North Korea no threat

Published on April 7, 2009 by Gage Thompson

Attention-getting tactics should be ignored by U.S.
If you’ve consumed any news media lately, you’ve probably heard that North Korea poses an imminent threat to civilization the world over. You may have heard talk of nuclear weapons (pronounced correctly!) and really big missiles. You may have even heard something about a satellite launch. I apologize for the image I am about to place in your head, but if you remember the 2002 State of the Union address, you will recall Dubya lumping North Korea in with Iran and Iraq in his classic “Axis of Evil” speech. Shortly afterwards we defeated the Iraqi army blindfoled with one hand tied behind our back. With a butter knife. Or something like that. We then proceeded to make them the 51st state. The fact of the matter is that North Korea poses no more threat to us than the pitiful Iraqi army did.

North Korea is nothing more than the neglected stepbrother of the imminently successful South Korea, desperate for attention. Since the Korean War, the United States has invested huge amounts of money in the capitalistic country of South Korean to keep it from being overrun by dirty God-hating communists. It has worked. South Korea today is one of the shining examples of successful development and enjoys a very high standard of living. They make better cars than we do. This makes North Korea very sad.

North Korea is run by the aforementioned dirty, God-hating communists. Allow me for a moment to paint you a picture. First, imagine Mississippi, if you have ever been there. North Korea is slightly smaller than Mississippi and at least ten million times worse to live in, and that is saying something because it is an arduous experience to drive through Mississippi, much less live there. North Korea suffers from extreme poverty due to the failed economic polices of its leaders, and the people are literally starving. This isn’t the, “I haven’t eaten for four hours” starving that you hear fat Mississippians talk about, but the “I haven’t eaten in four weeks” variety.

So it is understandable why the dirty, God-hating communists might be bitter. They are sitting on one side of the border, trying to decide what they should eat next: shoe leather or the communist propaganda booklets they are likely inundated with. Spitting distance away from them is a bustling South Korean city where the people have full bellies and uneaten shoes. What is this red-headed stepchild of a country to do?

The best thing to do would be to drop their failed economic policies, but that would be entirely too easy and would involve leaders who are not idiots. Since that option is off the table, the dirty God-hating communists validate themselves in the time-honored method of rednecks everywhere: by purchasing a really big gun. Except in this case, the gun is a nuke. They want this technology so that they can menace their neighbors into their humanitarian and strategic demands.

Does anyone remember what the seismologists said about the first nuke North Korea detonated? They said it was a complete dud. Even if they do build a better bomb, how many of these things do you think they can build while their people are considering leather as a culinary choice? The answer is not many. Even in the unlikely event that they do somehow MacGyver themselves together a couple bombs, what are they going to do with them? They can only make idle threats. Sure, they could probably set one off, but then the combined might of the United States and allies comes raining down on them like the wrath of God. Then a couple weeks later our Marines skip happily as can be into Pyongyang. They know this as well as we do their military leaders aren’t insipid morons: they are just beholden to a failed ideology and a dorky looking dictator and don’t want to admit they are wrong.

To continue the analogy, this is the equivalent of the red-headed stepchild threatening to run away from home. The child has no intention of running away from home; he just thinks this is the only way he is able to get your attention. If you reward him with your attention, you only validate his strategy and allow him to manipulate you further in the future. The only solution is to let him know this isn’t the way to get your attention and to ignore him as long as he misbehaves. So it should be with North Korea.

Responses to "North Korea no threat"

  • Michael Williams made a comment on April 8, 2009:

    You’re aware that the People’s Army of North Korea has somewhere around 1.17 million troops, aren’t you? That’s not counting their 6 million or so reservists. The United States has somewhere in the ballpark of 1.4 million spread around the world.

    You try to paint North Korea as all bark and no bite. This simply isn’t true. While you have a point that it is unlikely they pose an apocalyptic threat to the continental United States, they have a long history of active conflict with their neighbors since the Korean War (most of which happen to be U.S. allies… the last time I checked, we still stood by our allies). This includes kidnapping Japanese and South Korean citizens, digging tunnels straight through bedrock under the DMZ large enough for 10 soldiers to pass through each minute, sending assassination teams to kill the South Korean President, slaughtering two American officers in the Joint Security Area of the DMZ with axes, blowing up and killing members of a South Korean delegation to Burma (including four cabinet members, 2 top advisors, and an ambassador), sending submarines to land commandos in the South, AND launching a missile directly over Japan. That’s also not to mention their history of supplying weapons to rogue nations like Libya or Syria.

    So would they launch an ICBM at the western United States? Looking at their track record, they just might. Are they far more likely to use one against their neighbors and U.S. allies? Definitely, assuming they don’t give it to any of the terrorist networks worldwide that DO have the capability to bring it here.

  • Justin Hayes made a comment on April 8, 2009:

    Gage,

    Did you really compare North Korea with rednecks in Mississippi?

    Let’s use some better analogies next time.

  • Gage Thompson made a comment on April 8, 2009:

    Michael, I’m very aware of the number of troops that North Korea has. It isn’t a matter of numbers when we could easily establish air superiority and decimate them without putting a troop on the ground. They don’t even have a blue water navy.

    As for the rest, none of what you mentioned scares me in the least. So they killed a handful of people on multiple occasions? This is what is supposed to keep me up at night? I think you may be buying a bit too much into what the sensationalist media tells you here in the US.

    North Korea is all bark and no bite as you say.

    Justin, it was obviously an attempt to be humorous or provocative and it seems to have worked judging by your reaction. Thank you for validating it.

  • Matthew Cole made a comment on April 9, 2009:

    The North Korean military has the capability to pose a serious threat to the approximately 40,000 US troops stationed along the DMZ. We should pull our troops back from the DMZ a few miles, otherwise they will be quickly decimated if the North Koreans start coming over the border and using artillery. If North Korea does invade the south, as they have threatened to do many times, there would be no way that the US could repel them using conventional warfare methods.

  • Chris made a comment on April 13, 2009:

    Matthew, in 2006 U.S. troops gave up control of the DMZ to the South Koreans. I’m not totally positive on the year but it’s between 2010-2012 that all U.S. troops will be stationed south of Seoul, giving the South Koreans total control over operations should North Korea attack. The U.S. will be used in a support role. The History Channel did an excellent documentary called Running the DMZ where it offers a lot of insight over the strained relations between North and South Korea. I recommend watching it.

Leave a Reply

THE SENTINEL encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. THE SENTINEL also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.

Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.

Users accept the Vistor Agreement.

KSU Student Media staff accept the KSU Media Staff Agreement & Ethics Form.

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.

If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to the Editor in Chief at eic@ksusentinel.com.

Use your Facebook login or enter in your information below: