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Old 26-09-2017, 13:47   #177
Ignitionnet
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Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire
Age: 45
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Re: North Korea

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mick View Post
Fair question. How do you think Hillary Clinton would have handled this as President?
So firstly it doesn't matter. She was not elected and what she may have done in any particular situation is absolutely irrelevant. Trump won, and whatever our opinions we all have to get over it.

For all it matters she could have said she'd respond to North Korea by doing a naked pole dance for the UN Security Council. She's not the Commander in Chief.

However, as you asked, she'd have likely carried on the same policies she pursued as Secretary of State. She has foreign policy experience. She tended to be very hands off with North Korea, and dealt with them through intermediaries rather than direct negotiation. The criticisms leveled at her during her tenure were that she was too relaxed over North Korea.

http://www.politico.eu/article/hilla...clear-weapons/

She is extremely unlikely to have threatened them outright with 'fury and fire', she is extremely unlikely to have called KJ-U names to the United Nations, and is extremely unlikely to have engaged in diplomacy over Twitter.

Do you find it likely North Korea would, without either actual or perceived provocation, attack South Korea or any other nearby nation? If not, why respond to their provocation with provocation in turn? All Trump's actions have achieved so far is acceleration by North Korea of their weapons program and a whole bunch of propaganda material for KJ-U to blast at his people.

South Korea have backed off from broadcasting propaganda at North Korea to try and calm things down. It's their lives Trump is gambling with with his frankly belligerent approach. China and the West have always been the grown-ups dealing with the petulant child who fires rockets and tests nukes for attention, now the West's responses are under the remit of another petulant child.

Like it or not, North Korea appear to possess both fission and fusion bombs, and there are no military options that don't involve the deaths of tens of millions at best and billions at worst. On a purely selfish level North Korean intervention militarily doesn't worry me, it's the potential for escalation. North Korea border 3 nations: South Korea, China and Russia. That's an awful lot of nuclear weapons in a small space and an awful lot of potential for conflicts to spill over.

I would hope that there's a carrot being dangled for them somewhere that we're aware of, I don't see any positives coming from the stick. The only way to resolve this now is softly and over a long period, however I don't think President Trump's ego allows him to entertain this but would be delighted to be proven wrong.

---------- Post added at 12:47 ---------- Previous post was at 12:43 ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mick View Post
The two rockets NK fired over Japan, I think were tests to see if Trump would lose it and make a strike them, Trump obviously hasn't lost his cool with them, in the military sense, he obviously has a lot more buttons than people previously said he hadn't.
China have a declared policy of responding to attacks on North Korea. I have no doubt those rocket launches were done to get attention but most definitely not an attempt to provoke attack. North Korea don't want a war. The ruling dynasty are quite happy being in charge and their belligerence strengthens their hold on power. Getting into a hot war with the United States wouldn't really be good for their longer term prospects.

As far as whether Trump lost his cool over the matter or 'lost it' I don't know. For all you and I know his immediate reaction may have been to want to strike them and his Joint Chiefs talked him down before the plans were put into action.
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