The sinking of South Korean Corvette Cheonan

North Korea won by making an ambush against a SK ship.
If South Korea prepares an ambush, maybe they can get the same result against NK.

Neither of the koreas can win a war of unification without having unacceptable losses, but it is North korea that can´t feed their own people and that have to receive international humanitarian help.
There is no reason for North Korea to not make a peace treaty with South Korea, instead of threatening it with a nuclear war, other than the survival of their own dictatorship´s rulers in power.

solarz said:

So SK won't retaliate, at least overtly. What does that imply for SK domestically, and would this embolden the North for further demands/provocations? What does that imply for the stability of the region?

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domestically? imo, news outlets will run stories for couple months till public gets bored and other news items overshadow it. the economy and citizens daily life will get center stage again. president will take a hit, military will take a hit, the left will take a hit. conservatives will probably have a field day.

harder to predict NK's future. but my guess is it would be everyone's bes t interest to prevent this from spiraling out of control. in the past NK managed to squeeze unconditional aid and unilateral concessions through clever saber rattling, but recently she overplayed her aggressive hand as excessive activity of the North Koreans backfired .... so it remains to be seen whether SK and US will be generous this time, but who knows. lets wait and see.

alopes said:

- Well Syria has a part of their territory controlled by Israel, but yes maybe the term i used was not the most correct in this case.

- India aquired nuclear weapons first, as deterrent against China, but it´s Pakistan that have a First-Use policy (referring to nuclear weapons) and it´s Pakistan that supports the separatists in Cachemira, having their nuclear weapons as a warrant that India will not invade Pakistan to stop the separatists nor the weapons smugling to Cachemira.

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When you look at things, you read behind the line. Why would pakistan want nuclear. Mainly because their arch enemy - India has it. Plus although Pakistan had a first use policy (if what you say is true), actually India never vow not to have a first use policy too. It is just a way to deter each other.

Do you actually think india is that innocent a party? If so, why would exile Tibetan leader have a stronghold in India?

alopes said:

- About NATO nuclear weapons, in case of war against a third country with nuclear weapons, there is or there was a clause in the treaty for the use/storage of these weapons that the hosting countries had the right to take control of USA nuclear warheads in their territory to use against the attacker (at least i read this rule in wikipedia).

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Seriously, I do not believe US would allow any third party nation to use their nuclear weapons. That is why France and England had their own nuclear weapon program... and NATO was form, thus the European nations could actually fought as one singular nation.

alopes said:

- Why it would be strange that a country, like South Korea, being threatened to be bombarded with nuclear weapons, aquires nuclear weapons to counter a dictatorship that is branding every day their willing to use it ?

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You do not just start a nuclear weapon program without heeding the rest of the world. It is international politics here... not SK or any individual politics. First thing: US would never allow SK to have nuclear weapons, it would only encourage Japan to have it... then the rest of South East Asian nations would wanted it... and of these South Eastern nations - some are not allies with US. This would only spark an nuclear arm race in Asian nations which will definitely spread to the rest of the world...

So if SK started building or developing of nuclear weaponry, you can be sure that US will jump - slap embargoment on the nation, and even pull out all assistance to SK.

Note that the largest trade partner with SK is still US at present moment, without US assistance and trade and business and whatever, SK is not going to do well.

alopes said:

- If South Korea is under the USA umbrella, why is North Korea attacking South Korea ships without any reaction from USA military machine?

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Is the SK ship really sink by the NK? Up till this moment it is still spectaculation... plus NK never admit to the sinking yet. so don't jump into conclusion yet.

So in summary, you do not just fight tic for tac in this era. Sometime you would need to look around you, look deeper and you might get to see some hidden meaning of things that are functioning right now.

rhino123 said:

Is the SK ship really sink by the NK? Up till this moment it is still spectaculation... plus NK never admit to the sinking yet. so don't jump into conclusion yet.

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It really doesn't matter if it was NK or not. What matters is if the American military claims that it is NK, and then does nothing.

solarz said:

It really doesn't matter if it was NK or not. What matters is if the American military claims that it is NK, and then does nothing.

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Yes. But up till now, the US never actually said, it is NK. They just said it might be NK. Until we can see what is the actual upcome than could we conclude what would be the reaction of the US. And as I have already say, everything now is just spectaculation. Plus how would you know that US would do nothing? It might not be military action, but other things.

I mean, why would it always come to arms whenever something doesn't go according to what we wanted to see?

Besides the United States currently has her hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran is also causing troubles in the Middle East with its own nuclear program. Skirmishes have occured between North and South Korea before but no full-scale wars have erupted since the Korean War. I really don't think that the U.S. is gonna launch assaults against the North Koreans due to "speculated attacks".

siegecrossbow said:

Besides the United States currently has her hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran is also causing troubles in the Middle East with its own nuclear program. Skirmishes have occured between North and South Korea before but no full-scale wars have erupted since the Korean War. I really don't think that the U.S. is gonna launch assaults against the North Koreans due to "speculated attacks".

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The US might not take action, but the South Korean government is under pressure to do something from its own people. Especially now that their defence minister has all but admitted a torpedo was the cause of the sinking - and given North Korea is the only likely suspect that will increase the pressure.

At this point I suspect economic sanctions would be more likely. North Korea has already given the excuse over seizing the tourist complex. Seoul could freeze aid, close the factories in North Korea, etc. Certainly it has to do something, it can't just let Pyongyang kill its personnel in an unprovoked attack and get away with it. Otherwise the North Koreans might keep pushing until they do something that would require a military response. There's a school of thoughts that the North Koreans want a limited conflict to take away attention at home from the dire economic situation. They need to be put back into their box before things escalate further.

Scriitor said:

I don't think you guys are understanding what you're seeing. The stern looks intact in that video because the corvette was broken in two. That's only half the ship. The bow, which held the surviving 58 crew members, is yet to be raised.

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Exactly..check this out..

A giant offshore crane salvages portion of the sunken South Korean naval ship Cheonan off Baengnyeong Island, South Korea, Saturday, April 24, 2010. South Korea lifted remaining half of its warship Saturday in waters near the disputed sea border with North Korea, a month after it sank following a mysterious explosion that left 46 sailors dead or missing.

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throughout the history of DPRK, it has committed numerous aggressions, crimes and atrocities, here is a short list:

1, it hijacked american naval vessle from international water, tortured its crews, and holds the ship till today
2, it kidnaped dozens of japanese citizen on japanese soil, killed some of them, and holds some of them till today,
3, it tried to killed the visiting korean premier in burma, the bomb went off earlier, or the guy was late, it killed several south korean cabinet members;
4, it sent commandos crossing the DMZ all the way to Seoul, tried to launch an attack on the blue house to kill the president of south korea

the list can get rather long...

and north korea got away always!

LesAdieux said:

throughout the history of DPRK, it has committed numerous aggressions, crimes and atrocities, here is a short list:

1, it hijacked american naval vessle from international water, tortured its crews, and holds the ship till today
2, it kidnaped dozens of japanese citizen on japanese soil, killed some of them, and holds some of them till today,
3, it tried to killed the visiting korean premier in burma, the bomb went off earlier, or the guy was late, it killed several south korean cabinet members;
4, it sent commandos crossing the DMZ all the way to Seoul, tried to launch an attack on the blue house to kill the president of south korea

the list can get rather long...

and north korea got away always!

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How much do you want to push them to have a full scale war?