North Korea Cancels Peace Agreement With South (cancelling 'hotline')

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

North Korea is cancelling a hotline and a nonaggression pact with South Korea and reiterating past threats in anger over a U.N. Security Council vote to impose more sanctions on the North for its third nuclear test.

The statement the North issued Friday comes after the council leveled tough, new sanctions targeting the North's economy and leadership. North Korea already has threatened of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.

North Korea says it will retaliate with "crushing strikes" if enemies intrude into its territory. It also says it is voiding past nuclear disarmament statements between North and South Korea.

It previously said it was canceling a hotline with the United States and the armistice that closed the Korean War in 1953

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/07/north-korea-cancels-peace-deal.html

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. From the article.

The vote Thursday by the UN's most powerful body on a resolution drafted by North Korea's closest ally, China, and the United States sends a powerful message to North Korea that the international community condemns its ballistic missile and nuclear tests — and its repeated violation of Security Council resolutions.

I wouldn't have expected China to do that.

[Demeter]

3. The Bicentennial Man!

Never underestimate the petulance of a closed mind. And North Korea has been run by a closed mind for generations....

And it's also been roundly abused by the world, but that's another issue, which N. Korea never raised...

[SkyDaddy7]

22. How has North Korea been abused by the world?

Please tell.

[SCVDem]

7. Who knows which way the wind blows?

It blows toward thee!

You don't think we would nuke Korea with the wind blowing any direction but toward China, do ya?

[Gore1FL]

8. China doesn't like the consequences of a nuclear N. Korea to begin with.

It especially doesn't like the consequences of a chaotic Nuclear N. Korea. (a nuclear Japan being one of these.)

[DRoseDARs]

2. OK, China, North Korea is YOUR toddler. You need to put them down for their nap now. nt

[davidpdx]

19. The North Korean Government needs to be put down, permanently

The world shouldn't have to put up with their shit anymore. China went along with the resolution, but I'm skeptical about them doing anything else.

[pampango]

23. If NK were to invade SK again, should we be satisified with 'saving SK' but leaving the NK regime

as is or saving SK but somehow removing the NK regime (that's ambiguous, I know) with NK still a separate state or take the opportunity to reunite the peninsula under one government. (This all assumes for the sake of argument that NK was not successful in conquering SK by means of such an invasion.)

They all have drawbacks. Leaving the NK regime intact just 'pushes the can down the road' in some sense; removing the current NK regime but keeping the country intact might be acceptable to China but how do you do it; reunifying the peninsula would require China's agreement which seems unlikely.

Leaving the Kim family dictatorship intact seems to be the best option to me - as unappealing as it is. Even if NK were to be defeated militarily, Kim could always nuke Seoul or Tokyo (if his missiles can reach that far) even if they cannot reach the US now. (This kind of proves that nuclear weapons are a dictator's best friend.)

[Lurks Often]

24. That is one of the problems

No one wants North Korea.

South Korea doesn't want it because it inherits a population of which the vast majority will be incapable of working at anything but the most basic work and it will wreck the South Korean economy for years to come fixing the problems that exist in North Korea.

China doesn't want to see a united Korea under South Korean rule on it's border, but doesn't want North Korea for itself for the same reasons listed above.

Any war will be short, violent and lead to North Korea being defeated. Of course this presumes that neither China or Russia is stupid enough to get actively involved in the shooting.

[davidpdx]

27. South Koreans aren't anxious to reunite that is true

Any kind of a reunion would have to be a very gradual one over the course of a decade. The question of what would happen in terms of the US military would be an issue. Japan and China are well armed and both have invaded Korea in the past. The lingering disputes over the different islands (between all three countries) doesn't help either.

[davidpdx]

26. Hypothetically I believe the answer would be

(whether the North attacked or collapsed) that Kim and the military would have to be taken out because they couldn't be controlled nor trusted. Some sort of alternative leadership would have to be put in place. The two countries would have to remain separate for quite a long time (we are talking a decade at a very minimum due to cost issues). The UN would have to send in peacekeepers (I read that an assessment that I believe stated 750,000 would be needed, but I can't remember where). A public project works program would have to be developed to start to repair the infrastructure in the country which would create jobs (much like it did in the 60s in South Korea), but the money would have to come from donations and alternative financing. Any nuclear material would need to be collected and if possible removed from the country. Restarting their farming industry would be a high priority to give them some way to at least partially self-sustain themselves. Rice would probably be donated by South Korea.

Now all this assumes things take place in a fairly peaceful way. It will probably be much messier than this. My understanding is the US has a contingency plan in place for the fall of North Korea.

[olddad56]

4. I would not take these threats lightly.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. "I would not take these threats lightly."

I would.

In international circles North Korea is taken about as seriously as Donald Trump but with no money.

[SpartanDem]

10. NK threatens us every other week

[riderinthestorm]

5. Ugh. Apparently the Little Un is even more delusional than his dad. This does not bode well.

Alas.

[bluedigger]

9. Everything was going just fine until we sent the Worm over there.

[DRoseDARs]

12. Erm, no. Rodman was a bizarre sideshow from out of nowhere, but this escalation has been long. nt

[bluedigger]

13. Either your snark detector needs recalibrating or I need better material.

Your call.

[DRoseDARs]

14. Head-to-wall smiley threw me off.

[bluedigger]

15. Hah! My false flag operation worked!

I love it when a plan comes together.

[Nye Bevan]

11. I hope it is made absolutely clear to them that if they nuke the US,

Pyongyang will be gone. And I mean gone. I would bet that our nukes are better than theirs.

[Selatius]

16. We don't need to tell them. The Russians and Chinese already told them first hand.

During the Cold War, it's hard to imagine Russia or China not sharing information on the capabilities of American nuclear warheads with Pyongyang.

Their nukes bare more resemblance to the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 15 to 25 kilotons.

Still, even their biggest tests have not breached the 10 kiloton threshold. They're newbies in atomic weapons design.

However, even a 7 kiloton device would kill tens of thousands in one hit if dropped on an urban area, such as South Korea's capital, and that should still be taken into consideration whenever confronting the DPRK.

On the other hand, their threats to hit the United States are laughable. They lack the missiles capable of going that far, and even if they currently did, their accuracy at that range is unproven, and it's likely their primitive atomic weapons designs are still too heavy for their missiles.

[davidpdx]

20. The problem is they still need a method of delivery of a bomb

and their technology is shotty even at a short range. I don't think a nuke is a big threat for South Korea. Artillery would still be the bigger threat. Even then they would be bombed back to the stone age with in minutes of launching an artillery strike. I think I read in another article that simulations of a war started by North Korea would end within 24 hours and the US occupying North Korea.

My FIL is from a village outside Kaesong and still has relatives up there (who we have no idea).

[One_Life_To_Give]

25. Bombing them back to the Stone Age doesn't mean much

when they never left the Stone Age.

Reminds me of Carpet bombing Hanoi and threats we made at that time.

[SCVDem]

17. Iron Dome?

Doesn't Seoul have one of those?

[Posteritatis]

18. The thing's hardly omnipotent

A few mortar rounds or rockets is one thing; thousands of artillery pieces is another.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

28. I have always wondered how ID would work against MIRVs.

[davidpdx]

21. You can't cancel something that is still in effect

They are a bunch of idiots.

[slackmaster]

29. They didn't really cancel it. The phone company shut it down because NK was three months behind...

...on its bill.