With no real possibility that US sanctions against North Korea will have any real teeth, since the US doesn’t have any trade or diplomatic ties to start with, the struggle to figure out what the US could conceivably do to North Korea has mostly centered on military attacks.
But there are other acts of war possible, and some in the US seem to be advocating a naval blockade of the whole of North Korea, figuring that would be one way to ensure that there’s literally no trade possible.
Blockading an entire country that size would be no msall task, despite the large amounts of US naval assets in the area. That North Korea also has direct links to both China and Russia, their main trading partners, also limits what a blockade could really do, beyond being a declaration of war.
North Korean officials are warning that it would be an act of war, which isn’t really debatable, and are also warning they’d retaliate against any such move, warning it would be a dangerous step toward a nuclear war.
That’s a serious concern irrespective of what act of war the US chooses to escalate the situation in North Korea, as analysts have repeatedly warned that there is no such thing as a “limited” war with North Korea, and anything would quickly escalate into a full-on nuclear exchange.
Trump Administration officials have continued to suggest military means are their preferred choice to anything, except for a total North Korea surrender. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is the only one who suggest diplomacy as a strategy, and every time he does, he’s publicly rebuked by someone else in the Administration.
Blockading N Korea will bring China into this as a supplier of critical supplies. China will not let N Korea fall to the USA that’s a fact.
Then China must bring full pressure on North Korea before it’s too late.
Please explain to us ignorant people what exactly has NK done that is wrong, or criminal?
The fact that US did not defeat them more than 50 years ago and that ever since, the USA has been conducting a economic and political war against them does not give a right to conduct a military war against them
(Which by the way, you would lose.)
Too late for what?
Of course a blockade is an act of war, and while majority of US are too F’n stupid to recognize it as such, if by some far out there fluke of warfare even if o ly one dumb ass military volunteer were to die, they would not shed a tear if millions of either Koreans died.
And I grew up thinking no people’s would ever be as brain washed as NAZI Germany, I was mistaken.
Nazi Germany was not “brainwashed”, and that war was unnecessary.
When a population joins in a war, necessary or not, and gives more care to comfort of own ass or gets so wrapped up in emotional Nationalism, that it works to support, breeds children to support, and f’n pretends not to see a genocidal attaack upon a class of peoples, works running trains to camps, grows foods for those camps, makes furniture and matress ticking out of human hair:
THEY ARE EITHER BRAINWASHED, COWARDS BEYOND COMPARE, OR F’n INSANE.
The German Austrians were as a Nation and its people’s, guilty as hell of crimes against humanity.
As I say about them , I also condemn US in same way.
The USA is itching for war. We have three aircraft carriers in the area, sitting ducks for modern anti-ship missiles. Think Gulf of Tonkin incident, folks.
I seem to remember that one of the two Senators who voted no demanded that the US ship’s log be made available to the Senate.
No, the US is not itching for war.
The US wants no war. It wants peace on the Korean peninsula.
It is North Korea’s unnecessary development of weapons of mass destruction and its over the top threats that have brought down the condemnation of the world on it.
South Korea and Japan also are being threatened by North Korea.
The bad guy here is the North Korean regime which kills and starves its own people.
Swap the words US and N Korea in everything you just said and it still makes sense. Seems like there is some basic psychology going on here: nothing upsets us more than seeing our own problematic traits repeated by others. And while the ‘who started it’ metric is a petty exercise, who escalated it lately was mostly Trump, playing the figurative trump card: give me everything I demand or here comes the end of the world.
Kim launched nuclear tests and ICBM tests before Trump did anything. His father did not.
You are truly a hard working American.
The first bomb test was 29 Oct 2006,
Kim Jong Un became president in 2011.
GW Bush was US president.
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” — Benjamin Franklin
If the USA really wanted peace, they would be negotiating with North Korea and letting the North and South sort this all this out as they want.
As if the USA has the slightest care about starving people, death by disease (1 million in Yemen now have cholera) or the destruction by nukes if they are not rich US citizens (only the USA has nuked cities and now threatens again).
The North Koreans remember the total destruction of their country in the war in 1950-1 and the facts are readily available? North Korea wants a peace treaty-after 64 no-response years-and a non-aggression pact, but that is too much for the USA to consider.
The USA has also tried to tell south Korea how to behave, stopped presidents who wanted cooperation with DPRK, and held provocative “exercises” to ensure the North remained an enemy. Nukes to deter the uSA remain one of the few actions possible.
Keep drinking that Kool Aid !
Maybe the US should just sit around and let North Korea threaten it with a nuclear war?
Some people believe Boy King Kim Jong Un is so “rational” that he would never do anything as stupid as launch a nuclear-tipped missile at the US.
Oh sure, people like Kim never do anything stupid or self-destructive, do they? That’s never happened in the history of the world, has it?
So should other countries attack the US because they are worried that a country that has used WMD’s might use them again?
“Maybe the US should just sit around and let North Korea threaten it with a nuclear war?”
North Korea has “threatened” to use nukes if attacked. If the US doesn’t want North Korea to use nukes, all it has to do is start minding its own business.
Most of it has happened because of the USA’s actions.
The Kennedy Admin in the Cuban Missile Crisis did a “quarantine” of only some ships going to Cuba, because a blockade would have been an act of open war. It was a serious concern at the time.
And so now, the UN SC unanimously passes the most draconian sanctions against NK, with approval of both Russian and China. The one has me stumped (and pissed off).
It worked to start WW2, why not for WW3 as well?
North Will attack and there will be many casualties.
Like Syrians,North will ask assistance from Russia and China and both they will. And why wouldn’t? North knows this.
Russians and China keeping trade with North,and why not they won’t assist North militarily?
But,Trump is ignorant.
To those too young to have learned or been INDOCTRINATED by US revisionist history, stop watching mainline US media outlets.
There was no Korean War, it was a U.N. Police Action.
Truman had already commited US military before consulting either houses of Congress
Show me any sane and reasonable reason N. Korea should not be building a nuclear deterance, in defence of US attack, an attack that has been threatened with since signing of Armastice.
Wake the F up, we in US are wanting a war, supporting a war machone.
” Do not blame the troops”, with an all volunteer, now that is beyond reason and into realms of mental unbalance.
Either that or the troop are so F’n stupid they need permanent guidance over their daily llives, not knowing right from wrong.
Of course it is not indoctrination, we call it education in US, that the truths of hundreds of times US has sabotaged talks by setting criteria that means actual surrender by N
Korea.
Read the why of Norths original invasion, and just what the F kind of Brutal Industrial Dictatorship US had set up in the South.
AND NO YOU WILL NOT FIND REAL INFO IN YOUR KIDDIE SCHOOL TEXT.
Most Americans are simply not courageous enough to face the REAL TRUTH of just how horrible the government THEY elected and continue to support, REALLY IS (both worthless parties included). Great post.