Replies to post #272145 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[PegnVA]

The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) held meetings in China over the last 3 days - China has gradually become a world leader since Trump is withdrawing the U.S. from the world stage...China and Russia will work together to start talks with North Korea over their nuclear weapons, PROVING TRUMP LACKS LEADERSHIP!

[fuagf]

How does the world deal with a new nuclear power?

"The US must talk to North Korea – not threaten war"

Kirsty Needham David Wroe Nick O'Malley

The Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's last redoubt was a ditch by a drainpipe. According to the most reliable accounts he was tormented with a bayonet before he was shot dead. Later they put his body on display in an industrial freezer.

The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hauled out of a hole in the ground before a trial and a botched hanging that was captured on a jerky phone video. They buried him not far from his two sons, though the tomb has since been destroyed.

[VIDEO:] Trump: 'sad day' if US attacks North Korea 01:02 .. [insert YouTube of embedded video]

President Donald Trump says he would prefer to avoid military action to deal with North Korea's nuclear threat,
but added that previous diplomatic efforts have failed to pressure Pyongyang from developing its missiles.

These acts of intimate violence, so redolent of our post-September 11 world, left a mark upon the impressionable young dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

Speaking at a security forum in July, Donald Trump's director of national intelligence, Dan Coates, explained that Kim "has watched, I think, what has happened around the world relative to nations that possess nuclear capabilities and the leverage they have and seen that having the nuclear card in your pocket results in a lot of deterrence capability.

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"The lessons that we learned … is, unfortunately: If you had nukes, never give them up. If you don't have them, get them."

Kim reasoned that if his regime was going to survive - indeed, if he was going to live - he needed to have a nuke. When he was declared supreme leader of North Korea after the death of his father in December 2011, Kim set about achieving this goal with a single-minded determination that has impressed even his foes.
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Whether or not the world chooses to recognise North Korea as a nuclear power, last Sunday it became, says the Lowy Institute's Euan Graham, a member of that small club of nations that can reach out and obliterate a distant foreign city at will.

The United States - and the world - can now either accept this fact, seek to have North Korea relinquish its weapons or destroy them by force. Any of these paths will reshape the world.


A North Korean missile test in August. Photo: AP

So what next?

Since World War II, peace in Asia has been secured by the military power and diplomatic influence of the US. With Japan and South Korea sheltering under Washington's nuclear deterrent umbrella, and with trade routes kept open by the omnipotent presence of the US Navy, there was no point in Asia's rival nations engaging in an arms race.

The result was stability and the miracle of sustained economic growth. But as one of the key experts on the region, Richard McGregor, explains in his new book Asia's Reckoning, the old animosities never faded.


North Korea's nuclear ambitions are just one of the sources of instability on the world
stage which could impact the next Australian election. Photo: AP

And with North Korea's new nuclear capacity, the Pax Americana may be fading.

Deterrence among allies only works when you can convince your adversaries that you are willing to go to war to defend your friend. The US achieved this in Asia with a semaphore of strong and consistent military and diplomatic signals. The US deploys troops across the region, maintains bases and holds joint military exercises to demonstrate to potential adversaries that its interests are utterly aligned with those of its allies.

The equation changed when Kim demonstrated he could strike an American city. It is harder to convince the world that you are willing to sacrifice your own on behalf of your ally. Now, due to North Korea's new weapons, the US will share in the true cost of any new Korean war.

In the game of nuclear deterrence, this effect is known as "decoupling", and Kim's long-term goal has been to decouple the US from its Asian allies. To what extent he has succeeded will become apparent over the coming months and years, and it is a key question to strategists in the region.

The most hopeful argue [me for now] that Kim is a rational actor and there is no cause to believe that with his increased strategic power he will begin to menace his neighbours. Others fear that his behaviour to date - which includes the murder of his brother with a chemical agent .. http://www.smh.com.au/world/kim-jongnam-halfbrother-of-north-koreas-kim-jongun-killed-in-malaysia-reports-20170214-gud0oa.html .. in a crowded foreign airport - suggests he may harbour malign and unpredictable intentions.

Either way, there are already signs of growing instability.

The new world order

[IMAGE:] - US President Donald Trump meets his South Korean
counterpart Moon Jae-in at the White House in June. Photo: New York Times

If the US accepts North Korea as a nuclear power - officially or tacitly - Washington will severely weaken its alliances with Seoul and Tokyo, upending the order of the hemisphere. This is not just an academic view. A senior Japanese defence official told Fairfax Media that Kim's objective was precisely to "break the ties between the US and Japan and South Korea".

"If the US recognises North Korea as a nuclear power, then Japan and South Korea can no longer rely on the US for a nuclear deterrent," the official said, making it clear he was expressing a personal opinion while adding that it was a view widely shared by other people.

Most senior observers in Japan, where Fairfax Media received a series of high-level briefings this week, do not expect this outcome. There is a widespread understanding, though, that the simple fact of Kim's new technology will have its own effect.

"Although I don't want to admit that North Korea is a nuclear weapon state … We will have to live with a nuclear North Korea for a while," a former high-ranking Japanese defence official told Fairfax Media. "But that does not mean North Korean nuclear status should be admitted."

The official advocated more pressure and no dialogue, saying that "a long-term policy of new containment of North Korea is necessary".

He questioned the long-term viability of the nuclear umbrella. "That's what the allies of the US, Japan and South Korea, have to think about.

"It is not 100 per cent sure, so we have to fill the gap. That's where the Japanese defence build-up .. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/living-in-the-shadow-of-north-koreas-nuclear-arsenal-20170810-gxt4qb.html .. must come in."

In South Korea, Defence Minister Song Young-moo said he had spoken to his US counterpart Jim Mattis about returning US tactical nuclear weapons, withdrawn from the peninsula in 1991. Song said it was "an alternative worth a full review", although it was swiftly rejected by South Korean President Moon Jae-in's office.

In Japan, former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba on Thursday questioned whether it was really right to say Japan, also without nuclear weapons, would be protected by the US nuclear umbrella.

He added another caveat: nuclear deterrence is supposed to create stability, as it did during the Cold War. But the US and its allies don't know the Kim regime like they knew the Soviets. "In the Cold War days, the US side shared a major part of the Soviet strategy. That's why MAD [mutually assured destruction] worked. But we are not so sure about the North Korean strategy."

Many analysts are also concerned that the North, feeling safe under its own nuclear deterrence, might feel emboldened to carry out lower-level, regular harassing and bullying tactics against the South.

How does a nuclear North Korea fit in to the world?

[IMAGE:] Russian President Vladimir Putin warned North Korea would not abandon its weapons program. Photo: AP

With the rest of the world still insisting that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin observed that even if struck by crippling sanctions, North Koreans would rather "eat grass" than give up their nukes.

It is hard to find an analyst who disagrees with him. Instead there is a growing sense that the world might have to accept North Korea's weapons progress to date in return for concessions.

Putin has tactically backed the Chinese "freeze for freeze" proposal .. http://www.smh.com.au/world/north-korea-analysis-20170705-gx50po.html , which calls for the US and South Korea to suspend large military drills on the Korean Peninsula in exchange for North Korea freezing its missile and nuclear program, in the hope this could draw Kim back to the negotiating table.

China argues that if North Korea's security concerns are eased, it may be persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons.

At a defence forum in Seoul, Alexander Nikitin, from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, elaborated on the Russian thinking, arguing "verifiable arms control" talks were a more realistic prospect than North Korea's denuclearisation.

Even Western commentators, dismayed by the rapid progress of North Korea's missile program in spite of heavy rhetoric and threats from the Trump White House, have started to conclude that the world may have to accept North Korea as a nuclear state.

The consequences are already being debated in China, South Korea and Japan, even if acceptance of this new reality remains officially unpalatable.

Shen Dingli, vice-dean of the Institute of International Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai, says the world will become more unstable if North Korea isn't accepted as a nuclear state.

"Politically, China will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons power, as it doesn't accept Israel .. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-still-denies-israels-open-secret-of-a-nuclear-arsenal-20140414-36nr4.html , India and Pakistan .. http://www.smh.com.au/world/india-close-to-first-nucleararmed-submarine-20160226-gn54ja.html .. as nuclear weapons states. Realistically, all of the world, including China, have accepted Israel, India and Pakistan as factual nuclear weapons states," he says. "In this line, all of the world, including China, has to accept North Korea as a factual nuclear weapons state."

The US waived sanctions against Pakistan and India, which tested nuclear weapons and refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in 2001. The treaty allows only the US, Russia, China, Britain and France to have nuclear weapons.

Gareth Evans, Australian National University chancellor and former co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, said it would be "nightmarishly difficult to completely wind back the clock now and achieve total denuclearisation" of North Korea.

He believes the best hope is for cool heads - of which there are few - to negotiate a freeze. "Nobody wants to formally acknowledge that North Korea is now a nuclear power. But that is the new reality, and the only way of dealing with it is through a strategy of containment, deterrence – and keeping the door open for negotiation," he said.

A glimpse of a reshaped global order that accepted North Korea was outlined by South Korean president Moon in Vladivostok on Thursday. After meeting with Putin, he called for the creation of a North Asian supergrid, to become the world's largest energy community, linking South Korea and Russia and potentially drawing in North Korea.

US leadership runs aground

[IMAGE:] President Xi Jinping of China, the only nation
that has the power to rein in North Korea. Photo: AP

Moon's flirtation with Putin reflected not only the reality of changing power relationships in Asia, but US fecklessness in response.

In recent weeks, as this crisis boiled away, Trump issued declarations via Twitter that as often as not contradicted those from the Pentagon and the weakened US State Department. The US Navy's Pacific fleet made headlines throughout the region for a series of accidents that lead to an "operational pause" of its warships' movements.

As the crisis intensified, Trump unleashed trade threats against his ally, South Korea, and the only nation that has the power to rein in North Korea, China, which could obliterate the regime if it cut off energy supplies for long enough.

The display of diplomatic incompetence stunned and angered senior South Korean officials, said Jean Lee, a veteran foreign correspondent and fellow of the Wilson Centre based in Seoul.

South Koreans, she said, were used to provocations from the North. The difference between this crisis and those of past has not been the menacing messages emanating from Pyongyang but the confounding signals from DC.

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In spite of Trump's inane incompetence the world will carry on.

See also:

TILLERSON IS WORKING WITH CHINA AND RUSSIA - VERY, VERY QUIETLY
By David Ignatius Opinion writer, September 7 at 7:36 PM
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=134465913

[fuagf]

Inside North Korea Newest Documentary (2017)

"The US must talk to North Korea – not threaten war"

Published on Apr 25, 2017

in this documentary you get to see how north korean people really live in one of the rarest documentaries ever recorded.

While the media, and experts, concentrate on North Korea's ability to strike the U.S.A. with nukes, "in reality" North
Korea already has the ability to deliver WMD anywhere in the world. Wonder how/why? More detail from 26:26.

[An Anthony Dufour documentary.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=madZhwKI2dA

--

China’s Xi hates Kim Jong-un. But he hates instability more

North Korea has long been skilled at creating leverage from weakness – Xi and Trump are not the first to be frustrated by the strategy


‘Kim Jong-un’s madman antics aren’t just aimed at the US or South Korea and Japan … Pyongyang
is just as happy to keep Beijing off balance.’ Photograph: Kim Won-Jin/AFP/Getty Images

Richard McGregor

Saturday 9 September 2017 19.04 EDT

In Washington, all roads to Pyongyang go through Beijing, the only capital presumed to possess the wherewithal to reach North Korea’s reclusive young dictator, Kim Jong-un .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/kim-jong-un , and pull him back from the nuclear brink.

Certainly, Donald Trump thinks so, persistently tweeting his complaints about Beijing’s failure to rein in its fraternal communist neighbour, and even threatening to cut off trade with China .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/06/trump-china-tweets-trade-us-beijing-north-korea .. if it keeps doing business across the border.

Style points aside, Trump is not the first US president to assume that China holds the key to halting North Korea’s now decades-old programme to build a nuclear bomb and put it on a ballistic missile capable of hitting targets in America. Barack Obama berated Hu Jintao .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/19/hu-jintao-human-rights-obama , then China’s president, in private at a number of meetings to put pressure on Pyongyang. George W Bush took the risk of doing a deal with Kim Jong-il .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/08/usa.northkorea .. in 2008 to dismantle the nuclear programme, basing his decision in part on the belief that Beijing could see it through.

The CIA believes that Bush’s deal fell apart because Kim Jong-il became gravely ill .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/12/kim-jong-il-health-korea .. and decided to spend all his political capital at home to ensure that he handed over power to his son, just as he took over from his own father in the 1990s.

[We must keep that in mind when hearing sentiments as 'past president's talked for 25y with no good result, Trump likes to
repeat .. course Trump does not include the salient fact above as to one reason why those talks were not more productive]

--
It takes just one madman to press the button. We have two
Nick Cohen .. Read more .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/12/takes-just-one-madman-to-press-button-we-have-two
--

[Yes. Ok. Yet the point is one we all well know. There just feels like a bit too much emphasis on it, when some
more info. on the place and on stumpy, as in the video above, would be more helpful. (see reference below)]

In contrast to Obama’s private entreaties and Bush’s painstaking diplomacy, Trump’s complaints have been public, blunt and, thus far, worth all but nothing in forcing a change in Beijing’s, or Pyongyang’s, behaviour. Trump’s tweets have landed at the most sensitive time in China’s political calendar, weeks before the quinquennial ruling party congress, at which President Xi Jinping .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/xi-jinping .. is expected to secure a second term in office and gain absolute ascendency over the politburo.

Xi’s signature aim in office is to restore China .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/china .. to its position as a global power no longer pushed around by foreigners and it is hardly surprising that he has sturdily refused to engage Trump on Washington’s turf.

Yet there are deeper reasons for Beijing fending off Trump. Kim Jong-un’s madman antics .. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/12/takes-just-one-madman-to-press-button-we-have-two .. aren’t just aimed at the US or South Korea and Japan. Students of the long-running drama on the Korean peninsula have long known that Pyongyang is just as happy to keep Beijing off balance.

"The Chinese message to North Korea has been: you too can
have an authoritarian government with a capitalist economy"

China and North Korea, in their official propaganda, used to be fond of saying the two countries were “as close as lips and teeth”, but such rhetoric always masked a much more tense history. Kim Il-sung, who established the Kim dynasty .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/north-korea-kim-jong-il-birthday .. in the north after the Pacific war and the end of Japanese colonial rule over the peninsula, always played the Soviet Union and China off against each other.

In the early 1990s, North Korea’s xenophobic siege mentality, a feature of the regime since its birth, was accentuated by Beijing’s decision to establish diplomatic ties with Seoul. China’s willingness to push ahead with its own market reforms also grated on its determinedly Stalinist neighbour.

For decades, the Chinese message to North Korea .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/north-korea .. has been simple – like us, you too can have an authoritarian government with a capitalist economy, and foreign investment, even from the dreaded American imperialists. As late as 2001, the Chinese closed down one district in Shanghai to give Kim Jong-il a guided tour of the General Motors joint-venture car factory.

The Kims never bought it.

[Hold it. If you haven't yet, in the light of Richard McGregor's position there you really should have a look at the video above, again
from 26:26, where, a little later, his father's favorite Japanese chef, and his own good friend, says Kim Jong-un really is very interested
in following the way of China. Apparently he is very impressed on seeing stores with so many goods on the shelf. From 26:26, have a look.]

For years, they criticised Chinese economic reform through their state-controlled media outlets, presenting it as revisionist capitalism from which the North Korean people should be spared.

In theory, China retains huge leverage over North Korea. China is responsible for more than 80% of both North Korea’s imports and exports, so it could easily apply a chokehold to its neighbour.

"You don’t have to travel far in Beijing to hear words
of derision about Kim’s personality and leadership style"
Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia

The latest demand by western countries – for China to cut off the oil it sends to North Korea .. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/aug/31/china-should-cut-off-north-korea-oil-supply-says-turnbull .. through the Friendship Pipeline under the Yalu river – is doubtless one lethal way to bring Pyongyang to its knees. But Beijing has always worried about what might come next. A paranoid Pyongyang could turn against its neighbour and deprive China of a vital buffer between itself and South Korea, which is still host to thousands of US troops. Worse, it could collapse and send fleeing refugees pouring across its border.

Like the US and Japan, China is opposed to North Korea gaining nuclear weapons, but this objective is one that Beijing weighs carefully against its other interests on the peninsula, to maintain the status quo and avoid instability.

In that respect, China is a victim of a classic North Korean tactic – creating leverage out of weakness. In the same way as his father did with the west, Kim Jong-un has cultivated uncertainty and an element of distrust in his ties with China. This ensures that supplies of oil and food continue to flow across the border, whatever else he may do.

“Xi Jinping cannot abide Kim Jong-un,” said Kevin Rudd, the Chinese-speaking former Australian prime minister, who maintains close ties with the leadership in Beijing. “You don’t have to travel far in Beijing to hear words of derision about Kim’s personality and leadership style. They universally refer to him as ‘Fatty Kim’, or, in more polite circles, ‘the Young Gentleman’ – but rarely as ‘the Leader’.”

--
Analysis North Korea's Kim dynasty: the making of a personality cult
On former leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday, Christopher Richardson examines the way
epic accounts of heroic feats formed a foundation for the totalitarian state
Read more .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/north-korea-kim-jong-il-birthday
--

Personalities aside, Beijing also understands that Pyongyang’s antics could work in its favour, by draining the US military of time and regional resources at a time when Washington is struggling to keep up with China’s rise in territorial assertiveness.

“If a North Korean nuclear capability puts pressure on the future of US alliances in Asia, then that’s a problem for the United States, it’s not a problem for China,” said Rudd, in a recent speech in Stockholm. “There is also I believe an even deeper view within the Chinese military that a North Korean nuclear capability is a nine-out-of-10 problem for America, and a one-out-of-10 problem for China.”

Richard McGregor is a Washington-based author and journalist. His book Asia’s Reckoning: The Struggle for Global Dominance is published by Allen Lane
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/09/north-korea-china-xi-jinping

See also:

How does the world deal with a new nuclear power?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=134492571

[fuagf]

North Korea Documentary - Why Invading North Korea Would be Insane - Secret State of North

1,204,318 views

Documentary Empire
Published on Mar 24, 2015

North Korea Documentary - Why Invading North Korea would be insane !! Secret State of North Korea - HD 2015 North Korea children playing the guitar. Creepy as hell. ....

North Korea Documentary - Why Invading North Korea would be insane !! Secret State of North
Korea - HD 2015 North Korea children playing the guitar. Creepy a. Documentary north korea .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4aZkwJQKV4

The above video is one more excellent documentary on the North, with more detail on how the country has been able to sieve sanctions to maintain a flow of foreign currency through the organization Rm 39 .. Rm 39 is the conduit of foreign currency funds going to Kim Jung-il to maintain the gift system which is invaluable to his hold on power .. one name for the hidden economy is the Royal Court economy, it has served as Kim's personal slush fund,and takes huge amounts from peoples economy.

It is said sanctions over years have had some some success,

Squeeze on Banco Delta Asia hit North Korea where it hurt - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune
By DAVID LAGUE and DONALD GREENLEESJAN. 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/world/asia/18iht-north.4255039.html?mcubz=0

as lately Kim's gifts apparently have been fewer, and with him substituting instead more personal visits to maintain others loyalty to him.. money in Rm39 is not as plentiful as in the past .. also in the video there is more detail on why Kim knocked off his uncle, executed by Kim over fear of him seizing money from Kim's Rm 39 slush fund .. yep, it was all about money and power in
young Kim's mind .. one mark of Chung's effort to gain foreign currency is the continuing

Rason International Trade Exhibition 2016
http://paektuculturalexchange.org/rason-international-trade-exhibition-2016/

One expert in the video believes uncle Chung was merely trying to normalize the economy, though "no one will ever really know".

An important source of foreign currency for Kim is art.

An Art Powerhouse From North Korea
By AMY QINJAN. 25, 2016

["superJumbo" IMAGE] - Visitors at the new 360-degree
panoramic installation at the Angkor Panorama Museum.
Credit Luc Forsyth for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/arts/design/cambodias-new-angkor-museum-created-by-a-north-korean-art-factory.html?mcubz=0&_r=0

and in that the construction of giant statues ( and structures chiefly in Africa and Asia .. statues of the type many authoritarian leaders have fond fetish for.

North Korea's 'biggest' export - giant statues
16 February 2016


Alamy
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35569277

Then there are propaganda posters.

Behind Mansudae: Art from the Biggest Studio in North Korea



Nadja Sayej
Oct 30 2013, 9:00am

Meet the Italian man who runs a website that sells North Korean art—everything from propaganda posters to
landscapes, flower bouquets, and even family portraits. He told us that propaganda posters are the best sellers.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7b7vj9/behind-mansudae-the-most-prominent-art-institution-in-north-korea

To have the three videos posted recently on North Korea in the same place, here are
the other two .. there isn't too much replication and each video adds something new.

Inside North Korea Newest Documentary (2017)
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=134501926

North Korea DARKEST SECRETS 2017 Deepest Secrets Revealed for the First Time
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=134502501

One thing is absolutely clear, North Korea is not nearly as isolated a country as many people still suggest it is.

Enjoy.

[fuagf]

North Korea diplomat says take atmospheric nuclear test threat 'literally'

"The US must talk to North Korea – not threaten war"

October 26, 2017 / 3:15 AM / Updated 2 hours ago

Reuters Staff

4 Min Read

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The recent warning from North Korea’s foreign minister of a possible atmospheric nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean should be taken literally, a senior North Korean official told CNN in an interview aired on Wednesday.

[IMAGE]
REFILE - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance with Ri Hong Sop (2nd L) and Hong Sung Mu (R) on a nuclear weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 3, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS

“The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally,” Ri Yong Pil, a senior diplomat in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, told CNN.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said last month Pyongyang may consider conducting “the most powerful detonation” of a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean amid rising tensions with the United States.

The minister made the comment after President Donald Trump warned that North Korea, which has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States, would be totally destroyed if it threatened America.

CIA chief Mike Pompeo said last week that North Korea could be only months away from gaining the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons.

Experts say an atmospheric test would be a way of demonstrating that capability. All of North Korea’s previous nuclear tests have been conducted underground.

Trump next week will make a visit to Asia during which he will highlight his campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs.

Despite the bellicose rhetoric, White House officials say Trump is looking for a peaceful resolution of the standoff. But all options, including military ones, are on the table.

The U.S. Navy said on Wednesday a third aircraft carrier strike group was now sailing in the Asia-Pacific region, joining two other carriers, the Ronald Reagan and Theodore Roosevelt.

Navy officials said the Nimitz, which was previously carrying out operations in support of the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, would be ready to support operations in the region before heading back to its home port. It said the movement had been long planned.

A leading South Korea opposition figure, Hong Jun-pyo, head of the conservative Liberty Korea Party, told Reuters in Washington on Wednesday he backed Trump’s tough stance.

Hong said he had met with members of Congress and the administration and told them a majority of South Koreans wanted U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, which were withdrawn from the Korean peninsula in 1992, returned, or for South Korea to develop a nuclear capability of its own.

“The only way to deal with the situation is by having a nuclear balance between the North and the South,” said Hong, the runner-up in South Korea’s 2017 presidential election.

Reintroducing nuclear weapons remains unlikely, not least because it would undermine demands from Seoul and Washington for North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs.

Trump spoke during his election campaign about the possibility of South Korea and Japan acquiring nuclear weapons, but administration officials have played down the remarks and given no indication of any plan to redeploy tactical weapons.

On Wednesday, Trump was asked whether he would visit the tense demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea during his Asia tour and responded enigmatically.

“I’d rather not say, but you’ll be surprised,” he told reporters.

Reporting by David Alexander, David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish and Tom Brown

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-northkorea-nuclear-warning/north-korea-diplomat-says-take-atmospheric-nuclear-test-threat-literally-idUKKBN1CU2EM

--


SitRep: More U.S. Carriers Arrive in Pacific as North Korea Diplomacy Falls Apart

More on Niger ambush comes to light, Tillerson enlists India in Afghan strategy

By Paul McLeary | October 25, 2017, 7:52 AM


The USS Nimitz operates in the Arabian Gulf on Oct. 20. (U.S. Navy)

With links to other articles (some elsewhere) .. http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/25/sitrep-more-u-s-carriers-arrive-in-pacific-as-north-korea-diplomacy-falls-apart/

See also:

Here's the kind of damage North Korea could do if it went to war
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129782408

Increase funding for education, for one. If our geeks are better than their geeks,...
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=130553086

Hand of U.S. Leaves North Korea’s Missile Program Shaken
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROADAPRIL 18, 2017
[...]
By all accounts, the program that President Barack Obama stepped up
in 2014 has been adopted with enthusiasm by the Trump administration.
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How does the world deal with a new nuclear power?
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North Korea says Donald Trump 'declared war first'; reserves right to shoot down US bombers
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[fuagf]

What Would War with North Korea Look Like?

"The US must talk to North Korea – not threaten war"

.. nor should fear-mongering right-wing pushers as Alex Jones feed crap about looming war with North Korea ..

By Robin Wright
September 6, 2017

[...]

U.S. air strikes against some North Korean targets might require flying not far from the border with China, Marks warned. And China would be just as concerned as the United States would be if another country came that close to U.S. borders. “North Korea is a subset of our relations with China,” Marks told me. “What impact would a war have? Devastation of Seoul, the unravelling of world order, and China on the other side with ‘enemy’ status. And if the United States and China are belligerents, everything is up for grabs.”

The dire predictions about what a possible war with North Korea would look like are among the many reasons that current and former military officials strongly favor more diplomatic outreach—whatever President Trump says publicly. Last week, Trump tweeted, “The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!” Hours later, James Mattis, the Secretary of Defense and a former marine, publicly broke with the President. “We’re never out of diplomatic solutions,” Mattis told reporters while standing next to South Korea’s Defense Minister, Song Young-moo, at the Pentagon.

Marks told me that Mattis’s statements reflected the views of top American commanders. “There is certainly a hawkish option on North Korea,” he said, “but there is no hawkish faction at the Pentagon. Nobody wants another war in Korea.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-would-war-with-north-korea-look-like

--

Gen. Barry McCaffrey: Donald Trump Could Lead U.S. To War With North Korea | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

Published on Oct 13, 2017

Saying Pres. Trump has lost almost all credibility with the international community, including our
allies, Gen. Barry McCaffrey says conflict with North Korea could come in by summer of 2018.

See also:

Secrets of the Dead: The Man [Vasili Arkhipov] Who Saved the World.
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Here's the kind of damage North Korea could do if it went to war
Jeremy Bender Jan 8, 2016, 3:15 AM
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Report: Trump's North Korea options include nukes and killing Kim Jong-un
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
4/7/17
MSNBC Military Analyst Gen. Barry McCaffrey joins to discuss an exclusive NBC News report showing Trump's
options to deal with Pyongyang include U.S. nukes in South Korea or taking out Kim Jong-un. Duration: 4:51
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/report-trump-s-north-korea-options-include-nukes-and-assassination-916774467801
.. that one is in the last quarter of .. Full Show - Nuclear War Looms As China Pushes North Korea Closer To The Edge - 04/05/2017
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Trump dwells on chocolate cake while discussing Syria strikes

.. is twelve embedded videos into .. Full Show - North Korea Nuke Threat - 04/12/2017
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Donald Trump Tweets Another Falsehood, Causes Boeing’s Stock to Plunge
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Isaac Asimov How People Can Save The Earth for Humans
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Makes sense to me....

"Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT. Good genes, very good genes, OK? Very smart: the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart. You know, if you’re a conservative Republican—if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you’re a conservative Republican, they try—oh, do they do a number. That’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune. You know, I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged. But you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me: it would have been so easy—and it’s not as important as these lives are. Nuclear is so powerful. My uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power—and that was 35 years ago—he would explain the power of what’s going to happen, and he was right. Who would have thought? But when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners— now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three. And even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger: “Fellas,”—and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so you know it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so ... And they, they just killed, they just killed us."

How does the world deal with a new nuclear power?
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Luckily Trump isn't making the running on the North Korean question. Also, fortunately in this case the Pentagon is much more responsible than the president.