To me this makes sense. You raise issues here concerning the value of democracy that don’t get discussed.
This is another example of Trump disrespecting another ally because he’s unable to find any value in the alliance. Trump is poorly informed either by choice or not. The war with Iran is a case in point.
Online comments seems to invite contrarian views, so I apologize that my post today is challenging, whereas I usually agree and don't comment at all. Here goes the challenge: I don't see a point to this article. Of course democracy is important. But North Korea does not pose an existential threat to South Korea's democracy in anything but words. The moral argument is therefore moot as presented. The transactional impact on strategic alliances touches superficially on something interesting, but no more. What could make this article more interesting for learners is extrapolating real consequences of this latest action. Or a more macro-view of alliances and threats to world order and democracy, especially as it concerns morality.
Ii don't understand; how is it not an existential threat? DPRK's long range artillery just north of the DMZ, aimed at Seoul (population just under 10 million, ~20% of the total population of the ROK), capable of killing a quarter million people in under an hour, is an existential threat to South Korea's existence, period. That's even without the nukes. Sure, their military may be inferior in every conventional sense, but they have terror as their strategy. The list of aggressive moves and attacks is too long to list. Every generation of the Kim dynasty has longed to reunite the entire peninsula under their cruel rule, at a massive cost to lives (not to mention bye-bye South Korean manufacturing and tech). The joint exercises deter that kind of madness. (Sorry for this garbled comment.)
I don't agree that joint exercises deter anything. South Korea can demolish NK with or without the US. If NK attacks, it's a lose-scenario in all cases for them, so there is no rationality behind such an attack. Which is exactly my point - an irrational attack won't be deterred by joint exercises. Joint exercises have a null effect on the protection of South Korean democracy facing NK threat, so this article needs more meat to be an interesting discussion around protecting democracy. We don’t have a moral imperative to posture when our posturing is irrelevant, and the article fails to explain why it’s necessary. Perhaps it could discuss China and the region, for example.
Militaries exercise for the same reason anyone exercises. To keep “healthy”, monitor and correct any weaknesses, and so when required they can react with strength, balance, speed, power, and endurance.
The lengths of some to sane-wash Trump’s idiotic rants is staggering.
Der Irrtum in der Annahme (und der ist zentral) ist, dass sich Menschen wie Puzin, Trump und KJU “rational” in unserem Sinne verhalten. Ihre Analyse basiert also auf falschen Annahmen. Ausserdem geht es überhaupt nicht um ein gemeinsames Seemanöver…sie haben grundlegende Zusammenhänge nicht verstanden.
Your analysis gets its founding idea of no existential threat wrong. They are a highly militarized and desperate society formed after a failed invasion, propped up by a superpower that also doesn't respect borders, with a hot border splitting them from land that used to be the same country as them with the same language.
South Korea isn't nearly as militarized. Their population is not keen on aggression and would dissent highly at unprovoked brutality at either a personal or large scale level.
North Korea has a long history of kidnapping and killing South Koreans. In 2010 it attacked and sunk a South Korean navy vessel, killing 46 sailors. They attempted to assassinate South Korea’s president in the Blue House (South Korea’s White House). It regularly fires ballistic missiles to demonstrate its ability to attack surrounding countries. North Korea declared war on the South in 1950 and has never ended its war. Maybe you need to rethink whether North Korea poses an existential threat to the South’s democracy.
You’re talking about the country that nearly succeeded in assassinating the South Korean president and various members of his government while on an official visit to Rangoon in 1983.
If anything North Korea, under the same ruling family,has grown more extreme, volatile and paranoid in the intervening years.
Over 36000 American soldiers died throwing back the North’s invasion of the South between 1950-53 under UN auspices. The lesson of the two world wars is that borders cannot be changed through violence and war. Once that iron rule is broken and allowed to stand, all hell will break loose again.
The callousness exhibited by the present govt. towards our democratic allies is a betrayal of the principles embraced by freedom loving people around the world. What is so hard to understand about that? There are some very dark forces at play. Gramsci said it best.
Let’s ignore the nuclear weapons. DPRK has enough artillery systems and MRLS to pulverize anything along the DMZ. Seoul is likely to be turned into a parking lot. The DPRK has made its singular goal the reunification of the peninsula.
How does this person dress himself in the mornings?
When the White House ordered the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, they blamed burden-sharing and the Persian Gulf. That’s a convenient political smokescreen. The structural truth? North Korea just crossed the final technological threshold to hit any American city—and the U.S. is mathematically powerless to stop a full barrage. Read the full brief: https://triggledger.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-blinking-at-kim?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8gc1qf
Miniaturization. Intercontinental delivery. The U.S. didn't pivot toward diplomatic goodwill with Pyongyang by choice—the pivot happened because active containment is now physically impossible. The genie is completely out of the bottle. Why Washington is quietly defaulting to de facto recognition of Kim's nuclear arsenal: https://triggledger.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-blinking-at-kim?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8gc1qf
Based on the “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” political rhetoric maxim, perhaps the better rhetorical position is: “why is our traitor in chief appeasing a vile, crazy dictatorship that murdered 5,000 American POWs, starved millions of its own people to death, and forces North Koreans to believe its founding murderous dictator never pooped?”
Who could have predicted that the ill fated war on terror started by Bush would have that far flung effects? I get that Americans have grown tired of those forever wars and their accompaniening military spending. Money that could have ben spend on infastructure, education, healthcare and social services has gone to waste. However questioning the support of allies who are also unwilling to fund another senseless war in the middle east won't make sure that it's spend more wisely. If you really want to save some money, how about you end the forever war most have even forgoten exists, the war on drugs? Not only is it widely considered a policy failure, that has wasted billions with nothing to show for exept human rights violations on all sides, it has also set back scientific research on psychedelics decades. Drugs that were considered helpful in therapy were demonized for turning insane, when in reality the risk profile of those drugs being the lowest of all known substances that effect the body and mind. This forced many scientist to shelf their research until quite recently.
It might be that the only way to survive until January 2029, for countries that can't unilaterally stand up to the US, will be to enrich Trump personally.
It is incredibly Sad! but with this President, we can forget about any traditionally Washingtonian principles other than always looking out for number one. (This is also true of literally everybody - an unselfish person is a contradiction in terms - but leaders also need to take to heart the interests of those they lead. That kind of thing is how you earn the privilege of leadership in the first place.)
To me this makes sense. You raise issues here concerning the value of democracy that don’t get discussed.
This is another example of Trump disrespecting another ally because he’s unable to find any value in the alliance. Trump is poorly informed either by choice or not. The war with Iran is a case in point.
Voltaire memorably said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, Roman, nor an Empire.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is an autocratic family monarchy.
Online comments seems to invite contrarian views, so I apologize that my post today is challenging, whereas I usually agree and don't comment at all. Here goes the challenge: I don't see a point to this article. Of course democracy is important. But North Korea does not pose an existential threat to South Korea's democracy in anything but words. The moral argument is therefore moot as presented. The transactional impact on strategic alliances touches superficially on something interesting, but no more. What could make this article more interesting for learners is extrapolating real consequences of this latest action. Or a more macro-view of alliances and threats to world order and democracy, especially as it concerns morality.
Ii don't understand; how is it not an existential threat? DPRK's long range artillery just north of the DMZ, aimed at Seoul (population just under 10 million, ~20% of the total population of the ROK), capable of killing a quarter million people in under an hour, is an existential threat to South Korea's existence, period. That's even without the nukes. Sure, their military may be inferior in every conventional sense, but they have terror as their strategy. The list of aggressive moves and attacks is too long to list. Every generation of the Kim dynasty has longed to reunite the entire peninsula under their cruel rule, at a massive cost to lives (not to mention bye-bye South Korean manufacturing and tech). The joint exercises deter that kind of madness. (Sorry for this garbled comment.)
I don't agree that joint exercises deter anything. South Korea can demolish NK with or without the US. If NK attacks, it's a lose-scenario in all cases for them, so there is no rationality behind such an attack. Which is exactly my point - an irrational attack won't be deterred by joint exercises. Joint exercises have a null effect on the protection of South Korean democracy facing NK threat, so this article needs more meat to be an interesting discussion around protecting democracy. We don’t have a moral imperative to posture when our posturing is irrelevant, and the article fails to explain why it’s necessary. Perhaps it could discuss China and the region, for example.
so, defending democracy is morally irrelevant?
Militaries exercise for the same reason anyone exercises. To keep “healthy”, monitor and correct any weaknesses, and so when required they can react with strength, balance, speed, power, and endurance.
The lengths of some to sane-wash Trump’s idiotic rants is staggering.
Der Irrtum in der Annahme (und der ist zentral) ist, dass sich Menschen wie Puzin, Trump und KJU “rational” in unserem Sinne verhalten. Ihre Analyse basiert also auf falschen Annahmen. Ausserdem geht es überhaupt nicht um ein gemeinsames Seemanöver…sie haben grundlegende Zusammenhänge nicht verstanden.
North Korea and morality. Do you work for Elon?
Your analysis gets its founding idea of no existential threat wrong. They are a highly militarized and desperate society formed after a failed invasion, propped up by a superpower that also doesn't respect borders, with a hot border splitting them from land that used to be the same country as them with the same language.
South Korea isn't nearly as militarized. Their population is not keen on aggression and would dissent highly at unprovoked brutality at either a personal or large scale level.
The threat is real.
What, no dressing with the word salad?
North Korea has a long history of kidnapping and killing South Koreans. In 2010 it attacked and sunk a South Korean navy vessel, killing 46 sailors. They attempted to assassinate South Korea’s president in the Blue House (South Korea’s White House). It regularly fires ballistic missiles to demonstrate its ability to attack surrounding countries. North Korea declared war on the South in 1950 and has never ended its war. Maybe you need to rethink whether North Korea poses an existential threat to the South’s democracy.
You’re talking about the country that nearly succeeded in assassinating the South Korean president and various members of his government while on an official visit to Rangoon in 1983.
If anything North Korea, under the same ruling family,has grown more extreme, volatile and paranoid in the intervening years.
Over 36000 American soldiers died throwing back the North’s invasion of the South between 1950-53 under UN auspices. The lesson of the two world wars is that borders cannot be changed through violence and war. Once that iron rule is broken and allowed to stand, all hell will break loose again.
The callousness exhibited by the present govt. towards our democratic allies is a betrayal of the principles embraced by freedom loving people around the world. What is so hard to understand about that? There are some very dark forces at play. Gramsci said it best.
McCarthyism in the streets, Pyongyang in the sheets. Go figure.
Let’s ignore the nuclear weapons. DPRK has enough artillery systems and MRLS to pulverize anything along the DMZ. Seoul is likely to be turned into a parking lot. The DPRK has made its singular goal the reunification of the peninsula.
How does this person dress himself in the mornings?
When the White House ordered the Pentagon to reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, they blamed burden-sharing and the Persian Gulf. That’s a convenient political smokescreen. The structural truth? North Korea just crossed the final technological threshold to hit any American city—and the U.S. is mathematically powerless to stop a full barrage. Read the full brief: https://triggledger.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-blinking-at-kim?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8gc1qf
Miniaturization. Intercontinental delivery. The U.S. didn't pivot toward diplomatic goodwill with Pyongyang by choice—the pivot happened because active containment is now physically impossible. The genie is completely out of the bottle. Why Washington is quietly defaulting to de facto recognition of Kim's nuclear arsenal: https://triggledger.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-blinking-at-kim?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=8gc1qf
Based on the “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” political rhetoric maxim, perhaps the better rhetorical position is: “why is our traitor in chief appeasing a vile, crazy dictatorship that murdered 5,000 American POWs, starved millions of its own people to death, and forces North Koreans to believe its founding murderous dictator never pooped?”
Who could have predicted that the ill fated war on terror started by Bush would have that far flung effects? I get that Americans have grown tired of those forever wars and their accompaniening military spending. Money that could have ben spend on infastructure, education, healthcare and social services has gone to waste. However questioning the support of allies who are also unwilling to fund another senseless war in the middle east won't make sure that it's spend more wisely. If you really want to save some money, how about you end the forever war most have even forgoten exists, the war on drugs? Not only is it widely considered a policy failure, that has wasted billions with nothing to show for exept human rights violations on all sides, it has also set back scientific research on psychedelics decades. Drugs that were considered helpful in therapy were demonized for turning insane, when in reality the risk profile of those drugs being the lowest of all known substances that effect the body and mind. This forced many scientist to shelf their research until quite recently.
It might be that the only way to survive until January 2029, for countries that can't unilaterally stand up to the US, will be to enrich Trump personally.
It is incredibly Sad! but with this President, we can forget about any traditionally Washingtonian principles other than always looking out for number one. (This is also true of literally everybody - an unselfish person is a contradiction in terms - but leaders also need to take to heart the interests of those they lead. That kind of thing is how you earn the privilege of leadership in the first place.)