What to do about North Korea?

rustybin

Surely the side setting off nuclear bombs should be the ones deesculating rather than the side tweeting?

B35

NK are using nukes as a deterrent from US attack. They're not suicidal. What's the best thing to do, try and establish some sort of communications or ramp up the rhetoric until something snaps and we're in a nuclear WWIII?

rustybin

The Americans had decades to invade before NK had nukes.

B35

Yep and they didn't because of the massive loss of life that would occur if they did (goodbye Seoul and some of Japan) but now it's a whole new ballgame. An unhinged President and an unhinged KJU testing a thermonuclear weapon they can put on a missile. Can we be assured Russia or China wouldn't get involved also? The worst case is incredibly frightening.

rustybin

The worst case of anything is frightening.

China and Russia aren't going to go to war with the West over N Korea.

B35

Let's hope so.

Wilseus

I heard a theory from an expert the other day that NK actually wants the West to attack it. He reckons that there is growing civil unrest in the country and the regime is on its last legs. Starting a war would deflect the North Korean peoples' attention from that. Sounds feasible to me, the same thing happened with Argentina in the 1980s.

Wilseus

I also agree that this is probably true. The World is so globalised these days that it would be economically disastrous for any kind of war between the US and China. The West would lose much of its manufacturing base and China would have no one to trade with.

tapzilla2k

That might indeed be the case. In any case there isn't anything you can really do about North Korea that doesn't end with massive loss of life or things cooling down until Kim Jong Un decides to rattle the cage again. If the regime is on it's last legs, then it has nothing to lose and would therefore be much more dangerous and unpredictable.

FlagshipDevice

I think Trump's missing a trick here:

He should propose talks with Kim Jong-un, in whatever format that would take. The proposed talks would focus on Kim Jong-un's fears about South Korea and the West. Conversely, Trump could discuss the South Korean and West's fears about North Korea's nuclear programme.

Chances are the dialogue would never come to fruition BUT, from Trump's point-of-view, he would've been seen by the world to try to resolve things diplomatically. That's very important. I believe if Trump took that course it'd put Kim Jong-un very much on the back foot.