I tried to look up those figures, but from a couple of minutes of looking all I found was that there was a famine in the 1990s that resulted in 2-3,5 million deaths, so the figure I've heard must be from that period. I don't know how widespread famine currently is, but I'm guessing that the quarter of a million figure is probably not correct; if I had to make an estimate based on what I know about things that contribute to famine, I think there might be something like 100k starvation deaths a year or so. I'll look up some better figures when I have time.
The BBC has a nice, useful time-line of the history of North Korea
. It's very brief and straightforward, but I'm pretty sure it's a good read for everyone who's interested in the situation in the peninsula.
Another BBC link
; note that the article spans several pages that are in tabs that are just above the map.
edited 25th Nov '10 1:01:10 PM by BestOf
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.Wait a second, that must mean the population of NK is shrinking at a ridiculous rate. If they can't feed themselves properly, then there's going to be huge infant mortality rate and in general deaths of children before they can have kids of their own. No way the population isn't declining.
EDIT: Found some
stats
. That site says the population is growing somehow...
edited 25th Nov '10 1:08:36 PM by RadicalTaoist
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.If China and Japan join the fight, I expect more moronic flaming in their goddamned imageboards.
...
I should slap myself for reading Sankaku Complex again.
Half-Life: Dual Nature, a crossover story of reasonably sized proportions.Last thing you want is China and Japan to come to blows.
The concept of a second Korean war costing less lives than a diplomatic approach is dubious at best. The Iraq war for instance has led to 4 million refugees and millions of deaths (direct combat or not, Iraqis are dying at a ridiuclous rate). And then it's a great place cuz Saddam is not there anymore! Except that is obviously not true. Now instead of the very measured and structured state oppression, you have random and sporadic bouts of violence that gets 20x the people killed.
Can USA guarantee that a war with NK can make life better? Not at all. You can only guarantee around 2 million deaths at minimum. That's all. And that's assuming the conflict doesn't cause more problems.
Think of this, a Korean war breaks out, Japan might use it as the final rationale to re-militarise. This will isntantly lead to a tense military build-up between Korea and Japan. China will be unhappy and may slow down or stop their military reductions. Other countries such as Vietnam, Phillipines and so on, will be unhappy with a Japanese re-miltiarisation and may lead to trade conflicts or military build-up.
Other issues can arise. A massive humanitarian disaster could spread out from North Korea into the south and China. This could lead to some kind of insurgency conflict in China due to NK refugees. I'm more confident of SK being able to deal with unification in a good manner and not have to deal with much insurgency (beyond 20 years).
Most economic and political forces want the status quo. China doesn't want to deal with the headache of a Korean war. South Korean can talk tough but whatever political leader goes into the war is instantly going to be responsible for millions of deaths and has no chance for re-election in the bloody aftermath. USA is going to have to borrow the money for the war from China, or another foreign nation, which will make Chinese approval (or have them do no more than "express concern") be required. It's either that, or American people will have to be struck by an inflation tax to pay for it all. American defence contractors would rather a cold war, where USA can sell 10-20 billion USD in weapon to the Korean peninsula each year, than a hot war that loses them business once it finishes.
^^ Bullshit speculations and made up numbers.
edited 25th Nov '10 3:26:43 PM by DasAuto
Now if you excuse me, Starfleet is about to award the Christopher Pike Medal to my dick. — SF Debris^ You mean like 95% of this thread? We don't have much else to go on.
^^ Acceptable to who, if I might ask?
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.Sure but I rather not talk about war being inevitable, arm up and invade North Korea.
How many deaths do you think would happen in a second Korean War? I'm just estimating based on the previous conflict.
Nobody can predict anything 100% and talking about war as the only option is idiotic and ignores all the possible ramifications.
You think anybody who invaded Afghanistan thought it would destabilise Pakistan and bring it to the brink of civil war? You think anybody would have thought that it would gain Iran a new ally? You think anybody would have thought it would suddenly make China a "helpful giant" in the region? Wars have unintended consequences and I was trying to list some of them out.
You guys talk about Japan like everybody thinks they're the best shit since sliced bread in East Asia. I don't think you get how much people hate their guts over there. They still refuse to admit any of their war crimes and all their apologies have been nothing but backhanded insults to everyone. Just recently, a high ranking Japanese cabinet minister said that Korean "comfort women" wanted to be ravaged by Japanese soldiers and thus there was no systematic rape of 100 000s of korean women.
edited 25th Nov '10 3:41:07 PM by breadloaf
Breadloaf, while you're doing a good job pointing out possible negatives that haven't been noted in this thread so far, I can't help but feel that you're going too far in the other direction, playing dove to the hawks. For instance, I seriously doubt that SK would suffer a 'bloodbath' unless their leaders are complete idiots. They've been preparing for this for a long time. I would be very surprised if SK didn't have an effective plan for temporarily getting their civilians out of harm's way while the soldiers did their thing. From what I hear, the possibility of war has reasonable support among SK's citizens as well. While the possibility of a wind down remains remotely feasible, NK has been getting more provocative, not less.
I've always thought it a great pity that the Japanese government as a whole has never really acknowledged its old shames and put them to bed. The historical revisionism is very disconcerting from a country that is otherwise very civilized.
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.Oh no, I didn't mean SK would lose civilians since I doubt their government would have no idea how to handle this (as you have stated). I meant more that NK would shove civilians straight into combat zones to maximise casualties, or just be totally inept at moving them out of the way. Almost all the civilian deaths are likely to be northerners but this alone I think is still political death for SK leaders. All those people have relatives in the south.
I guess I sorta am playing dove to hawk. I just don't think anybody should go into war. You should always be trying everything but war and if you get into it, it's merely because all the other options failed. I don't mean failed as in "seems like it's not wokring let's stop trying", but I mean failed as in, NK is invading so let's go kick their ass.
edited 25th Nov '10 4:17:12 PM by breadloaf
^
The question is, how many more decades do we put up with North Koreas shit? Everybody is downplaying this artillery incident, they fired military ordnance into a civilian area, were completely conscious of this fact, and it killed people.
Nobody seems to care about that, but if you ask me that's basically a declaration of war when a nation that can be as easily beaten as NK does it.
I'm all for attempting diplomacy first, but when do you stop with the diplomacy and settle things? I for one am not into waiting several more decades to check back and see if NK wants to start playing nice.
You also seem to be forgetting that the NK has mandatory military service. Almost all of these civilian casualties you are speaking of are either serving in the military, or are able to be called up as reserves. That makes a gray area even grayer.
edited 25th Nov '10 4:58:02 PM by Barkey
^Its also a question of the North Koreans themselves. That quarter of a million per year is nothing to be sniffed at, and thats starvation alone.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.Well that would depend on Terrain. for all we know the North's plan is to charge en mass screaming wildly and firing randomly until their corpses clog our gun barrels.
Of note is some dissent in the military ranks that is steadily growing.
edited 25th Nov '10 6:41:56 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?I know I brought this figure to this thread, but as I said in the other thread (might just as well be this one; I'm not really keeping track, since they're on the same topic) the figure was just something I heard and remembered, and when I looked it up it seems to have come from the 1990s famine in the North.
That said, life in the North is fucked-up enough that even as a pacifist I'm willing to admit that had the North been concuered a decade or so ago more lives would have been saved than were saved by diplomacy in this case.
Today, North Korea is so close to annihilation without foreign militares having to participate in it that just letting them rot is a kind of a military strategy in its own right. The problem with this is that there's no way to know for sure how long North Korea could survive until it finally implodes; it's entirely possible that that process might actually cost more lives than and invasion would.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.Or that the process of collapse turns into such a disaster that there'll be an invasion anyway.
But right now it looks like it will keep going buisness as usual for a time.
Now if you excuse me, Starfleet is about to award the Christopher Pike Medal to my dick. — SF Debris

A quarter of a million per year?
...storm the place.
The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.