North Korea to halt nuclear activities

rootX

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-17208755

North Korea has agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, as well as nuclear and long-range missile tests, US and North Korean officials say.

Greg Bernhardt

Very good news, but let's see how far the inspectors get.

CAC1001

I am more inclined to think the North Koreans are lying.

Pattonias

They will resume their activity once their country stockpiles enough food I'm sure.

Alfi

With some hope, I wonder if they came to the same conclusion I have, It's too expensive to have weapons that are basically useless. MAD is so last century.
Bombing/killing thousands or more with one drop is not 'precision military targeting' and is not acceptable to the world at large anymore. ( if it ever was )

Pengwuino

That's not even remotely close to why they're doing this. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate blackmail tool on the world stage. No one seriously expects North Korea to nuke anyone because everyone knows that within a couple of days, the country would cease to exist from retaliation by the US. It's just political BS. "Give us more food for our (literally) starving population or we're going to make weapons". The world would rather give them food and money than have them make weapons, even if everyone is fairly sure they wouldn't use them. Why risk it? Of course, we also worry that they could sell them to countries who don't feel nuclear weapons are useless (which they absolutely are not).

Their country is so screwed up that this is probably the only way they can feed their population.

HowardVAgnew

I would feel remiss to not point out the U.S. is as dependent as North Korea on international trade to feed our populace as well. The sanctions imposed on North Korea have severely limited its trade to a few rogue nations circumventing it. If similar sanctions were imposed on the U.S., I expect there would be similar economic devastation ... the fuel shortages of the 1970s caused by OPEC to punish the U.S. would pale by comparison.

I know you did not explicitly state that N.K. leadership is competent because they can't take care of their people without help from the outside world compared to U.S. leadership, but I felt your statement implied this and hope you concur there is not, necessarily, an absolute objective truth to that assessment.

SHISHKABOB

isn't the problem with a rogue state like N Korea have nuclear weapons the fact that it could just go and sell them to rogue subnational groups?

like, y'know, terrorists?

Pengwuino

I just started thinking about this as I left the thread to do some other things. What exactly is the problem with the food supply in NK? Has the land become incapable of supporting the populace? Has their isolationist tendencies prevented them from acquiring the technology capable of producing the food necessary from the land they have to support the country? Is the government intentionally putting policies in place that prevent their agriculture from doing its job?

As you stated, the US has/had a similar problem and there certainly were multiple reasons for this, many of them not caused by the government. I wonder what's the case with NK.

lmoh

Hopefully, they would stop wasting their money on military spending and ACTUALLY try to feed their people. So I really like where this is heading, but then again, that may be very unlikely knowing North Korea.

HowardVAgnew

Much of this is theoretical conjecture, of course, but if one agrees there could be at least some few similarities between North Korea today and the USSR prior to its breakup, then there actually is a historic predecessor to communism versus capitalism. I think a lot of Americans arrogantly presume capitalism is better and more capable of delivering needed goods, such as food, where they are needed to go, to those that need food, but the transition of Russia from communism to capitalism was rife with examples I think justify at least some doubt in such assertions.

I think the problems incurred in North Korea (from what little we know based on the few that have escaped, given the dictatorial control over what information gets out about conditions there) attributable to the government would be more in their isolationism earning their spot, and not necessarily internal production and distribution. There are probably areas here or there where they could make production and distribution of food and other basics more efficient here or there, its their inability to trade what they can produce surpluses of for resources they are deficient in, plus the dichotomy of opulence squandered by their elite over their poor (which is a dichotomy that I feel also harms the U.S.) I think, that is the largest factor, and part of that blame probably lays with us. North Korea did not care to be friends, and thanks to what I believe is our own Western xenophobia and intolerance to communism, we seemed a bit earnest to punish them with sanctions.

I in no way would defend nor justify the harm the North Korean government has caused its people, but I do feel a lot of my "fellow" Americans are a bit arrogant and ignorant in denying our own responsibility for the state of things for the masses of the North Korean people suffering in their dire economic situation.

mheslep

But you are tolerant?

HowardVAgnew

I view myself as, generally more tolerant than most to most things, but intolerant toward intolerance and not blindly loyal or patriotic to elements of popular culture.

JonDE

Why wouldn't someone be tolerant of it? If mexico decided to become communist and the people there supported it, why would we try and stop them? To me there is no reason why a capitalist society and a communist one can't get along. As long as one is not trying to impress their views upon the other.

HowardVAgnew

No good reason, no, but that's what we did in Viet Nam. The Communists had popular support, but France and the U.S. refused to let the democratic process possibly choose communism, and just accusing a U.S. citizen of ideologically believing in communism was grounds for serious repercussions with McCarthy.

mheslep

I meant tolerant of communism.

mheslep

That is to misunderstand communism. The 'people' do not have the option to support or oppose a communist government. Furthermore Marxist/Leninist communism is not content to stay within its borders. By admission it seeks dominion over competing ideologies.