Sources say they contacted China to prepare them, but haven't heard from other countries.

What do you think?

Finally found some WMDs, but would US abandon the Middle East to attack NKorea should they force us? Would the rest of the world join us, or is this another Hitler move, where he (Kim Jong Il) knows we're too lazy/preoccupied to move and just does what he wants?

I know if he tries to take SKorea, we'd lose all GOOD electronics makers (Japan excepting.)

The rest of the world seems content to tell America to fuck off, to send "strongly worded" letters (UK PM Gordon Brown says he condemns NKorea Nuke Tests "in strongest terms"), and to generally just let shit happen and allow America to suffer the consequences of (over)flexing its muscles.

Thoughts?

Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

The problem with North Korea is that there isn't a conventional military solution. I have some ideas for unconventional solutions, if anyone is interested I'll post them sometime but I don't have time for it now.

[quote=Dick Cheney's Mechanical Heart]Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Unfortunately, Kim Jung Il stowed away on board before we took off and he's a big bad ugly MF too.

N.Korea isn't going to be starting any wars (not ones outsided the whole batshit crazy reasons) China has them on a tight leash and won't allow them to spoil the good thing they have going on there. They are content to let that little impoverished nation flex thier guns at everyone as a deterrant to supplanting the current spheres of influence. They are, more or less, a modern day military vassal state.
I wouldnt be worried too much about N.Korea initiating any violence until you start to see some problems in China (resource scarcity, attack retailation, another very bad famine or something) Currently with the Chinese economy growing like it is...War is just bad business right now. They aren't going to let some little shit screw it up for them..but its not a bad thing to have a bulldog on a leash in your yard either.

It's too late to talk, and not urgent enough to actually take military action.

Encourage Japan to go nuclear (weapons), work on missile defenses, and pressure China to stop supporting them.

Compared to a crazy communist dictatorship developing nuclear weapons with potential to reach the U.S.?

Yes. I really do think that's what we want, or else I wouldn't have said it :-D

How does that work exactly? Japan going nuclear seems like a huge provocation, not to mention a huge step back from abolishing nuclear weapons. We've already got their complete and total annihilation available to us, they know Japan isn't going to launch nukes first, and they know that if they even could take out Japan in one move the US would respond in kind. Our dick is already biggest.

If China (and/or whoever else) stops supporting them they've got an even larger pool of starving slaves and a lot more motivation to do dumb shit. I think you don't understand that we have to treat the North Korean people as victims in this. They've got a crazy fucked up totalitarian nightmare of a state controlling things. I agree they have a moral obligation to resist, but by all reports the entire nation has been turned over to a cult of personality. We can't just kill them all, and we should avoid letting them die as much as possible. At this point it's effectively mass murder to stop supplying aid.

Missile defense is crazy expensive and not the kind of thing I'd really like to trust millions of lives to. Maybe in a few more years, but it's not clear there really is a few more years to wait. Not to mention the threat isn't just from missiles.

If it comes down to it, real war with North Korea is going to be as ugly as it comes.

I'm not saying they "need" one, I'm saying they have the right to decide whether or not they can have one.