It's not just "this guy". The whole head of the government is like a machine. If he tries to bring it down the other elites will put him down. NK would not have been able to last this long by just one family having 100% power. It's a network.

China supplies oil to NK. If you want them to stop, cut the oil.

Is our only option to just surprise strike this guy into obvlivion and hope for the best, take casualties now? Assume that his capability is going to grow over time, just take whatever losses and assume eventually he will strike -- so best to eliminate the threat now while at the smallest point (but still obviously huge damage could be done to the innocent).

The only realistic option is to wait this out.

As nutty as they seem neither NK nor USA are going to attempt a first-strike. For NK, it would mean a swift, permanent end to the regime. For the USA, it would mean an unacceptable level of causalities (not to mention a global economic disaster).

There is dissent in NK, it will eventually take out dear leader. This is the most desirable end-game for NK.

If the missle had hit japan this morning, would you still think that?

Yes. The missile did not have a warhead on it.

If, somehow, it ended up hitting Japan it certainly would have been a big scary incident but few causalities if any.

What he said was:

Best case: NK government falls on its own. Least casualties.

Worst case: NK attacks (i.e. the missile had hit) or gets attacked, massive casualties on all sides.

How does your appeal to emotion change any of that?

What I was referring to this: "As nutty as they seem neither NK nor USA are going to attempt a first-strike" My question was not an appeal to emotion. My question was, "Had the missle not broken up but instead hit Japan". I'm not convinced they didn't attempt a first strike this morning, it doesn't seem like "wait them out, they'll probably never strike" is a sound argument to me given that they are already launching missiles over Japan.

The missile was clearly a message. According to the CNN journalist that talked about it, who is in NK, this is the response to the "fire and fury" threat by Trump.

That is an extremely bad idea. It's easy to talk off-handedly about casualties, but remember these could be on the scale of tens of millions. This is not something which you just shrug and do. Direct military action has almost 0% of occurring, by initiative of the West at least.

But if you assume the probability of strike is increasing over time, as is the population of all these areas, then the best alternative (although horrible to imagine), may be sacrificing 10m lives now to save 100m lives in 10 years.

Its not pretty, but can you say you believe given another 10 years unchecked development the likelihood of strike and deaths is lower?

Like a probabillistic indeterminate game of the trolley problem( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem )

I am not convinced KJU would fear a nuclear fallout. He has nothing to lose. If he were determined to survive, he is sure to have bunkers to protect him and he could almost certainly smuggle himself out of the country.

If he really valued the lives of his citizens, you would probably expect a different means of governing. I don't think you can treat this person as a rational individual when negotiating...

Nothing to lose, apart from wealth, power, luxury, the prestige of being the leader of a nation with a large nuclear-equipped military, not to mention quite possibly his life... all things I suspect he values quite highly.

Once you're away from your powerbase your days are numbered. He must certainly know that he'd be hunted till the end of days, like Bin Laden, like Hussein.

There's always the possibility of a peaceful resolution. Kim might one day decide he's better off making friends rather than enemies, or a more moderate leader might stage a coup or something. People thought the USSR would be around forever, and then suddenly in went to pieces without anyone having to blow it up. But what are the odds of that actually happening? Nobody really knows. If they're remote, then getting it over with now is probably the best approach. If they're decent, then waiting might be better. It's a difficult decision to make.

USSR went away because Gorvachev dismantled it in a careful and systematic way. It was somewhat akin to the CEO breaking apart a monstrous company. Had it been anyone else the results more likely would have been dramatically different and, most likely, not in the more "acceptable" way.

>Is our only option to just surprise strike this guy into obvlivion and hope for the best, take casualties now?

This is why North Korea is dead set on developing nuclear bombs. As long as the US remains a threat North Korea has no other choice, it's not like getting rid of their WMD's would prevent the US from attacking.

> As long as the US remains a threat North Korea has no other choice, it's not like getting rid of their WMD's would prevent the US from attacking.

No, but China would, and even North Korea's conventional threat against South Korea would.

A non-nuclear PRNK has nothing to fear from the USA, because China loves its North Korean buffer against South Korea, and will not let anything happen to it. Wouldn't China love a non-nuclear PRNK even more? It would still be a buffer and could still cause massive damage to Seoul and South Korea's industry and shipping, but without the region-destabilizing nuclear threat to Japan, Guam, CONUS, etc.

If KJU wanted to be a responsible leader, it seems to me that he would drop his nuclear and icbm programs, come up with a narrative for why that was necessary (or simply lie to his people and launch short-range rockets all the time to maintain a facade of continued progress), accept international aid and modernization, and claim credit for it to his people. If the international community does things he doesn't like, he can still threaten to attack South Korea, which would be devastating. The nuclear threat is just one step too far, and if KJU isn't careful, he's going to find that out. Trump isn't going to attack offensively (at least not without Chinese and South Korean green lights), not only because the counterattack would be a disaster for U.S. allies and perhaps the U.S. itself, but because China would then get involved in some capacity on North Korea's side.

KJU doesn't appear to want to be a responsible or rational leader, nor does he want to help his people. It seems like he wants the nuclear threat to get sanctions lifted so he can be even more of a jackass to his subjects and prop up his own regime with more comfort and power. He's already living well; if he's not happy with the status quo and wants more power and lifted sanctions to benefit himself and not his citizens, that makes me worry about his rationality vastly more than I worry about Trump's, and I do worry about Trump's sometimes.

You are judging him from the "good for the state" position, but in reality dictators work from the "good for them and their family" position, and he is quite rational in that.

NK nuclear program worked as a blackmail tool - they were getting aid in exchange for concessions like freezing plutonium-related facilities, though not terminating them.

Besides that, Gaddafi was a "responsible" leader and terminated his nuclear program. Dictators are paranoid, don't you think Kim Jong-un learned his lesson?

>No, but China would, and even North Korea's conventional threat against South Korea would.

Both these things exist now, and the war hawks are still pressing for war.

>A non-nuclear PRNK has nothing to fear from the USA, because China loves its North Korean buffer against South Korea, and will not let anything happen to it.

They do have everything to fear of China, and still could be a bargaining chip in some future deal between China and the US. They tried the whole "rely on a superpower" thing before, the USSR attempted to remove Kim Il-sung from power then the eventual collapse devastated the economy. The Juche philosophy exists for a reason.

>If KJU wanted to be a responsible leader, it seems to me that he would drop his nuclear and icbm programs, come up with a narrative for why that was necessary (or simply lie to his people and launch short-range rockets all the time to maintain a facade of continued progress), accept international aid and modernization,

Like they tried in the nineties and 00's, only to have the US reneg on the deals? [1] Or like they have constantly said they would be willing to do over the past several months? [2] That bridge is ablaze if not already burnt.

>KJU doesn't appear to want to be a responsible or rational leader, nor does he want to help his people

His main priority is maintaining power, this is hardly unique. Betterment of his citizens is a secondary goal, the Songun ideology isn't really a secret.

>It seems like he wants the nuclear threat to get sanctions lifted so he can be even more of a jackass to his subjects and prop up his own regime with more comfort and power.

He wants to remove the external threats so he only has to worry about the internal ones. Things wouldn't improve for his citizens immediately, but continuing the sanctions or war won't improve their situation either.

[1)http://www.38north.org/2017/08/lsigal082217/

[2]https://theintercept.com/2017/08/25/north-korea-keeps-saying...

The real question is what the fuck do do with the 25 million North Korean refugees? 99.9% of the people are unable to function in a modern country. No one wants them. China doesn't and despite saying so, South Korea doesn't want them either (despite saying re-unification).

It's definitely not one guy. This is a great read which helped me understand the perspective and situations dictators, and nation leaders in general, often face.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610391845/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_ISy...

CGP Grey did a video based on this book for those who want a short (uh...I mean 20-minute) introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Its not that he pulls the trigger. The real question is what the fuck do do with the 25 million North Korean refugees? No one wants them.

It's frankly appalling how people appear to be more concerned about who would take care of refugees more than the 10s of millions of human lives which would be ended in the event of war with DPRK.

europe doesn't seem to have trouble with that number of refugees or am i mistaken?

There has been a huge increase in terrorism and crime, as well as massive drains on public resources. 99% of refugees aren't going to come to a first world nation from their 3rd world war-torn nation and just "settle in and start being productive". Obviously a minority (Doctors, Lawyers if they can meet new/different standards) can contribute, but most of those people were in poverty and uneducated back home, and living in a totally different society -- so integration is pretty rough imo.

You might be surprised to find that you're completely wrong on this.

Data from the UN and Germany shows that 80%+ of refugees have a university degree or secondary education. When war strikes, those with more resources are the ones able to escape and pay their way through to the EU.

Of course this doesn't mean integration is any easier, but the reasons are not that simple.

Only 13 percent of recent refugees in Germany have found work: survey http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-su...

Do you have a source for that figure? I agree that refugees who had the resources to make it to Europe would be relatively well off, but taking spouses and children into account, I would expect a much lower proportion with a degree.

The reuters article referenced below [1] claims that 58 percent [of adult refugees] had spent 10 years or more at school, and just under a third had attended university or a vocational school. Presumably, if you take children into account the figure will be even smaller.

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-s...

you don't have a degree if you got rid of your passport, no matter how many years of education you had. and you shouldn't be allowed to use those credentials if you came illegally.

Statistics show that refugee population increase has a smaller impact on crime and public resource drain than equivalent 'native' population increase. A group of 1000 refugees will have less criminals and put smaller burden on state resources than 1000 local citizens. Go figure, everything you thought you new about refugees are wrong.

http://www.e-ir.info/2016/03/07/refugees-economic-burden-or-...

Are you sure about this? I guess we should stop trying to fight crime with those outdated notions of education, upward mobility, etc and instead focus on creating more of the conditions refugees have instead, since that appears to cause less crime. All this time I thought the peaceful Scandinavian nations had it figured out, turns out Syria had the right idea.

Also I'm not sure if crime stats are right. There have been a lot of cases of covering up crimes by immigrants/refugees due to social pressure and allegations of racism. See the Rotheram incident, which set of a storm of reports all over Europe, but was covered up for years due to social pressure (56 mass rapists in one town, 53 of whom were immigrant Muslims): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit...

Another example from Germany, 1200 assaults in one night in one town: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaul...

The referenced article doesn't have any figures on crime. A news article from 2017 [1] claims the opposite (refugees commit disproportionately more crime), but adds that just 1 per cent of migrants account for 40 per cent of migrant crimes. [2] has a lot more detailed stats and supports the claim that there are disproportionate increases in crime associated with refugees.

[1] - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/25/migrant-crime-ger...

[2] - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2903116

Still have not encountered anyone from Europe who is happy about having refugees up to they arse. Except those that benefit from transporting/smuggling them and government agencies. Money grabbers love refugees, 25M refugees will give billions of income, of course, from the expense of common man.

And you can talk all you want about the outcome and best scenarios, lives. Warmongers will war, money grabbers will grab, you will pay for that!

Europe has received an order of magnitude fewer refugees spread out of 2.5 years. As to whether or not they've been having "trouble", I guess it all depends on how bad things have to get before you upgrade it from inconvenience to trouble.

Europe took in 2.5M in 2015/2015 (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis), North Korea has 25M population. Europe economically is much stronger then South Korea. Plus the refugees are more functional in a modern world then 99.9% of the DPRKians.