just the main logical explanation right now given how he's been doubling down on the objectively of the report without actually addressing most of the largely contextual criticisms made about it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 04:13
|
|
|
Some Guy TT posted:That's an extremely credulous take. I consider this one to be more realistic- https://twitter.com/kingstonareif/status/958480550632796160
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 04:26
|
|
|
I would be more surprised if they didn't ask that question. Evacuating citizens from a foreign country in the case of an emergency is technically the main reason why embassies exist in the first place, and it's something that they do in response to natural disasters too, not just military ones. If this was any administration except the Trump administration that's a "no more phone call" kind of situation because they'd be thinking, what the gently caress, that's not what we were talking about at all.
Some Guy TT fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Nov 17, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 04:33
|
|
|
Some Guy TT posted:Evacuating citizens from a foreign country in the case of an emergency is technically the main reason why embassies exist in the first place, hahahahaha, no That's "a" thing they help with on rare occasion, but it is not remotely the "main reason" why embassies exist
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 04:37
|
|
|
Some Guy TT posted:Evacuating citizens from a foreign country in the case of an emergency is technically the main reason why embassies exist in the first place Do you even speak English? If anything the main purpose is to avoid having a reason to send your citizens out. And the ambassador to any sort of large nation shouldn't be expected to manage transport logistics, that's a job for department staff and frankly often the military.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 05:08
|
|
|
Thank you for acknowledging that Victor Cha and the unnamed administration sources were almost certainly full of poo poo and misrepresenting whatever it was they were actually talking about. My point, for the record, was that asking a candidate for ambassador what he would do in the event of a mass evacuation is in fact a completely reasonable question that does not imply the questioners are planning a military invasion, not whatever weird sperg you're going on about.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 05:27
|
|
|
Some Guy TT posted:Thank you for acknowledging that Victor Cha and the unnamed administration sources were almost certainly full of poo poo and misrepresenting whatever it was they were actually talking about. lmao. You said a thing that was wrong. People point out the wrong. You: ahahaha, that means any and all things they didn't mention are indeed true! Is there a name for an argumentative style where you just say a bunch of things, but one is so horribly and awfully and obviously wrong that when people call it out, you get to assume all the other stuff you said is accepted as correct? Or is that just called dumb?
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 05:36
|
|
|
Some Guy TT posted:My point, for the record, was that asking a candidate for ambassador what he would do in the event of a mass evacuation is in fact a completely reasonable question No, it's not his job.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 05:37
|
|
|
fishmech posted:No, it's not his job. This is decidedly untrue, even though the majority of the heavy lifting in a nation with any significant number of US citizens are done by people other than the ambassador. The ambassador, acting on behalf of the president, is ultimately responsible for noncombatant evacuation operations (NEO). During a NEO, the ambassador, is THE senior officer on the ground and responsible for success or failure of the operation. The DOD is acting in support of the ambassador, as the ambassador directly represents the POTUS. If you want to weasel-word around, I've already highlighted the part for you that says that once the DOS rep activates a NEO and asks for DOD help, the DOD is the primary actor (i.e. you asked for the military, now don't micro manage the military or gently caress with the military). In the event that Korea went hot, it's safe to assume that it would largely fall on military leaders' hands. But it is decidedly untrue to state that ambassador's don't have the job of working NEOs. They are THE primary person making NEO decisions. It just so happens that decision is often to activate it, then leave much/most of it to the military. quote:(1) Pursuant to Executive Order 12656, Assignment of Emergency quote:Secretary of State’s Formal Responsibilities on Protection Source: http://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_68pa.pdf
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 05:54
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:This is decidedly untrue, even though the majority of the heavy lifting in a nation with any significant number of US citizens are done by people other than the ambassador. This is like saying the President of the US needs to know the details of how to evacuate Miami. All those things for any sort of large country are going to be drawn up by staff. It's not his job to be planning that stuff.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 05:58
|
|
|
fishmech posted:This is like saying the President of the US needs to know the details of how to evacuate Miami. All those things for any sort of large country are going to be drawn up by staff. It's not his job to be planning that stuff. "help manage" was the relevant quote. "help manage" is not the same thing as drawing up deliberate, detailed plans (which the embassy IRL is heavily inovlved in!) Regardless, the report is one of tone. It's one thing if he was interviewed and they handed him the Ambassador 101 Duties List sheet and one of them was "help manage" NEOs and he fled versus if he walked into an interview and they wink-wink nudge-nudged heavily that he'd likely be evacuating all civilians from Korea. If you think it's not his job, lobby the president, I guess, and also rewrite joint doctrine of the US. NEOs are every ambassador's job. They can, however, with a president's support, activate the military and hand the main responsibility to the military.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 06:03
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:"help manage" was the relevant quote. You keep flip flopping between duties of an ambassador and duties of an embassy (the entity of dozens to thousands of people). You're also willfully ignoring what was actually being discussed. It's again not the ambassador's job to know Some Guy TT posted:what he would do in the event of a mass evacuation as that is something that the existing staff would be telling him how to do once he's there.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 06:14
|
|
|
fishmech posted:You keep flip flopping between duties of an ambassador and duties of an embassy (the entity of dozens to thousands of people). You're also willfully ignoring what was actually being discussed. It's again not the ambassador's job to know No, I've been pretty clear, and so is doctrine and the EO. It turns out the ambassador is responsible for what his or her embassy is up to. This isn't hard unless someone is dense or intentionally obtuse.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 06:17
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:No, I've been pretty clear, and so is doctrine and the EO. It turns out the ambassador is responsible for what his or her embassy is up to. This isn't hard unless someone is dense or intentionally obtuse. He is responsible for other people whose job is to do the thing though. Because it's their job, not his. Do you really think it's the Ford CEO's job to know how to assemble a current Ford car himself because he's responsible for the company?
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 06:21
|
|
|
fishmech posted:He is responsible for other people whose job is to do the thing though. Because it's their job, not his. Do you really think it's the Ford CEO's job to know how to assemble a current Ford car himself because he's responsible for the company? Please stop posting at me and instead lobby the US government to change how the reality of things work.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 06:22
|
|
|
mlmp08 posted:Please stop posting at me and instead lobby the US government to change how the reality of things work. The reality of how things work is that it's not the ambassador to korea's job to know how to evacuate all US citizens in Korea. I'm not sure what that's supposed to have to do with Trump.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 06:31
|
|
|
fishmech posted:They're also guaranteed to be under some sort of sanctions program indefinitely as long as they have the weapons program. Also yes, North Korea has refused to surrender to the US or a number of other countries yet, which is going to keep them from having normalized relations. It's on them to give up. Yeah and it is also why there will be no movement on their program and their goal is piece-meal progress with what they can get away with, which is what they are doing. A country isn't just going to surrender if their enemies don't have the devastating leverage on it. With the collapse of US-Chinese relations, it isn't going to happen. quote:They had this before they restarted their nuclear weapons program in the 2000s as well. Except they also had way less sanctions on them then. They still had plenty of sanctions on them, and it is very unlikely they wouldn't just continue if they had never started a program in the first place. Also, from a North Korea perspective, from 1992 to 2005 they were already at their weakest and could see the US using the state f the country as leverage. As things have improved and the US has progressively become more unhinged, they know if anything they are in more danger since the US has started to figure out they won't collapse on their own. Btw, North Korea was still in very rough shape during the early 2000s. Also with the US you never know who is going to be elected president and what crazy poo poo they decide it is a great idea at the time. If anything the North Korean program is a fairly logical counter-response.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 08:57
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Yeah and it is also why there will be no movement on their program and their goal is piece-meal progress with what they can get away with, which is what they are doing. A country isn't just going to surrender if their enemies don't have the devastating leverage on it. With the collapse of US-Chinese relations, it isn't going to happen. The point being that they're at best making piecemeal progress back to where they had already gotten, and on the way to that they'd even managed to piss off China and Russia to the point where they started to pile on with sanction activities in earnest. It's really not a logical response though. Trump or Trump-like entities don't really care if North Korea can nuke some place they can barely remember exists (for example, the way Trump could barely keep track of whether he was talking to South Koreans or North Koreans throughout most of last year), but they see the nuclear presence as one more excuse to maybe do a war. Like if you compare to the Iran situation, even with Trump et al getting all megastupid over that, Iran's come out of the "AXIS OF EVIL" threat era far ahead in part by agreeing to not have a publicly successful nuclear program.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 17:25
|
|
|
While I agree that Iran is better off financially and "being bombed"-wise for having chosen not to develop nuclear weapons, they've also got these things called oil and gas to export rather than import, like the DPRK. And while Iran decided not to develop nuclear weapons, it has significantly upped its tactical and strategic missile game over the last decade plus, not to mention the other trappings of A2AD like anti-ship cruise missiles, mine laying capabilities, fast attack craft, etc. (I know, I hate using the A2AD buzzword too, but it's effective short-hand). It's chalk and cheese to look at the state of Iran and the state of the DPRK and attribute it to not developing nukes, when that is just a piece of the picture.
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2018 17:32
|
|
|
The DPRK government cannot abandon it's nuclear weapons program without losing so much face as to doom the nation's leadership. They've invested so much political, economic and emotional capital over so many decades that to back down would be unthinkable. No amount or combination of threats, sanctions, bribes, or assurances could possibly dissuade them now, especially when they are now so close. Particularly with such a friendly regime in the Blue House, and such an incompetent one in the White House
|
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2018 07:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 9, 2024 12:00 |
|
|
Eh, they could probably lose the nukes or at least freeze the missile and weapons development programs without destabilizing things. While they do have information leaks through the black market the government still largely controls the narrative internally and could just present it as a magnanimous move by Kim Jong Un. There's just no reason for them to do it. Isolation and an adversarial relationship with the outside world are pretty useful things for the DPRK, having justified a huge chunk of the awful poo poo they've implemented and used as justification for the hardships the commoners are living through. The nuclear program is a useful tool to preserve the internal order, minimize associated external risks, and periodically extract bribe money. Iran in comparison doesn't want isolation or, necessarily, a bunch of enemies. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Nov 18, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 18, 2018 07:44
|
|
