Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

Trump's got a real problem now, he's ringing around stationary companies to find bigger envelopes.

Also Trump fell for it - the huge letter makes his tiny hands look even smaller.

[smjjames]

I wonder what the heck is in that letter as it's pretty dang huge. Maybe it's in Korean written with a paintbrush, dunno.

Also, it turns out that the supposed nuclear site destruction was as some expected, just shallow propoganda. Though if it were me, I'd be cautious about using it again since the integrity of that mountain and the rocks in the area are likely shot, if the collapse that killed at least 200 people is any indication.

At this rate, they're gonna play Trump for a fool with egg on his face.

[scourge728]

I personally hope it's a blank letter

I knew it

They already have

[Reelya]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/04/north-koreas-top-three-military-officials-sacked-as-nuclear-summit-nears

The latest news is that Kim has removed the top three brass from the NK military. It's suggested that this is because there was dissent to the current diplomatic talks, so Kim is replacing the military leadership with someone who will be on board.

As for the demolition of the nuclear site, sure, that's symbolic but that doesn't mean they're starting nuclear tests again. The site's a total wreck to start with. The main argument, in the CNN video, against the demolition being legit is the lack of "significant seismic activity". But fuck ... you don't really want them to do that, because of all the fallout down there. The last thing we want is any big explosions. The detonations are symbolic of a policy shift. The whole point of the symbolic act is to signal the change. If they just start it up again then there would have been no point in doing it in the first place: there would have been no need even for the symbolic act.

Also it's noted that they removed equipment from the site, so that's held against it being legit. But hell, this is North Korea - every scrap of steel is worth gold to them. This is a country that uses a type of wood-fired engine in trucks because of a lack of oil. It's extremely unlikely that they're going to build another nuclear test site now.

On Tuesday, CNN reported that a series of US intelligence assessments concluded that while Kim could give up some weapons in negotiations with the US -- including warheads and missiles -- he may not be willing to give up his capabilities to regenerate his program.

No shit. He'd end up like Ghaddafi or Saddam. He at least has to obfuscate whether he can or not, that's the entire point.

[smjjames]

We don't absolutely know 100% for sure that it's completely kaput, nobody outside NK has verified that the site is too unstable to be used safely. Yes, the cavein with the loss of 200 people was a major wakeup call for NK and anybody would be perfectly reasonable to abandon it or limit it's use after that, but given how opaque NK is, it's hard to trust them.

As for Kim Jong-Un doing a shakeup of his top military staff, sounds like there were some disagreements with how to do things or they wanted to do things Kim didn't want to do. That might have been the basis of the rumor about being concerned about a coup since replacing the top three military brass all at once would be a heck of a shakeup.

The shakeup of top military staff may be a good thing, depending on various factors.

[Reelya]

My best guess is that they do not have the capacity to restart that, and that's why they're on the current course of action.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Plan 1 was the nuclear deterrent. That's gone now, so Plan 2 is the diplomacy scenario. That's as simple as it gets. Plan 1 is kaput. A combination of Plan 1 and Plan 2, just frankly doesn't make any sense. You either have the loudmouth threatening, or you have the friendly diplomacy. They're incompatible, which is why they're doing a hard-turn on this stuff. The issue is: the "friendly diplomacy" thing is only something Kim gets to pull once in his reign. If he flip-flops back to the "nuclear madman" deterrent strategy ("i've got nukes and I'm crazy enough to blow them up!"), then he can't switch back to diplomacy ever again, and he would in fact need a killer "end game" move to pull off with his military stuff. e.g. he's only going to pull that if he feels he can strategically outmaneuver the USA. This clearly isn't going to happen.

When was the last missile test btw? The whole point of that was that they blow up some big bombs, and fire some big missiles, then imply they can put the bomb on the missile. No actual working delivery system was needed to have everyone intimidated as hell, which was the goal. However, they pulled the plug on missile tests a couple of months after the nuclear site went down, so they're not even bothering with showing off their rockets now. That's because without the possibility of their being a nuke on there, having the missiles serves no purpose and is just a waste of resources.

Remember, I said the "NK ICBM" thing was preposterous ages ago, that it would never happen and the whole thing would fall apart before it got anywhere near that point. People were very skeptical of that saying "any day now" they'd be able to nuke the East Coast of the USA no less. e.g. forget Alaska or Guam, they're going to be going straight for Washington and New York. Well, how's that all worked out then? I think that turned out to be a good call that NK was incapable of creating ICBMs, and that's why we're at this point now. The call that they're just going to reboot nuclear testing: that's not a good call. There's a reason they've become all conciliatory and politely pushing the summit no matter how crusty Trump is to them.

Why would all the newspapers play up the saber-rattling of what is really actually a very impoverished, small and technically-backward nation? Well, news is a business. They're in the business of selling news. Scary news is good news to them. They make everything scary.

[smjjames]

More likely plan 1 is 'work with what we've got' since it's just the primary testing site that's kaput (plus whatever skilled people that they can't quickly replace due to the cavein), but plan 1 alone won't work anymore.

The problem here though is a lack of trust with NK to follow through on things and they have broken deals in the past before. Granted, those were under previous leaders, but young Kim is probably more likely to follow through as he has to secure his reign.

My best guess is that they do not have the capacity to restart that, and that's why they're on the current course of action.

Plan 1 was the nuclear deterrent. That's gone now, so Plan 2 is the diplomacy scenario. That's as simple as it gets. Plan 1 is kaput. A combination of Plan 1 and Plan 2, just frankly doesn't make any sense. You either have the loudmouth threatening, or you have the friendly diplomacy. They're incompatible, which is why they're doing a hard-turn on this stuff. The issue is: the "friendly diplomacy" thing is only something Kim gets to pull once in his reign. If he flip-flops back to the "nuclear madman" deterrent strategy ("i've got nukes and I'm crazy enough to blow them up!"), then he can't switch back to diplomacy ever again, and he would in fact need a killer "end game" move to pull off with his military stuff. e.g. he's only going to pull that if he feels he can strategically outmaneuver the USA. This clearly isn't going to happen.

I don't know about the friendly diplomacy thing being something he can only pull off once if he goes back to madman mode, relations with Soviet Russia waxed and waned during the Cold War. Might be true for dealing with Trump given his vindicativeness, but with a new adminstration, he'd have another chance.

Plus, didn't it go back and forth between madman mode and friendly diplomacy and back to madman mode at least two or three times in his fathers reign? If he blows it with the Trump admin, he can always try again with a new admin.

[Reelya]

I think you're seeing that in too much of a unilateral sense. Kim's overtures are to the world. If he backstabs the current peace process he's not just messing with Trump, he's messing with South Korea, China, Russia and the EU. Basically anyone who got on board and trusted him is who he'd be backstabbing. You're thinking in too much of a USA-centric view.

Sure, the USA will have a new President in a few years and maybe another chance for Kim to "play nice" if he somehow does a 180 and starts pumping out nukes and going all beligerent again, but that doesn't change the rest of the world. Frankly, that scenario doesn't make a lick of sense, either. If Kim goes back nuclear, it needs to be end-game worthy bullshit, and they don't have the capacity to pull that off. That's why he was hoping to just make a nuke and be able to mothball it and use it as propaganda and a bargaining chip. Firing the nuke would have been the last thing he'd want to do, because deterrents don't work if you shot first. Whatever he plans to do with a hypothetical nuke, the goal is that North Korea and its leaders survive. Firing the nuke at America would basically be guaranteed instant death, which is the opposite of North Korea's goals. So, despite how panicky everyone gets we can completely rule out the possibility that North Korea will fire a nuke at America. They are not the USSR, who would have been theoretically capable of withstanding a nuclear war on equal footing with the USA.

[smjjames]

I think you're seeing that in too much of a unilateral sense. Kim's overtures are to the world. If he backstabs the current peace process he's not just messing with Trump, he's messing with South Korea, China, Russia and the EU. Basically anyone who got on board and trusted him is who he'd be backstabbing. You're thinking in too much of a USA-centric view.

Yeah, I was thinking in more of a NK-US view, rather than NK-World. IMO, I think it's more likely that Trump would screw it up somehow or other, he's already pseudo-cancelled it in a sort of 'knock it off now...' move, after which, NK calmed down a little. Still, both sides have so much at stake in this (for entirely different reasons, Trump wants a 'win', Kim wants what he wants) already that the incentive to try and not screw it up is there.

[Baffler]

Kim purges troublemakers? This sort of thing happens sometimes but the timing is very auspicious.

[smjjames]

It's about as suspicious as Trump wanting to reshuffle his cabinet and national security team before the summit. Kim probably decided that now was a good time as any to change it up, especially if there was disagreement between Kim and the top brass.

[wierd]

Glorious Leader settling in well in Singapore.

https://kcnawatch.co/newstream/1528766561-786425585/kim-jong-un-tours-singapore/


While there, Glorious Leader took a moment of his precious time to send heartfelt greetings to the esteemed leader of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
https://kcnawatch.co/newstream/1528753399-691681935/kim-jong-un-sends-greetings-to-russian-president/


(I note the extreme lack of any real coverage of the actual summit in Singapore from the central news agency. Apparently, he is there for mysterious reasons, and any ideas the citizens of greatest korea have about how the meeting is about the denulcearization of greatest korea are filthy imperialist lies, and anyone believing in them will be sent to mandatory reeducation camps.)

[Starver]

Regrettable.

Whoops.

[KittyTac]

PTW.

[Kagus]

Tells a lot when I can't tell if the US or NK is lying.

¿Por qué no los dos?