14-02-2003 00:07									#31
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Japan cetrainly can't invade Korea, but I'd be willing to wager that their navy and air force could inflict some nice damage, and short of lobbing missiles towards Japan, NK could do little to retaliate.

	14-02-2003 01:07									#32
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Exactly, Kontiki. I don't know why everyone's talking about Japan's army and amphibious capability; any pre-emptive strike on North Korea is likely to be air power only. Ground forces aren't much use in preventing the launch of a nuclear-tipped missile...

	14-02-2003 02:53									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Kontiki Japan cetrainly can't invade Korea, but I'd be willing to wager that their navy and air force could inflict some nice damage, and short of lobbing missiles towards Japan, NK could do little to retaliate.

Of course South Korea might be a little pissed since NK has ~100 million artilary pieces trained on Seoul. Not much anyone can do about that, except evacuate and rebuild the entire city in a year or two. SK's new government takes office at the end of next week, iirc. Lets see if this gets resolved then, NKs threat pattern has followed election timing before...

	14-02-2003 02:54									#34
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Yes, the rebirth of the Japanese Empire! They learned well from their American conquerers.

	14-02-2003 02:59									#35
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Japan actually has a pretty good military, IIRC they are second to the USA in defense spending. The Japanese Navy would be enough to stop an invasion of the Japanese Mainland. I doubt Japan would launch a ground invasion of NK. Japan would be able to establish air superiority over NK, but could still suffer extreme damage from NK missles.

	14-02-2003 07:29									#36
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NK has two nukes. I bet one is pointed at Tokyo and the other at LA or SF.

If NK is going to do anything, it will be after the US is engaged in the Gulf and cannot respond effectively in Korea. They may launch an attack south and tell the US and Japan to stay out of the conflict "or else."

I don't know exactly what the US will do. However, I suspect the Japanese will insist that we take out the NK nukes or else they will do it for us.

As Vel said, the conjunction of events is becoming too much - too much to be a coincidence IMO.

	14-02-2003 07:32									#37
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Ned,

They aren't going to nuke us, relax.

	14-02-2003 07:48									#38
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quote: Originally posted by DuncanK Ned, They aren't going to nuke us, relax.

I don't have a clue as to why you would say that. Why in the world would they develop nukes and long range missles unless they intended to use them under certain circumstances.

	14-02-2003 07:59									#39
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Sava -

quote: Yes, the rebirth of the Japanese Empire! They learned well from their American conquerers.

Since it would be a "rebirth", then they didn't learn it from us. They did learn to build cars though. But what in the hell are you talking about? Since when does self-defense qualify as empire building?

	14-02-2003 08:07									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Ned I don't have a clue as to why you would say that. Why in the world would they develop nukes and long range missles unless they intended to use them under certain circumstances.

For bargaining and defense.

	14-02-2003 08:09									#41
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it was a troll berserker, don't get sand in your vagina now...

	14-02-2003 08:13									#42
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The problem here is hunger, pure and simple. Since N. Korea spends most of his money on arms, he cannot feed his people and they are starving big time. He want us to feed them while he buys more weapons. It is backmail, feed me or else.

	14-02-2003 08:41									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Ned If NK is going to do anything, it will be after the US is engaged in the Gulf and cannot respond effectively in Korea. They may launch an attack south and tell the US and Japan to stay out of the conflict "or else." I don't know exactly what the US will do. However, I suspect the Japanese will insist that we take out the NK nukes or else they will do it for us. As Vel said, the conjunction of events is becoming too much - too much to be a coincidence IMO.

straight out of your ass.

Have any more fairy tales for us, Neddy?

	14-02-2003 09:10									#44
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider This is the only time that I can think of post-WW II that Japan has threatened the use of military force. I'm sure China, as well as the rest of Asia, wouldn't react very well to Japanese forces in Korea.

The Japanese self-defense force is still restricted to operating within Japanese waters IIRC. There was a bit of a push from the US during the Gulf war to remove that part of the Japanese constitution (rather ironic given that the US military govt in post WW2 Japan was instrumental in writing it in to the new constitution in the first place) but it didn't really amount to anything.
Even if Japan does deem the NK threat as sufficiently grave to warrant such a removal, it will still take a fair while to accomplish.
Plenty of time for the PRC to try and solve this peacably before any Japanese-RoK action ... if the PRC has any intention of doing anything in the first place...

	14-02-2003 09:32									#45
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quote: Originally posted by Lonestar Hmmmm...How would Japan attack North Korea? With it's one LST?

Who needs weaponry when you've got Gamera and Godzilla?

Japan does spend 40 billion on defense, so they probably have some useful odds and ends to defend with.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications...ok/geos/ja.html

	14-02-2003 09:37									#46
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Political suicide for Shigeru Ishiba. Nobody in the region has forgotten the Japanese invasion and occupation. Speaking of an attack before Japan formally apologise for its atrocities is first degree idiocy.


Drake Tungsten,

"I suppose this makes Japan a bunch of "warmongers". God knows that pre-emptive action against dangerous tyrants is inexcusable..."

Interesing enough, the only dangerous tyrant is the US.


Felch X,

How was the invasion of Afghanistan legitimised?

	14-02-2003 09:38									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Joseph The problem here is hunger, pure and simple. Since N. Korea spends most of his money on arms, he cannot feed his people and they are starving big time. He want us to feed them while he buys more weapons. It is backmail, feed me or else.

Is Uncle Sam feeding you?

	14-02-2003 09:39									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Sava it was a troll berserker, don't get sand in your vagina now...

Sava,

Did you say libertarians are robots last night? And if so, is it true that they have vaginas?

	14-02-2003 09:55									#49
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What? Is there some sort of other Sava in the Bizarro world?

	14-02-2003 10:02									#50
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If Japan had intelligence of an impending NK missile attack, then it has all the legtimacy of international law on its side if it decided to launch a pre-emptive series of air attacks. What Japan would have then (and the US lacks utterly now vis a vi Iraq) is something called 'imminent threat', not 'imagined threat', 'possible threat', 'perhaps sometime unknown threat'.

	14-02-2003 10:06									#51
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quote: Originally posted by GePap If Japan had intelligence of an impending NK missile attack, then it has all the legtimacy of international law on its side if it decided to launch a pre-emptive series of air attacks.

What if the intelligence is wrong?

	14-02-2003 10:08									#52
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Ned:

quote: As Vel said, the conjunction of events is becoming too much - too much to be a coincidence IMO.

What do you mean by this, exactly?

	14-02-2003 10:10									#53
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Tough luck for the NK. International law does not demand 100% accuracy, anymore then one demands 100% accuracy from a policeman who seriously thinks a suspect had a gun and was threatening them but turns out to be wrong. Again, it is an issue of imminency (is that a word?). If you have solid evidence that a missile launch is 3 days away, no state (besides the one bombed and its closest buddies, if ti ahs any) will complain, once you show everyone what you had.

	14-02-2003 10:17									#54
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Tough luck for the NK. International law does not demand 100% accuracy, anymore then one demands 100% accuracy from a policeman who seriously thinks a suspect had a gun and was threatening them but turns out to be wrong.

So, the PRC can launch nuclear missiles at India, citing having intelligence that India will launch a nuclear attack?

Now let me see how much fun we can have with that.

	14-02-2003 10:19									#55
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Urban Ranger

GePap - No one announces ahead of time that there will be a nuclear strike against another nation in 3 days. What kind of bullshit is that?

	14-02-2003 10:20									#56
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I'm sure China is going beserk over this internally. The balance of power in the whole area would dramatically shift if NK possessed nuclear weapons. Who knows what Kim will do with them?! Sure now he may only want food, money and oil, but how long can we appease him? If he has a nuclear weapon he'll demand terrority and what do we do then? I believe he is capable of ordering a preemptive nuclear strike on South Korea, Japan or even the US West Coast. Negotiations with war-mongers aren't exactly the high point of the 20th century.

Saddam is really the least of our worries right now, he won't do anything stupid with the whole international community watching him. Give the inspectors more time, war is probably unavoidable in that region but the US might as well wait until the Euros are on board.

	14-02-2003 10:29									#57
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quote: Originally posted by cinch Ned: What do you mean by this, exactly?

I think NK is going to do whatever it can to push the crisis to it limits while the US in involved in Iraq. They are going to test their missiles and build as many nukes as they can. They will continue to threaten to invade the South and may actually do so if either the US or Japan reacts by making an attack on NK's nuke facilities. They may have calculated that they can win a short war if the US does not have time to reinforce its troops on the ground. This means they have a short window of opportunity to actually win while the US is tied up in Iraq.

	14-02-2003 11:58									#58
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger So, the PRC can launch nuclear missiles at India, citing having intelligence that India will launch a nuclear attack? Now let me see how much fun we can have with that.

UR and orange:

The issue is not one of "just citing evidence". Sometimes you guys can go overboard. If the chinese had spy pictures showing Indian missiles being moved into position, got their hands on some Indian document saying: "we will nuke China in 4 days" then China has the right to pre-empt. The burden of proof is very high, but it is not absolute. The notion of pre-emption does exist and it is valid, but only againt an imminent threat that you can prove with immense amounts of evidence of some type.

Stop being nuns and holier than God here. If a state can show serious and credible evidence of an imminent threat, pre-emption is allowed under international law. I certainly agree with you two tht no evidence whatsoever exists of sucha threat from NK or Iraq today to anyone.

	14-02-2003 12:12									#59
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GePap:

Now, now. You know that the only way a nation can *properly* counterattack an enemy is only *after* it's had a Pearl Harbor done to it. Never mind that any Pearl Harbors conducted nowadays might not necessarily be done with conventional weaponry ...

Gatekeeper

	14-02-2003 13:04									#60
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quote: Originally posted by GePap The issue is not one of "just citing evidence". Sometimes you guys can go overboard. If the chinese had spy pictures showing Indian missiles being moved into position, got their hands on some Indian document saying: "we will nuke China in 4 days" then China has the right to pre-empt. The burden of proof is very high, but it is not absolute. The notion of pre-emption does exist and it is valid, but only againt an imminent threat that you can prove with immense amounts of evidence of some type.

But what counts as "immense amounts of evidence?"

Indian missiles being moved into position? I believe they are already in position. Like they have missiles pointing at Pakistan, that Russia has ICBMs pointing at the US and the US has ICBMs pointing at almost everybody.

quote: Originally posted by GePap If a state can show serious and credible evidence of an imminent threat, pre-emption is allowed under international law.

Cite?