Posted on 04/27/2010 8:39:49 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
President Lee Myung-Bak will come under strong pressure to retaliate if firm proof emerges that North Korea sank a South Korean warship and killed 46 sailors. The question is, how?
Suspicions are growing that a torpedo ripped the 1,200-tonne corvette Cheonan apart near the disputed border on March 26.
If a multinational investigation now underway finds hard evidence, the attack would be one of the North's deadliest on the South since the end of their 1950-53 war - but far from the first.
As previously, any military response will likely be ruled out.
A counter-attack could ignite a broader conflict between the South and its nuclear-armed neighbour, which has thousands of conventionally armed missiles permanently targeted on Seoul.
"President Lee has no good options," said Peter Beck, a North Korea specialist at Stanford University's Asia-Pacific Research Center.
"A military response would be too risky - even though he would be under considerable pressure from his conservative base to take some concrete action."
Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hoped there would be "no miscalculation" that could spark a new war between North and South Korea.
There is talk about appealing for action in the United Nations but such approaches have accomplished very little previously with the North, Beck told AFP.
"The only step South Korea could take would be to shut down the Kaesong joint industrial estate or to further restrict trade with the North.
"If Lee does curtail cooperation, it would further push the North into the arms of China economically. And one of South Korea's worst nightmares is to have China in the driver's seat in determining the North's (eventual) fate."
Lee last week consulted former conservative presidents Chun Doo-Hwan and Kim Young-Sam, who both had to confront crises engineered by
(Excerpt) Read more at news.asiaone.com ...
Protecting your country by engaging your enemy might be an option.
The problem with Kim is that if we try and ignore him, he will up the ante and do something even more provocative the next time, like an above ground nuclear test, just to prove he is serious.
I am increasingly convinced that NoKo has a serious deathwish, that there are probably people in the NoKo military that are far worse than Kim, and when if finally comes down to where the rubber meets the road, we are going to be forced to slaughter millions of the little, yellow, dog-eating bastards...
This will not end politely...
Not with "O" as The One who the guy with the football would have to report to.
But this is good evidence that deterrence works, if only one way at times.
When I clicked on the source link, my Norton Anti-Virus pgm posted a msg that it is a reported attack site.
See that pod under the right intake? That's my little contribution to the effort. Use that, and it would be "bombs away" before the NKs even knew they were there.
It would be an exciting ride though. Coming back might be even more exciting and "interesting".
SK has an option. Develop a nuclear weapon. This will rattle NK backer China and up the ante on NK. Start something and war will be with nukes. SK should start a first strike strategy and use it once she attains the ability to do it because technically SK is still at war with NK. The US should tacitly back this effort. Nuclear weapons is the only way Korea can stop repeating her tragic history of being a piece of meat on the street while her powerful neighbors, China, Russia and Japan acted like dogs as they fight over her.
Sub sinks, no one sees. Deniability, but the NKs would get the message.
They are right...limited options for sure. They only have one option and it is to fully solve their problem to the North.
Bean, “This will not end politely...”
Your missive is spot on. Howsomever, there are more players than Mo Larry & Curley.
NK is a China Pawn. If President Lee, has only friends like O and Hill; the Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, alliance will be mmmm motivated to greater than traditional cohesion. This could be a good thing.
Asia is never really polite, and never ends.
Rab
That’s the ticket. Hunt all their subs at the same time and be done with it.
Perhaps Pres Lee should seek advice from Mossad on how to handle this sort of thing. Seems it is time for ‘take-out’, Mossad style. Mossad invented covert ops that work in this century, as well as the last half of the last.
Of course, in an open conflict I would want the S. Koreans and the Israelis as allies. Maybe they could combine forces in taking out the new Nukie states that restively threaten their existence.
Me bad...
“restively” - “respectively”
Maanwhile, on June 26th, we will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War—a war that is still is progress, having never been ended.
“Sub sinks, no one sees. Deniability, but the NKs would get the message.”
This may have already happened.
“A military response would be too risky...”
Yeah, you might win. Then you’re really screwed. It’s like beating up the bully with the really ugly girlfriend.
Good points all, but I think Kim made an unreversible error with his insistence on developing and testing nuclear weapons. Remember that test NoKo conducted right before the Olympics?? I suspect the Chinese are a lot less inclined to treat North Korea the same way they used to because of the nukes. I don’t think the ChiComms are going to publicly admonish Kim, but they sure aren’t very inclined to help him either.
If there is any cohesion in Asia, it is a lot more motivated toward protecting their financial and business interests, rather than uniting to protect North Korea in any way. Kim is an enormous threat to a lot more people than just South Korea, and none of the countries you mention are interested in having warm relations with NoKo.
At the same time nobody really expects Premier Hussein to do anything meaningful about North Korea until it is far too late, and probably not even then. If the North Koreans really did attack the South, Obama is just as likely to convene another White House study group to try and figure out what to do.
In any case, the Regime is far more interested in protecting Mexican illegals from American law enforcement than anything that happens on the Korean peninsula...
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