RAND have been steadily publishing “US vs China” fanfic for years, I think it is a fetish of theirs.
2 Likes
4 Likes
They fire their missiles into the sea, not into Japan.
As for kidnapping Japanese citizens, how many Koreans do you think Japan kidnapped during the war to use as slaves (sex slaves and manual labor)?
would this be a good time to watch ‘the interview’ movie now
this is a weird wording in the context of missile launches. yes, the convention defines special rights for the EEZ (skimming the text this seems to be defined in article 56), but those are economic (duh!) rights - afaik every other use is covered by the regulations for high seas. and those permit military usage, including weapon tests.
North Korea is to blame here, as they violated the UN rocket ban - but Japan’s EEZ does imo not play a role here
3 Likes
China knows ultimately they’re the ones who’d have to deal with the fallout, whether in large numbers of refugees, or, well, fallout.
3 Likes
Missiles are flying into Japanese territorial waters and occasionally over Japanese mainland airspace.
Is Japan currently at war with North Korea or is Korea a conquered territory of Japan? No. The statute of limitations for that excuse ran out in 1945. North Korea is kidnapping citizens of a nation it is not at war with for the purposes for furthering espionage efforts. The country is funding itself through illegal gun and drug smuggling into Japan.
4 Likes
The story of its production makes for a thrilling movie in of itself.
3 Likes
"Is Japan currently at war with North Korea?"
I am not sure but the Korean War has not ended yet and Japan was a participant in it (http://apjjf.org/2012/10/31/Tessa-Morris-Suzuki/3803/article.html) so maybe you could argue that it is. Also you use the present continuous regarding the kidnapping, but it all happened about 40 years ago.
Why don’t you come move to within strike range of said missiles then?
1 Like
NK is a hard target from land, sea and air.
1 Like
I am almost certainly within range of quite a few missiles right now, from various places. I just don’t overreact to the obvious fact that somebody could possibly blow me up right now. It is not the most comforting thought in the world, I admit. I just don’t understand the media’s rhetorical spin about why N. Korea having and testing missiles is such a cause for concern. Statistically, it seems that considerably more people die from US and UK missiles than from N. Korea anyway.
There are times when actual people die in real world missile attacks where one needs to use real effort to find journalism about it. Yet, N. Korea shoot off a few that don’t kill anybody and they make front page news. The media seem to have an agenda about this country in particular.
Nuclear weapons make a big difference, don’t they?
3 Likes
That’s a rather open-ended question. I suppose that they can, but I think they aren’t a terribly good idea.
If the implication is that it is prudent to be wary of North Korea because they have or might have nuclear weapons, I still am not convinced as to why the country should be diplomatically and strategically regarded the way it is - particularly by the US and the UK. Since they both maintain nuclear arsenals it does seem hypocritical, and one might suppose that there is much more to this.
As much as I read in the news of it being re-iterated as a definite problem, I don’t read any analyses of precisely why. The international community routinely antagonizes them, and they respond by reminding people that they have a military? As dramatic as this is made out to be by the BBC and such, it is hardly unusual for countries to remind that they might retaliate.
It seems to me that the US has a “kick the wasp nest” approach to diplomacy in some areas of the world. Would North Korea really be rattling their little sabers if the US hasn’t been needling at them constantly for 50+ years, apparently for no good reason? It looks like another iteration of their constant hijinx in “stabilizing” the Middle East, creating opposition where there would be relative peace if they left it alone.
There are in fact plenty of just that out there. You can engage in a “blame the USA” fantasy or you can actually made even a Wikipedia level effort to understand why exactly the DPRK is a problem.
I can “engage in fantasy” or “make an effort”? How is that a counter to anything I’ve said, or answer to anything I’ve asked? When I claim ignorance, responding with complete rhetorical evasion seems like an odd choice.
I have made a Wikipedia level effort of reading what they had to say, and they seemed to mostly confirm what I said above. That the US makes a point to deny them the sovereignty of their borders and their affairs because the US asserts that they defy democratic norms which they are not beholden to. Countries can of course respond to invasions, attacks, etc where their own sovereignty is violated, or even jump in to help an ally. But they have done precisely nothing to the US, ever. So it amounts to basically bullying a country because they can, for ideological reasons. Since DPRK are isolationists, that’s a daft move to pull against somebody you claim is a security risk, because by many analyses they would have kept mostly to themselves.
Assuming the authority to tell countries how they need to manage their own affairs is quite tricky, because it is trivially easy for other countries to do the same to yours. Then it amounts to tit-for-tat of who can get their way, and high-minded matters of which culture is “objectively best” is settled by fiat.
That’s the whole reason why nation states are supposed to be sovereign, so that they do not cause conflicts by trying to mind each others business. A basic benchmark of maturity - with individual persons or countries - is having the reserve to know and accept that other can and will live in ways that you don’t approve of. And if they don’t make it your problem, you don’t make it theirs. THAT is how wars are avoided.
Care to back that up with a citation? The rest of your argument seems to be based on this one claim which to the best of my knowledge having studied East Asian conflict more than a bit on my own seems groundless.
I’ll need to look them up for you, but a lot of the international outrage can easily be traced to the US. Pretty much every president since Reagan has even delivered broadcast speeches about how DPRK are not the lawful rulers of their country, and how they need to be sanctioned and pressured by the international community to abide the norms that the US recognizes - such as abandoning communism and engaging in trade. And that this also disqualifies them from running their own military as they choose. Reagan called them “looney tunes” and GHW Bush called them “evil” - I don’t necessarily disagree, but they sound too sensationalist as pretext for intervention.
What I don’t encounter is any explanation of why the US has any right to police them. It’s played off as some obvious non-question which isn’t addressed here.
I can appreciate that it does sound like a dire place to live, and I am not a fan of DPRK politics. But the US is weirdly selective about expressing political outrage over welfare and human rights in some places, while turning a blind eye to them in others. I am sure that they feel these priorities serve their agenda somehow, but I am not clear on specifics.
And I can appreciate that living (IIRC) in Japan as you do, your perspective on this might be quite different. I know that Japan, Korea, and North Korea have a long and rocky history.
Are DPRK a problem? They seem to be for their own citizens, and their immediate neighbors. Are they a problem for the US and UK specifically? I don’t think they ever have been, it really does seem more like US imperialism. We are talking about a country so ideologically entrenched that many here even see Cuba as a dangerous enemy - despite them having practically no economy or military - so there do seem to be some underlying ideological issues.
2 Likes
The US has had agreements with Japan running back to the latter’s WWII surrender, then strengthened in 1951(?) with the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. As a condition of Japan not rebuilding its military, the US agreed to aid in Japan’s defense. Therefore any aggression by the DPRK against Japan is by treaty a direct problem for the US, and the treaty was created not just as a show of mutual friendship but rather as a specific curb on Japanese military regrowth.
8 Likes
That’s a rational answer.
Remember which countries you’re talking about.
