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The North Korean Pissing Match

A HUMBLE ATTEMPT TO ADD CONTEXT AND ANALYSIS TO THE ESCALATING CONFLICT WITH NORTH KOREA

Mad Sociologist
1 minute
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A HUMBLE ATTEMPT TO ADD CONTEXT AND ANALYSIS TO THE ESCALATING CONFLICT WITH NORTH KOREA

A war with North Korea would be devastating for both sides with little to gain. It would be the first military conflict between nuclear powers in history and would involve the worlds largest militaries and be a threat to some of its most important economies. So why are we even contemplating such a mission?

The video below is an attempt to analyze this question.

Sources:

https://inis.iaea.org/search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:25003795https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/trumps-many-comments-on-north-korea/2017/07/05/54429ade-61b4-11e7-80a2-8c226031ac3f_video.html?utm_term=.b04267af4eb2https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/09/history-lesson-why-did-bill-clintons-north-korea-deal-fail/?utm_term=.4f14721c7a0bhttps://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kn.htmlhttp://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-troops-arrive-in-korea-to-partition-the-countryhttp://www.history.com/topics/korean-warhttp://www.cnn.com/2013/06/28/world/asia/korean-war-fast-facts/index.htmlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1997/korean_elections_97/39111.stmhttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2005-01-01/did-north-korea-cheathttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/sou012902.htmhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/09/history-lesson-why-did-bill-clintons-north-korea-deal-fail/?utm_term=.3d9f0d55ff66http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kim/themes/lessons.htmlhttps://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/agreedframeworkhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/who-is-kim-jong-un-and-how-will-he-handle-the-north-korea-crisis/2017/08/12/1436e2bc-7ee5-11e7-b2b1-aeba62854dfa_story.html?utm_term=.5e7b80acfdcehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/north-korea-now-making-missile-ready-nuclear-weapons-us-analysts-say/2017/08/08/e14b882a-7b6b-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.550cfb29e003http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-north-korea-frenzy-curiously-timed-1022215747682http://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/cia-other-spy-agencies-agree-north-korea-can-fit-nuclear-n791486http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/29-largest-armies-in-the-world.htmlhttp://www.worldatlas.com/articles/29-largest-armies-in-the-world.htmlhttps://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-cuba-relationshttps://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/07/iran-nuclear-deal-two-years/533556/

5 responses to “The North Korean Pissing Match”

  1. Sean Munger Avatar
    Sean Munger

    Terrific analysis. Our misperceptions of North Korea are our biggest weakness. We’re going to have to negotiate with them eventually anyway, and accepting them as a nuclear power is already inevitable.

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    1. Mad Sociologist Avatar
      Mad Sociologist

      I couldn’t agree more. The problem that I see is that the discourse on negotiation embraced by the right is little more than “my way or the highway.” Every criticism of international negotiation that I’ve seen from the right is one of appeasement. Too much is given, but nothing gained. It’s as if the right is expecting that negotiation should mean the big guy gets what he wants and the little guy has to obey. Anything short of that is appeasement. If that’s the attitude going in, we’re going to run into some problems.

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      1. Sean Munger Avatar
        Sean Munger

        The problem with that attitude is, they don’t understand appeasement either. It frustrates the hell out of me and I wrote an article on it a while ago. https://seanmunger.com/2015/07/19/untangling-appeasement-the-most-tragically-misunderstood-word-in-history/ What has come to be called “appeasement” was an entirely reasonable policy at the time, and criticism of it is based on a total distortion of what really happened in the 1930s–a distortion based, in part, on the rhetoric of Winston Churchill.

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  2. Background to war? Mad Sociologist on U.S.-North Korea conflict. [video] – SeanMunger.com

    […] the rising tensions and possibility of conflict between the United States and North Korea. The video originally appeared on his blog, here. It’s well worth the 25 minutes to deep-dive into the situation; so few Americans understand […]

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  3. Mad Sociologist Avatar
    Mad Sociologist

    Absolutely. But an “appeasement frame” benefits those who advocate a “might makes right” discourse. It normalizes the rationale for militarism and nationalism. It stabilizes power/authority dynamics. So all of our “enemies” must be some variation of Hitler.

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