North Korea

The North Korean leadership uses the threat of war as a tool to receive concessions from the international community and their neighbours which they are heavily reliant on

Their only allies in the region, China, got pretty peeved earlier this year after the third nuclear test and decided with the US to push some sanctions that the North Korean leadership really doesn't like (it targets many of their ruling elite's funds, banking and luxuries)

Most know that these threats are just bluster, but the problem is that an incident (like the previous sinking of the Cheonan) could seriously escalate. Hence the international community and neighbours like China, as much as they disapprove of the current regime in North Korea - would rather just give in and provide concessions that face a pointless bloody war that benefits no one.

Park Royal wrote: »

PS. is everybody in North Korea on the same BMI.....Body Mass Index...?

or are there a few exceptions......?.

Odd, but teenagers in North Korea are on average 8 inches shorter than their Southern counterparts because of malnutrition

Jonny7 wrote: »

Odd, but teenagers in North Korea are on average 8 inches shorter than their Southern counterparts because of malnutrition

Theres at least one small fat guy in North Korea, the fat is just bursting out of

him, while everybody else looks a bit thin....due to lack of food,,,,,

the whole situation in the North reminds me of George Orwell's "1984".....

the people are trapped ...and cant find a way to change things yet,,,!

From looking at how events have unfolded, alot of the time I have felt sideblinded by acts of war.
It could well be a setup for a war in the middle east.Or something worse, like East V West meeting in the middle.
America are clearly pushing themselves all the way to Chinas doorstep.
And so far from the western medias view, the Chinese arent doing a whole lot about it.
In reality they are doing some things that I know of.
For example protecting their territories on the seas.
Im curious have they been doing anything in the middle east too that I might have missed?
Or have America and China/Russia decided between themselves, that China gets africa and America gets middle east? Not sure where Russia might fit into that theory though.
My Geography is terrible in general.
But this frame of reference helps me a little when trying to think of the overall picture.
Look at the size of Russia.I know alot of that might be useless land..maybe.
Its quite interesting how small countries can have so much power.
Or is it that they dont in reality?
And on that note, why the hell has China allowed America to get into South Korea? ^^
Because of the Hiroshima threat?
Sorry I can be ignorant to some aspects of history.



Sorry map is massive ^^
At least you all have a frame of reference if you need lol

Torakx wrote: »

From looking at how events have unfolded, alot of the time I have felt sideblinded by acts of war.
It could well be a setup for a war in the middle east.Or something worse, like East V West meeting in the middle.
America are clearly pushing themselves all the way to Chinas doorstep.
And so far from the western medias view, the Chinese arent doing a whole lot about it.
In reality they are doing some things that I know of.
For example protecting their territories on the seas.
Im curious have they been doing anything in the middle east too that I might have missed?
Or have America and China/Russia decided between themselves, that China gets africa and America gets middle east? Not sure where Russia might fit into that theory though.
My Geography is terrible in general.
But this frame of reference helps me a little when trying to think of the overall picture.
Look at the size of Russia.I know alot of that might be useless land..maybe.
Its quite interesting how small countries can have so much power.
Or is it that they dont in reality?
And on that note, why the hell has China allowed America to get into South Korea? ^^
Because of the Hiroshima threat?
Sorry I can be ignorant to some aspects of history.



Sorry map is massive ^^
At least you all have a frame of reference if you need lol

No offence here, but maybe you should read up on history, geography and politics of the area, because that was honestly a stream of nonsense.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Problems are opportunities. Obama's first choice for White House Chief-of-Staff and son of a terrorist Rahm Emanuel:

Guilt by association.

Pointless bloody war benefits many people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/meet-the-001-percent-war_b_1034971.html

War has always benefited someone. It's the higher opportunity cost of peace which generally prevails (in most situations thankfully)

It's very simple to try to break things down into black and white reasons to underscore a narrative, e.g. someone is making money on those Hamas and Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel, ergo that must be the reason.

The bolded part is the faulty logic.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

No. Just a statement of fact . He is the son of a terrorist. What was important was his statement i.e. that "problems" can be opportunities. Therefore there is the motive to engineer/fabricate problems as has been the case in history including Korea.

Here's the full context of the quote (not a very carefully chosen few words) Note he's talking about energy, healthcare, tax, education and financial regulation

No idea what you are talking about to be fair. First you said war benefits nobody and now you say it "always benefits someone".

Which is it?

Here is what I said

Hence the international community and neighbours like China, as much as they disapprove of the current regime in North Korea - would rather just give in and provide concessions that face a pointless bloody war that benefits no one.

I'm obviously referring to a war in North Korea, not war in general. I'm by "no one" I mean no country in the region. So you misunderstood me.

Secondly I said someone always benefits from war, since the dawn of time, weapon manufacturers, people who make brass buttons for uniforms - hence I made my point about those who manufacture rockets for Hamas and Hezbollah making the same profit.

I hope that clears it up.

Torakx wrote: »

Good points.
I had thought the Chinese economy was more sustainable compared to the US.As in, the Chinese would survive alot better than the US if they had to go to war.

Exact opposite. Look at domestic consumption. The US accounts for about 60% of world scientific output, China incredibly hard to say but almost certainly less than 3%. China relies almost enirelly on imported oil from the ocean. The US could easily sustain its military at a high rate with domestic, let alone allied, production. They also have a navy that could almost certainly match the rest of the worlds combined - that means Chinas oil supplies will quickly dry up.

The technology advantage would only become more pronounced with time, the resource issue would be a problem almost immediately.

China cannot project its power much beyond its own borders.

This is to say nothing of the US' capability advantage, which is in another league entirely.

No, a China US war over this issue is an almost non existant possibility but a Chinese victory in a larger sense is only a possibility in the most ideologically driven minds. Maybe in 40 years time.[/QUOTE]

Torakx wrote: »

Under the bases that the Chinese export alot of products and have a fairly strong military already at the same time.
Argueably the Chinese should prefer taking areas with troops(at least in an economical crises I presume they have the advantage mainly when it comes to soldier numbers), which is why I am suprised they apparently dont make enough threats when the US move in next door.

Mainly because numbers is their only advantage. And it is nearly a non existent advantage, becoming less of a factor for decades. The Iraqi army was enormous, far bigger than the amount of troops the US had deployed in the region. It was steamrolled in weeks.

Torakx wrote: »

The US survive it seems mostly by pillaging other countries resources.
If they move in on Chinas turf that must be a problem.

Um... Just out of curiousity where was the last place it pillaged and by pillage do you mean "buy" because even then you would be wrong.

It doesn't have to be a mystery or something you guess at. Economic data clearly shows where the vast majority of US wealth comes from - advanced services and technological, scientific and service innovation. It is where the vast majority of the advanced goods people enjoy all over the world is developed. The fact that these are high skilled areas - with high pay and high profits explains why the US remains rich per head to an extent no other country even approaching its population level can attain. A country the size of Norway can make all its citizens well off purely through use of natural resources - one the size of the US would need untold levels available to fund the population and wealth it generates.

Again, easy to google US economic data to see detailed information on all this , I see no reason why guessing should even occur to someone as an option

Torakx wrote: »

But everything considered, do you think they have sorted out agreements on who gets what area?

Ah a question that doesn't have an answer someone can find in seconds with google! And interesting at that!

Maybe not now, it would unsettle China too much. However I have no doubt that if this were to escalate to full scale war China will insist on some sort of buffer between itself and a unified, US allied, Korea.

Nino Brown wrote: »

.
If the Chinese were to dump their dollar reserves the US dollar would most likely totally collapse.

What do you mean by 'dump'? If you mean destroy, it would have the opposite effect, less dollars means an increase in the worth of those still around.

If you mean they will stop buying US debt, it is not necessarily true. China owns about 7% of US debt, and it is the currency in which every major business and country have their reserves in. Because of this, its value collapsing would he DISASTROUS for every one of them, they would far more likely pick up the slack than allow a collapse.

To give you an idea of how bad it would be, if you have 1 million dollars in savings and the US dollar value lost 50% you would now have 500,000 dollars (or its equivalent spending power) in savings. There're trillions of dollars of US dollars in reserve around the world - a 1% drop means billions of dollars of losses in value. I hope this makes it clear exactly how unlikely it is that anyone with any money would allow this to happen.

Perhaps most importantly in this case, China has its reserves in dollars (trillions of dollars). Perhaps its hard to understand, but any drop in the value of the US dollar means that China - as the entity with the single biggest reserves, loses the most wealth. A 1% drop would mean little to the US in economic terms - values fluctuate and it can be good or bad depending on the nations situation at a given time - but to China it would mean suddenly owning billions of dollars less in relative value.

I could get into a collapse of its value actually making US debt meaningless, but there is little point.