China's favorite distraction/evil doer was it again yesterday... seems sinking a ship was not enough to get the U.S. administration knocking on China's door for help... me thinks yesterday's activities might do it.
Anybody who thinks that North Korea woke up one morning and decided to shell the South's territory or sink its naval ships just for the heck of it just ain't applying themselves... here's the deal... China wants something from the U.S. or wants to influence the U.S... China gets N.K. to agitate... S.K.'s goes to its protector... protector goes to China... China has a much better shot of altering whatever American policy they find offensive with the U.S. knocking on its door asking for help.
As I have said before... a nuclear event ANYWHERE in the world would sterilize the industrialized nation's financial system overnight. China's government has a far better shot of surviving that then any of the West's governments....
So what does China want?
It would seem to me that they do NOT want the U.S. unilaterally devaluing the US$... and, irrespective of their own monetary moves of late, they CERTAINLY do not want to tip their own economy over into a recession... China has the perfect vehicle in N.K. to continue to tweak policy in D.C... provided that they do not overplay their hand.
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I agree that their are ulterior motives which could include what you said, but NK also gets a lot of money, food, fuel and medicine every time they pull one of these little stunts. Clinton was good for handing them like 10 billion a yr back in the day. There is also somewhat of a power struggle going on there for the next dictator of a dilapidated craphole. You seem to be onto something with the proxy idea. Not to mention of the preceived weakness of Obama is no help. So if they were boxes I would check all of the above.
Perhaps I'm being a warmonger, but in 10-15 years China has the potential to equal the strength of the U.S. militarily. Not certain, but maybe. We know they aren't that strong now. Perhaps it is time for the two proxies (the Koreas) to fight it out, fight now while we have a chance of knocking China and their interests back on their a**es, cause down the road, when the energy is a lot more uncertain and prices erratic, we may have missed our chance to re-establish who is in charge in this world. I sure as hell don't want the communists in charge, and no one is gonna fire any nukes, for the same reason the U.S. and Russia didn't.
I'm feeling like I may have missed the chance to refinance my house at a low interest rate. :) I would hate to miss another grand opportunity.
The implications are this:
America has security commitments to S Korea,Taiwan, and Japan, and maybe Vietnam and other SE Asian nations. These countries see us not standing up to little NK, certainly we wont stand up to China. So these countries have 2 options, develop their own Nuclear capability, and/or cozy up to China because America ain't gonna do shit.
I kind of agree bur. Nothing good can come from letting this go on for too much longer. China is not our friend, ally or partner, they are just biding time for their own ascent. We can in one fellow swoop wipe out a rouge state with nuclear weapons and do away with a border we have to defend. Unless it moves north to china. Damn all of these foreign entanglements are founders warned us about really do bite us in the ass. The biggest problem is that we have 35,000 boys on the DMZ and the only thing they went there for was a little Asian persuasion if you know what I mean.
And girls. :)
The Chinese people are fine -- I know several Chinese students here who seem to be in no big hurry to go home, which says a lot.
But egging on South Korea to give North Korea a black eye .. we may wind up collapsing North Korea and moving the DMZ up to China's border, and China ain't gonna like that one bit.
It's easy to pick a fight when someone else has to do the fighting. But the commodity thing is clear .. most wars are fought over control over commodities anyway, like oil, and world production has been on a plateau for 6 years. It's only a matter of time before supply runs down ...
DaShui:
A Very reasonable assertion...
Bur:
You must be a war monger...
Bur; aren't two wars enough for you that you want to go up against the biggest standing army in the world?
And what are you going to use for money - hey, maybe the Chinese would lend you some more?? :-)
Cool.
Just what we need- the bankrupt USG getting involved in a nuclear shootout on the Korean Peninsula.
I'm sure all those tired and depleted US forces in Afghan would just love a tour of duty on an irradiated Korean Peninsula with -45F temps due any time.
And when those 35,000 US "tripwire troops" get vaporized with N. Korean nukes, there will be no going back.
Of course, our Chinese bankers (top global banks are now Chinese) will surely welcome another US war- this time right on their border. Remember the cut-off of rare-earth minerals? It's a sign that the Chinese are losing patience and perspective.
A pretty nifty way to ignite those $600 Trillion of OTC derivatives, wouldn't you think?
WW3 anybody?
Best,
Marshall
Marshall,
You act as if this was not already in the cards. It will happen; the only thing to be determined is the trigger. Massive worldwide debt, resource constraints and humanity have one meeting place, war. History is replete of this situation.
I didn't say we would go to war with China directly. Let the Koreans fight it out. :) Give the green light to the South to fire a few missles. What damage could they possibly do? The North is a dump. We'll just stick by the side who deserves to win.
DaShui is dead on. Once the bluff is called anything can happen. My guess is that if China invaded Taiwan, we'd watch it on TV and that would be that. A bit more bluster and a bit less groveling and mea culpa by the POTUS would do a world of good. The idea of all this is to make sure no one EVER calls the bluff. That requires a position of strength. I miss GWB.
Regards,
Coal Guy.
Coal guy,
It would be very interesting to see China and Taiwan go at it. My money is on China winning at a very high cost. Most likely,there would not be much left to have when the dust settles. This could lead to China's Veitnam. I worked with a few of the Taiwanesse military guys. Very passive and very determined. And of course armed to the teeth by the USA. The Koreas will listen to their masters only so much before the populace demands war. I think the new leader of NK is going to make a name for himself. IMHO
Bob
What is this, the Military Industrial Complex Investors Blog? War is always bad for the belligerents; alas, unavoidable at times, but bad nevertheless.
My understanding, from talking to friends that have been stationed there recently, is that our primary function in South Korea is to restrain the South Koreans. The South Koreans have a good deal of animosity toward North Koreans, to put it mildly. Furthermore this isn’t the early 1950’s anymore. All the south has to do is survive the initial artillery bombardment, then rolling up the north’s dilapidated soviet era forces would not be a problem for the south’s modern military. The only thing South Korea would need us for is to keep China out of the conflict and to deal with North Korea’s nuclear capability.
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