Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? NO, It’s an intercontinental ballistic missile!

North Korea is doing new missile tests with rockets that are believed to have enough range to hit anywhere on the globe. They might not be as accurate as western counterparts, but if they ever launch a nuclear strike, it won’t matter much, if they miss by a few kilometers. World is upset, we’re getting emergency Security Council meetings and Japan is pretty nervous.
What’s the main difference between North Korea having nuclear weapons and USA having nuclear weapons? USA is a bigger global terrorist than North Korea ever has the potential to be, true. Main difference, however, is that you can trust the US president to play by the rules. He has to get reelected and if your people are vaporized by other nukes if you start shooting your nukes, then those people cannot reelect you. Nuclear weapons and mutual assured destruction is essentially a good thing in modern world, where we all play by the rules and we all know we will all die if we break those rules.
There’s a difference, though, when new players enter the field and they have no intention of playing by the rules. They don’t care about their own population, and they have a pretty good nuclear bunker for themselves. In such a scenario, there’s trouble.
It is ironic that the same weapon that can keep the world safe is suddenly causing so much trouble in world politics. Something that was in the domain of the big guys to set the rules with is now becoming available to the little guy, like Iran or North Korea. Sure, they might not have working nukes and delivery systems yet, but they’re getting there. When the nuke monopoly is broken we will cease to have any effective form of world government, which we now, on some basic level, have. Any chance we could get the new WTO treaty signed before the little guys get really pissed off by the continued opression?

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

First, Taepodong 2 maybe, maybe can hit Seattle. Maybe. Nobody knows. So not much of a potential to erase entire US there.

Second, why would Korea launch a nuclear attack anyway? I can guaranty you, even if I have never been to a nuclear bunker, that that is no fun place to be in.

Third, US is the only country that used nuclear weapons in war and is beside N. Korea the only country that in these times threatend to use on: case of Irans nuclear instalations. But that is just tough talk.

3:01 PM  
Blogger Sergej said...

I know that. That doesn't change the fact that it scares me, because the threat of killing them all back simply doesn't work this time.

4:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The reason why the USA is allowed to maintain a nuclear arsenal and the Democratic Rep. of Korea isn't, is set out very clearly in the non-proliferation treaty - because the USA is big and powerful. Maybe it sounds unfair, but you have pointed it out right - the existence of nuclear weapons has probably contributed more to world peace than we can imagine. The only thing where I disagree with you is the existence of 'rules', or rather the obeying thereof - that this where the two regimes are different - face it, there are no rules. No rules for the big five.
And much of the problem lies in the fact that DR Korea has a powerful friend among those.

On a semi-separate note, I think Slovenia should start its own nuclear programme. It would scare the hell out of Croatians, piss of the Austrians to the point of insanity (well, many of them are there already), but I assure you that in a matter of seconds, the border would be moved down to Kvarner, there would be a bilingual Dunaj/Wien sign (in THAT order) and all Lipizzaner horses would have the Slovenian coat of arms tattoed on their forehead.

Oh...

8:32 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Back to my rational side, I forgot to check out your own comment.
You're right, the Leader [sic] simply doesn't give a f**k about his people. Which reminds me of the nineties when the West imposed sanctions on Iraq and Saddam simply ignored the suffering of his people.

8:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Simon, I demand you call him by his proper name. 'Dear leader' that is :)

Anyway, North Koreans are as rational about this as anybody else. Faced ba possible total anihilation they'll never launch a nuclear attack first. But they will respond to one.

1:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Peace would be good.

8:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Superman !!

2:53 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home