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Rath on 25 July 2010
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HappySqurriel said:
Rath said:
HappySqurriel said:

While he was an awful president, if W. was still in charge I doubt North Korea would make this threat


I don't think it matters who is in charge of the USA. The only country with any real influence over N.Korea is China and even they seem barely able to stop them doing something suicidal.

N.Korea isn't going to nuke anything, they might test a nuclear weapon as retaliation but they aren't actually going to attack. Even they aren't that crazy.

I think it does matter ...

One viable strategy for the United States and South Korea (if they believed this was a credible threat) would be a preventative strike on North Korea and to deal with the diplomatic fallout from China afterwards. This is an approach which would be evaluated and considered by an president but probably won’t be considered by Obama; and every leader in the world knows this.

What the most likely result of this is going to be is that the United States will send diplomats to North Korea, the United States will give North Korea food and medical aid, Kim Jong Il will use this event to produce propaganda, and (overall) Kim Jong Il will be rewarded for threatening the United States.

If N.Korea was afraid of preventative strikes under Bush they wouldn't have tested nuclear weapons when he was president. N.Korea does crazy shit no matter who's in charge of the USA.