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The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) has set the Doomsday Clock to "two minutes to midnight" to reflect fears of a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, as well as the failure of world leaders to address climate change and other factors. The clock is now set as close to doomsday as it was in 1953:
The team of scientists singled out a series of nuclear tests by North Korea. They dramatically escalated tensions on the Korean peninsula and led to a war of words between North Korea and the US.
The BAS also referred to a new US nuclear strategy that was expected to call for more funding to expand the role of the country's nuclear arsenal. Rising tension between Russia and the West was also a contributing factor.
The "weakening of institutions" around the world in dealing with major global threats - including climate change - was another major concern, the scientists said. They also mentioned US President Donald Trump's "unpredictability", pointing to his often controversial tweets and statements.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:47PM (6 children)
North Korea is so focused on South Korea and fancy weapons.
What if an invasion comes from the other direction? China has a really fucking huge gigantic army.
Suppose the Chinese surprise the world. It starts with bombs over Pyongyang and machine guns at the border. With the border guards lying dead under splintered tree fragments, tanks and artillery are brought over the border river. Then the army just moves south. People who surrender are swiftly taken to prisons all over China, or to prison camps out in western China. The army just keeps going. Once the army reaches South Korea, the country of North Korea is gone. The official statement of the Chinese government is essentially "no comment". North Korean stuff gets sold to Chinese people who agree to live in what was North Korea. The captured North Koreans are never seen again.
China has done similar stuff before. They grabbed Tibet. They just recently grabbed a chunk of Bhutan, which brought the Indian army into the conflict RIGHT NOW and that is a nuclear-armed foe. Don't put it past China to do some serious shit.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday January 26 2018, @10:00PM (1 child)
Why would they do that? The entire POINT of NK is that they have a land buffer between themselves and a US-allied nation, that being South Korea.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:12AM
Decades ago, back when Mao was running things and the Chinese were starving, a buffer was really useful. It kept Chinese people from leaving. Remember that back then, normal Chinese people were not permitted to leave the country.
These days, China is busy trading with South Korea. Rail links would be nice.
Also, the land itself is nice. China could just take it.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:15AM (3 children)
Then Lil' Kim will just send a nuke to Beijing first of all, and then to as many other places as he can. It's only 809 km from Pyongyang to Beijing, pretty much in range of most of their missiles. I'm pretty sure that Xi Jinping knows this, that if Kim Jong-un and the DPRK leadership decide they have nothing to lose, no matter who puts them into that situation, they would turn several major cities, possibly some as far as the west coast of the United States depending on how effective their missiles really are, into radioactive mushroom clouds.
The major difference between the DPRK and India is that the Indians are rational, and understand very well that they also have a lot to lose if they get into a nuclear war with China. They'll negotiate first before even thinking of pushing the button or making threats in that vein. It is no small thing in international diplomacy to say something to the effect of: "Our words are backed with NUCLEAR WEAPONS!" North Korea on the other hand has already got very little to lose, and their rationality has always been something highly open to question. With a Chinese army marching through their country from the north they will then really have nothing left to lose, and then they'll just decide to push that button.
There is no simple solution to North Korea that does not involve millions of civilian casualties and a high probability of nuclear war.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @03:20AM (2 children)
Launch preparations take days. Launch sites are known and can be bombed. The aiming sucks. Both the rockets and the nukes tend to fail, and they have never been tested together.
Kim isn't crazy or dumb. He's trapped, possibly enjoying life although under stress, and unable to find a reasonable way out. He might prefer to be a wealthy retired person in South Korea, but he has no way to get there. He will negotiate for the best deal he thinks he can get.
Want to avoid nuclear war? Hurry up and fight, before Kim gets his weapons into respectable condition.
For serious nuke danger, you need somebody who thinks he will go to heaven and get 72 virgins if he kills a bunch of infidels.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:20AM
The Cuban Missile Crisis is an instructive parallel. If Kennedy had invaded Cuba as he was being pressured to do by the Joint Chiefs, they would have been in for a nasty surprise, as subsequent information [armscontrol.org] that came to light after the collapse of the Soviet Union showed. The nukes were already in Cuba even before the quarantine line was established and if the US had bombed and invaded, they would have certainly been met by nuclear fire. Perhaps in the future after the DPRK is somehow no more, it will come out that their nuclear missile capability was nowhere near what it was thought to be, or it might come out that just as in Cuba, they had more effective weapons than estimated. Do you really want to find out the truth of the matter hard way, the way we very nearly did in 1962?
The other thing is, whether their nukes work or not, the DPRK will order its artillery batteries at the border to bombard Seoul, which would kill many millions of South Korean citizens. The blame for this happening is definitely going to fall on the asshat who tried to invade them.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @02:28AM
So you're basically going to try to call North Korea's nuclear gambit a bluff, and on the table is every city in range of the nukes your intelligence doesn't know about. The last time there was a nuclear poker game like this was in 1962, and if back then Kennedy had tried to call a bluff on Khrushchev and Castro and tried to invade Cuba, probably none of us would be around today. I can only pray that there aren't too many people who think like you anywhere near Trump or Xi Jinping, willing to so blithely gamble the lives of millions and the fate of the planet on what essentially amounts to a dick measuring contest.