Hua Guofang

If the US allowed the cost of business to be the capital of an allied city destroyed and hundreds of thousands of their people dead, they'd lose all of their allies in a heartbeat.

DPRK has modern air defences, how will the drones evede them? https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/kn-06/ The US has little to no on the ground presence in DPRK (in terms of intelligence or assets), what intelligence would special operations forces use to giuide their actions when PY goes onto a war footing? How would the US stop North Korea from launching tens of thousands of missiles on all of South Korea's northern cities, Japanese cities and US bases? the last question should be answered first.

Re DPRK missiles - all of their tests go into the water, their country is too small for land based tests. Not the South China Sea either, they drop all of them into either the Sea of Japan or out into the Pacific Ocean. China and numerous other nations claim the South China Sea as soverign territory and would be pissed if DPRK was lobbing missiles into it. To see the DPRK missile arsenal as non-threatening is a mistake (they have the capability to cold launch from submarines, that's a big deal) https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/pukguksong-3/ The longest range missile is still in development phase as an ICBM but has succeeded as an SLV: https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/taepodong-2/ They numerous MRBM and SRBMs along with MLRS and other missile systems that are perfectly good weapons that can target a number of surrounding cities, some which are US allies and which host tens of thousands of Americans: https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/no-dong/ Re US defence spending - not true, they don't spend more than the rest of the world combined or even close to that. They've recently increased spending, enough to match the next 8 countries combined - which is still a mega-fuckload - but nothing like more than the rest of the world: https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2019/world-military-expenditure-grows-18-trillion-2018 Re shooting DPRK nukes down - whilst they are not a fully tested ICBM and have a high chance of failure, so does the US ABM system. You have much more faith in the ability to shoot down ICBMs than those who manufacture and those who field those types of defences. You also might be cavalier abou the US eating a nuke, but it's not so easy when you're the one who has to be responsible for making that call and having the possible deaths of millions on your conscience. "The President who caused the US to be nuked", how many people are willing to go down like that in history, do yuo reckon? Re China as a threat to the US - as I've tried to spell out previously, it's not whether you win the war that matters but how much it will cost to win. China has the ability to make victory extremely painful for the US (I mean, they also have nukes, if nothing else) at sea, on land, in the air and in space. Honestly, if you think otherwise I would very much like to see the reasoning for your position beyond "the US spends heaps on guns and would fuck them up". To your last point about American culture, I think you need to get out a little bit more. The US already stalemated with DPRK/China, it happened even with this American warrior spirit you talk of. Secondly, consider that Europe, Middle East and East Asia have been civilised for about 5 times longer than the United States even existed. You think they were just picnicking that whole time? To think that your country is the only one that has faced adversity and has some kind of warrior ethos is immensley niave. I'd say even Israel, a much younger nation, has more of a warrior ethos than the US.

Jesus cousin fucking christ. The fuck are y'all doing over there? You know incest is wrong, right? .

The world's oceans are really just a big lake with some islands in it

As mentioned above, I didn't word my post very well. I mean the US couldn't defeat them when they went to war in the 1950s. Today the US could defeat both DPRK and Iran but it would come at a huge cost in terms of lives and money. The high cost of victory is what deters a US attack, not fear of losing. In saying that, I also don't mean to imply that if they US thought they could easily win then they'd start a way. That's another discussion altogether.

Ah, what I wrote was misleading. It should have been written thusly: The US lead forces couldn't defeat them in war in the 1950s and whilst the US would win a war today, the DPRK can make victory far too costly to consider. 1 - DPRK has a large artillery force ranged along its southern border that brings the capital Seoul into range along with a number of other sizable cities and towns. As soon as any conflict began you must expect thousands of civilians to die with indiscriminate targetting. It is what DPRK has held the West hostage with since the Cold War days. Read all the details here: https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/how-north-korea-would-retaliate#/home/error https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/10/02/why-the-north-korean-artillery-factor-makes-military-action-extremely-risky-infographic/#1e938086317e https://www.38north.org/2019/08/vvandiepen080619/ https://www.38north.org/2019/05/melleman050819/ 2 - You're right, DPRK does not have a reliable delivery device for a nuke warhead. But it does have enough to give it a 40% chance of landing one on CONUS and much, much higher odds of hitting US forces in ROK/Japan/Guam/Hawaii. Put yourselve in the place of a US president and ask yourself if you'd like to be the guy responsible for triggering a nuclear attack anywhere in the world, let alone on US territory. Read the details here: https://www.38north.org/2019/02/melleman022619/ https://www.38north.org/2019/10/melleman100319/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49915224 3 - Sure, the society there is tinpot and shithole. But people are dedicated/brainwashed and the military is large with some relatively capable special forces that are trained in running a guerilla campaign in both the South and the North (It is known that there are a number of them already deployed in the South in case conflict kicks off). 4 - China would absolutely, 100% defend DPRK. They recently began building up their deployments in the region as a response to 'fire and fury'. China fears the refugee crisis a collapsed DPRK would cause, but most importantly, they fear having a land border with a US friendly country and will do everything they can to prevent it. Right now, their week point is Taiwan and the coastal approach. Should they lose the DPRK buffer they will have to split their forces between two approaches, which they obviously will not want to do. Read the arguments here: https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/china-and-north-korea-still-lips-and-teeth/ https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT400/CT477/RAND_CT477.pdf https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/07/opinions/china-north-korea-opinion-lind/index.html Not all agree, though, some believe that China would let the Kim fall if they think they could have the strongest hand in shaping the govt of a unified peninsula: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2017-12-12/why-china-wont-rescue-north-korea

My home town: Most of us don't have lawns anymore, just fucking dirt. Shit is truly nonsense.

Saw a great one as I was driving on Sunday in bloody moss vale between CBR and Syd (was in BS bushfire smoke and running the other way so I had no chance of catching it). Was by Zion and had santa and a reindeer on either side. Looked like he'd had time to spend on it. Would lover to see a flick if anyone has it.

She sells so much shit related to her vag but I bet she won't let us take a quick squiz at it. Fuckin jibbed, I reckon.

Yeah, not the point though. Having global opinion against you doesn't mean shit if you're self-sustaining as North Korea is and as Iran is, to an even greater degree. The regime will survive, the people will continue to suffer and nothing will change. Iran will only shift if their merchant classes and lower-level clergy physically join the protests. I can't see that happening either.

Honestly, I respect the hustle. Why is Gwyneth Paltrow selling a candle that smells like her vagina? Gwyneth has made a candle called This Smells Like My Vagina for her website, Goop. And, of course, it has sold out https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jan/13/why-is-gwyneth-paltrow-selling-a-candle-that-smells-like-her-vagina-goop?CMP=share_btn_tw

US led forces couldn't defeat them in war and since then we've had three generations of Kim family leadership square in the face of US (and global) opposition. Now they're getting nukes as well. Primary goal: stay in power. Achieved Secondary goal; grow stronger and gain leverage. Achieved

How does the world's opinion of them solidifying bring about their downfall? The world has had a pretty clear opinion of North Korea for over 50 years but they're still going strong.

No idea if this is true but my skepticism towards politicians and geopolitics leads me to expect it's accurate: Justin Amash @justinamash More American troops are now in the Middle East than at the end of President Obama’s term. The rate of drone strikes is up, too. President Trump is not ending wars; he’s expanding them. He’s not bringing troops home; he’s sending them there.

How though? What would fucking with them look like? I only ask as there's not a lot the US can do when it comes to Iran. It can keep assassinating their people but there are always consequences for escalation. They can add more sanctions but to what end? Iran has levers it can pull; it can close the Hormuz Strait crashing the global energy market. It can launch it's own hits on US embassies and consulates around the world and the US and Iran can go tit for tat to just end up where we are again. I mean that's doable and it can be spun politically by each state to their constituents. But the reality will be they will just end up back where they started, neither state will have gained ascendency. The protests are interesting and they can be mishandled by the Iranian govt but they still have support of the police, armed forces, IRGC etc. and unless they shift, nothing will change but the number of dead.

What’s he going to do if they kill protesters?

Ha, I love the article calling FDD hawks, I know some of their folk pretty well and they aren't even close to hawks (one was Hilary's senior FP advisor and another was a guy who won't work in the WH under Trump. Dan is most definitely an Iran hawk though, to the point I'm surprised half the people at FDD work with him as he loses objectivity in his aim to have the clerics removed. They've been marching for one reason or another for almost a decade, starting under Ahmadinejad. Hasn't really changed anything yet.

Anyone posted a clip from Akira yet?

Fuck me, FARS is the state broadcaster in Iran

I used to work for a guy who said that leaders are largely irrelevant because the global forces they deal with present them all with the same choices and because idiots can't rise to the very top, they all end up making the most rational decisions and act pretty much the same way. Pivotal moments such as the Cuban missile crisis where individual situations rely on the leader will show differences. But long term stuff like foreign policy and US in the Mid East, will see every president act the same way. Remeber, Bush was going to get out of the Mid East as well until he was dragged back in by 9/11. Just a theory, not sure I agree or not. But that video of Trump saying over and over again that he's going to take the oil certainly makes me think about it. ,

There you go, it worked in the end.

So Trump just told Fox News that US forces in Syria are there to take the oil. There's a vid of him saying it here (even after he's corrected that the troops are only protecting the oil, he says that maybe they'll take it too), but I can't work out how to get the vid working on here.