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from the what-a-difference-a-few-weeks-make dept.
Two bits of news from Asia, widely covered elsewhere. However, are we beginning to see a peace dividend as a result of the thawing in relationships between North and South Korea?
American prisoners held in North Korea on their way home after Pompeo visit, Trump says
"Three American prisoners held in North Korea have been released and are en route to the U.S. after a surprise diplomatic mission by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President Trump announced Wednesday. " foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/09/american-prisoners-held-in-north-korea-on-their-way-home-after-pompeo-visit-trump-says.html
[Ed Note: They should be back in the US by now although I have not seen any direct reporting of this at the time of editing this story. Anyway, welcome back guys!]
Update: North Korea summit: Trump greets freed US detainees
China, Japan, South Korea open three-way summit
"China, South Korea and Japan have begun their first trilateral summit in more than two years.
[...] They are expected to take up the recent flurry of developments on the Korean peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Moon on April 27 and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this week.
Abe said he hopes North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons in a complete and irreversible way.
Li said China is willing to work with Japan and South Korea to maintain regional stability.
The three-way summit is supposed to happen annually, but hasn't been held since November 2015 because of tense relations between Japan and China." foxnews.com/world/2018/05/08/latest-china-japan-south-korea-open-three-way-summit.html
(Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:52PM (7 children)
So your argument is that Trump played a game of chicken, and that forced China to step in and push for a return to more cordial relations not seen since 2010ish?
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:56PM (6 children)
Richard Nixon pulled that one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory [wikipedia.org]
It's dangerous as hell. What do you do if the adversaries call the bluff? Back down or double down? What if the adversaries keep pushing until the only choice is "put up or shut up"? The scariest part is that with all the blustering and lying, a fatal misunderstanding would be all too easy to make.
Another instructive bit of history is the insecure manner of the George W. Bush administration. They knew they had a bunch of posers among them, such as "heck of a job Brownie". Even the Dunning-Kruger effect, strong though it was among the dimmest witted of them (such as George Deutsch), wasn't enough for them to feel like they could do the job. They feared they would not be taken seriously, were very touchy about that, and reacted by doing all kinds of damage of which the biggest was the 2003 War in Iraq. The way Rumsfeld ran that show is revealing. He wouldn't listen to cautionary notes that he was asking for too much, kept insisting he was right and the military could do more with less. He's the kind of asshole who would completely overlook the fact that Iraq fell in a stunningly short "shock and awe" time of just 3 weeks, fast enough to make the German blitzkrieg of Poland in 1939 look a bit slow by comparison, grumbling that the military was too slow. Rummy got away with his audacious shorts during the invasion, but it blew up on him during the occupation, when he insisted 100,000 troops was enough to occupy all of Iraq in the face of advice that it would take 500,000. Even after that, they were still breast beating and needed to be reassured that the world did indeed believe that if they wanted to, they would go to war again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:30PM (5 children)
The USA is uniquely capable of maintaining a high-functioning economy without outside help. We have significant imports and exports in an absolute sense, but relative to our economy they are not so big. Most nations have a much stronger need for imports and/or exports. We are a highly diversified economy. From oil to computer chips, we do it all. China isn't like that. China would be in deep trouble without us.
We're pretty damn good at war too. There are only 2 potential adversaries, Russia and China, that would give our war machine a case of mild indigestion. Everybody else is trivial to mow down.
The alternative to what you claim is "madman theory" is certain failure. Obama couldn't negotiate worth a damn because every opponent knew his cards.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:43PM
The US has lots of fabless semiconductor firms but not many fabs
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by isostatic on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:07PM (3 children)
We're pretty damn good at war too. There are only 2 potential adversaries, Russia and China, that would give our war machine a case of mild indigestion. Everybody else is trivial to mow down.
India, Pakistan, North Korea, UK, France, Israel all have nukes. That's somewhat more than a 'case of mild indigestion'.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday May 11 2018, @12:10AM (2 children)
Some people are under the delusion that they are likely to survive an all-out nuclear war. They are very wrong about that.
Even with, say, India and Pakistan going at it, they have enough firepower to cause nuclear winter, which interrupts everybody's food supplies, which means we're all likely to be dead. And no, you are not likely to have access to a shelter sufficiently supplied to keep you alive, and if you do have access to such a shelter you can be pretty well guaranteed to be attacked by at least a few thousand of the desperate people that don't have anywhere to go and nothing to lose by trying.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday May 11 2018, @12:58PM (1 child)
And even if you had such a shelter, and it was well defended or remote that nobody would get there, what kind of life would that be?
Forget the nuclear winter, just a dozen nukes on the eastern seaboard would cause a massive change in lifestyle for the U.S.
You don't win a nuclear war, at most you lose less than the other site.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday May 11 2018, @06:44PM
Part of my point is that the US doesn't even need to get close to being hit in order for nuclear war to be a big problem for USAians. As another example, if Israel nuked Iran into the ground and nobody retaliated, that would also do enough to trigger serious problems for everybody else.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.