Metal Reviews

N. Korea attacking S. Korea is a possibilty; N. Korea's leadership seem to a few cards short of a full deck. They have camps where they send people that don't tow the line still.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea

Stalinist scum.

They are gearing up for another long-range missile test in a few weeks. They are in some ways a joke (not really though; they are potentially a big problem down the road), but one of these days, they just might succeed. Once they get a missile capable of hitting the continental US, things could get interesting.
It's a tricky situation.

pre-emptive nuclear strike on North Korea seems like a pretty good idea to me, just sayin'

A pre-emptive nuclear strike on anybody is not a good idea.

In certain situations, I could see how some sort of pre-emptive attack might be justified, maybe, but the idea of pre-emptive nuclear strike against someone who you merely suspect might be dangerous is just pure madness.

That shit has repurcussion for the entire human race.

oops I did it again didn't I?

sorry mate I wasn't actually serious about that, my bad

It could be done, though, without anything but some agitated static from China and Russia. I doubt they would jump in over it. Sure, they'd bluster, make some noise and pound their chest, but in the end that's (most likely) all they would do. Remember, we are still technically "at war" with N. Korea; lay it out as none of their damn business, even go as far as using one of their provocations as justification. But the US would a pariah, and the politcal fallout would be immense.

Unfortunately, any conflict between the US and N. Korea would very likely go nuclear right off the bat. Seoul would be the first to be reduced to a smoldering cinderblock, maybe even parts of Japan... it would be a horrible mess.

One option is arming the southern side of the 38th parallel with nukes. Goodbye Sunshine Policy, say hello Sunburn Policy.

Even that is very dangerous; the North would obviously see it as a provocation. It's a fcked up situation and I don't any answers to it. I don't envy the man that is faced with dealing with it.

a diplomatic process say placing stop-trade orders on North Korea could work if the faceless men in charge were more rational but given they aren't this would also result in hostility, in fact it would probably hasten the invasion of the South

it's like a toddler playing with matches, sooner or later he will get burned but you don't know when

Oh, I'm not saying it should be done, just that it probably could be done.

That's a lot of blood on one's hands.

sooner or later though North Korea are going to invade South Korea, then it's Vietnam all over again only with a less mentally stable enemy and nuclear weaponry, and then you have Iran, it's almost a lose-lose situation for everyone one who values their lives

If by any chance that was done it would be the mother of all fuck ups.

Nukes aren't problem solvers they're problem creators in the worst possible way.

Unless it involves comets,asteroids,alien invasions or Rosie O'Donnell.

that being said Nukes did end World War II

WWII was over before the nukes dropped. The nukes just stopped Russia's advance across Germany.

Don't you mean Manchuria?

I'd say both probably. This is your expertise so I'll concede the point if I'm wrong, but the way I understand it is that Soviet troops were sweeping across Germany trying to claim of it as much as they can before they met the Allied lines moving from the West and that apparently after Hiroshima, they started slowing their pace and met where East/West Germany line got divided. Was that a history 103 oversimplification?

admittedly my history is pretty poor having only studied it in high school where I was placed under the impression the nuke was dropped during WWII and that afterwards Japan ceased their military actions against the Allies

The ground war in Germany had been over for several months by the time of the atomic bombs and as I understand it, the various occupation zones were basically set in stone (USSR in E. Germany, the Western allies in W, N, S Germany).

However, Soviet troops had attacked and overrun Japanese forces in Manchuria, and were rapidly advancing in the lead-up before Hiroshima. Much of the exhaustive debate since is whether the bombs were really needed after the shock of Russia's sudden entry in the Asian theater. Much evidence suggests that critical support in the Japanese cabinet was wavering, but the matter of convincing the Emperor remained very tricky. I wouldn't make the argument that the USA's primary reasoning to drop the bombs was to threaten postwar USSR and/or stop their advance into North China, but some have. I'm no fan of Cold War Truman, but he acted as any sane American president would do: minimize cost to American lives while ending the war as quickly as possible. Tokyo and Osaka were ruled out as targets, as leaders in the Pentagon discussed the grim task of killing enough people in third tier Japanese cities to force a surrender.

I think the fairest mistakes to lay on the US government was the over-inflated US casualty projections for the alternative: an outright invasion of Japan proper, or simply that they had the position to wait a few more days to see if the cabinet could crack the Emperor. (but their knowledge of the division in the Japanese government at the time was sketchy)

I have a number of books on the topic I could suggest, large and small, if anyone is interested in forming their own conclusions, and this stuff certainly relates to V's nuclear war topics.

Then I'll just shut the fuck up lol.