North Korean missiles land in Japanese waters

> China would never get rid of such a powerful way to annoy everyone else.

I've mentioned this in another comment, but you're severely underestimating the real relationship between North Korea and China. For the government, maybe it is only a strategic relationship, but if you talk to anyone who grew up in China there is a real feeling of kinship with the people that live in NK.

For a long time there has been a lot of cultural exchange between the nations and many Chinese near the border are indistinguishable culturally from North Koreans.

An attack on North Korea, even if a justifiable retaliation, would feel like an attack on the Chinese people for a great many everyday people in China.

The closest analog to the US would be Canada. Most American's, especially in the North, feel that Canadians are very culturally similar. Many people in far Northern states have friends and family in Canada. Overall the bond is much closer than with Mexico, which has more culture, ethnic and linguistic differences.

Imagine if Canada were ruled by a despot, who then irrationally launched a nuclear strike on another country. Even if American's were to feel that that was wrong, we would also still likely strongly defend Canadian people from aggressive retaliation. And this analogy is far from perfect, the sense I've gotten in conversations with Chinese about North Korea is that they're much closer.

> YouTube Channel Polymater had a video about how NK would basically follow a' eternal cycle ...

Tips of the day, don't put too much trust into Youtube videos. There are just random dudes/girls who are good with a video editor. And most of the content they produce is either from Wikipedia or their own random opinion.

And for something as serious are NK I wouldn't trust anything that is said by a youtube video

It's been like this for 6 decades, also worth noting that one of the major party in SK relies on this behavior for its co-dependent "prosperity".. Once, it even paid NK to bluff like this just before the presidential election for the sake of power consolidation. It was a huge and messy scandal.

I find that relationship basically a parasite and host, and now they're likely going to win for election in next year.

I've heard North Korea described as "A small country with just one export: fear."

Aka "Time for the regular aid request". Either from China for being a good pe(s)t or the UN and US for promising to stop nuclear tests.

The fact that their population suffers famine nearly every goddamn year is just unbelievably sad.

How those people put up with it, I don't understand. They really managed to create a feudal country in a modern world. Could others do the same if left unchecked?

Sorry, whats the downside of turning them into the biggest glass exporter here?

What worries me is an accidental strike that kicks off a new Cold War.

> China would never get rid of such a powerful way to annoy everyone else

It's not just this. China doesn't want a unified, Western-friendly Korea directly on its border. They also don't want the mass refugees if NK fails.

I thought EEZ is common knowledge but maybe only on island country. (I educated in Japan)

They have one out about the 1500 km cruise missile test on Sunday now: https://armscontrolwonk.libsyn.com/not-lackin-lacms

And they often provide technical walkthroughs for how they go from satellite imagery (often from Planet) to their geopolitical conclusions.

https://www.planet.com/

Despite the historical enmity, it seems that the public viewpoint towards Japan is shifting in SK though:

> Political elites here are usually careful not to antagonize China, the country’s largest trading partner. But Mr. Yoon’s blunt rhetoric reflected a new phenomenon: a growing antipathy toward Beijing among South Koreans, particularly young voters whom conservative politicians are eager to win over.

> Anti-Chinese sentiment has grown so much this year that China has replaced Japan — the former colonial ruler — as the country regarded most unfavorably in South Korea, according to a joint survey by the polling company Hankook Research and the Korean newsmagazine SisaIN. In the same survey, South Koreans said they favored the United States over China six to one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/world/asia/korea-china-el...

Please admonish me for an ignorant question if needed, but what are the tensions between South Korea and Japan?

SK doesn’t want a war with NK either their capital is way too close to the DMZ and NK artillery for comfort and even if they win without a lot of damage they have to deal with integrating the population of NK who are vastly less developed economically than the south.

Who knows what actually goes on in those meetings but it’s pretty clear that China sets the boundaries for NK, Kim wouldn’t alienate his lifeline too much. Doubtless China knows about them before they happen.

Do you want WW3? Because this is how you get WW3.

The end result is that Taiwan would become a Chinese colony, Japan would get nukes to no appreciable geostrategic gain, and the entire economy would absolutely crater, killing millions of people.

If you were going to give/allow Taiwan nuclear weapons to protect itself, you'd have wanted to do it decades ago. And you wouldn't support them in developing nuclear weapons, you'd want to have quietly slipped nukes into Taiwan several decades ago. China was far less advanced in the 1980s and 1990s, it might have been possible to arm Taiwan with nukes back then, before China could stop it. Today if China found out Taiwan were attempting to develop nuclear weapons, they'd either invade and conquer the island in rapid fashion (at whatever cost necessary), or potentially glass it entirely (that's a serious consideration for China, and a good reason not to give Taiwan nukes at this point).

>""I wonder how quickly North Korea’s nuke problem would be solved, if the US quietly let China know that if NK stays nuclear, the US will support Japan and Taiwan developing nuclear weapons."

Agile approach to solving world's problems?

> With Japan and Taiwan’s industrial sector and precision machinery, how long before they could develop nuclear bombs and ICBMs, maybe a few months?

Longer than the conventional invasion of Taiwan and destruction of its regime would take.

> I wonder how quickly North Korea’s nuke problem would be solved, if the US quietly let China know that if NK stays nuclear, the US will support Japan and Taiwan developing nuclear weapons.

You're describing a nightmarish nuclear arms race scenario [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_arms_race

This is the most stupid idea I have read in a while.

It's unclear that NATO + Japan need to do anything. What is North Korea going to do, hit Tokyo? That would be the surest way to get Pyongyang "liberated" ASAP ...

Give the N Korean leadership some assurance that the next president isn't going to do a u turn on a peace deal. N Korea just wants to survive. And America is an unreliable partner in peace.

> what can NATO + Japan do?

There is a solution to North Korea as it stands today. Chaos will take care of the regime eventually. Chaos is undefeated when it comes to wiping out totalitarian systems (quick, name a couple dozen 100-300 year old totalitarian regimes that are thriving today). That system won't stand forever. Plan as best as possible for what to do whenever the Kim dynasty finally implodes, whenever it inevitably gets toppled from within.

The primary concern is a Myanmar style military junta, backed by China, taking over. Then you're more or less just back to square one. Unfortunately that's by far the most likely scenario. China has zero interest in seeing a unified Korea, in the model of South Korea, on its border - they will not allow it, and they have the capability to easily prevent it.

War. War is the only thing that could still work. Of course, advocating for war, even against a country as dangerous as North Korea, is a huge taboo in our public discourse. But it is the only solution left to the North Korean problem.

The goal of North Korea is not to build a self-defense that could withstand US/NATO invasion. It's to pose a credible enough retaliation so any outside invasion attempts would never be worth the cost. Demonstrations such as this are just North Korea declaring "we can nuke Tokyo if we want, are we really worth that?". Thereby North Korea's ruling class are insulated from being externally overthrown, and can focus all their efforts on suppressing internal threats. Unless something dramatic changes, North Korea is not going to be "wiped off the planet" anytime soon.

People say things like this and then wonder why DPRK clings so tightly to its nuclear program.

North Korea's military strategy is built around retribution. If South Korea and the US were to launch an attack on North Korea they would eventually win, but the costs in military and civilian (both North and South Korean) casualties would be so extreme as to make it not worthwhile. As an example: North Korea has thousands of artillery pieces positioned near the border, which are capable of striking targets fairly deep in South Korean territory. A number of them can strike into Seoul. And they are situated in tunnels in the side of mountains, well stocked with plenty of ammunition. The artillery pieces stay in the tunnels, pop out to fire a round, and roll back in to be reloaded. They can fire into high population areas and can hit a number of important military installations near the border. Plus, North Korea is able to produce chemical weapons, and is believed to have chemical artillery rounds stockpiled. Estimates are that it would take a South Korean-Japanese-US combined air force weeks to find and neutralize all those positions. You also have some fairly rough terrain in North Korea, which is not very suitable to large-scale armored and mechanized assaults. Any invasion would also have to face a population that has been indoctrinated for generations to hate and fear South Koreans, Japanese, and Americans. Long range cruise missiles like these give the North Koreans additional options for retribution against such an attack. There's even speculation that North Korea may implement nuclear landmines, essentially placing nuclear warheads near the border to be detonated if an invasion were to overrun that position.

In short, any potential invasion or regime change of North Korea would be a very long and very bloody affair, unless there are some serious changes in the status quo. Which is exactly what Kim Jung Un wants. He doesn't have any real ambitions to re-unite the Korean peninsula, or to liberalize the nation and re-enter the world stage. His only goal is maintaining power, which is exactly what this is.

We’re really not, it’s just saber rattling. A leashed NK acting aggressively is politically useful for various actors, actual action is not.

Would it be moral to invest in defense/military contractor companies (Lockheed, Boing, Raytheon, etc.) to profit from such events?

Yeah, I don't doubt someone is going to try "regime change" there.

you'd think if the US was good enough to fake the moon landing and hide the fact the world is flat, they'd be able to make North Korea disappear without anyone realizing it