20 Replies to “U.S. could turn North Korea into an overdone Pop-Tart: Oliver North”
As I have said before if we hit North Korea now the causalities will be in the hundreds of thousands, if we wait until they mate a nuclear warhead to an ICBM before he are forced to hit him the causalities will be in the millions maybe the tens of millions. We fight them now or we fight them later hundreds of thousands or tens of millions. Take your choice.
Maybe NK is a massive trap for the U.S. set by China. Maybe NK is a sacrificial lamb. Maybe China wants the U.S. to attack, using the war as catalyst to world reserve currency change. Maybe China knows that said change will reverse the polarity of wealth in the world, given that Fort Knox may be empty, China has been the #1 world gold producer for years, and China is more productive. Maybe this is all fallacious nonsense, but I usually find some credence in the money side of arguements.
“Maybe NK is a massive trap for the U.S. set by China. Maybe NK is a sacrificial lamb. Maybe China wants the U.S. to attack, using the war as catalyst to world reserve currency change.”
You are dangerously correct, Johnnyu.
Like Iran, North Korea probably is a “honey pot” of monumental proportions.
For that reason, any sanctions against North Korea should include identical ones against Communist China. Sadly, too many of the world’s other “industrialized” (NOT ANY MORE) countries likely will be unwilling to support penalties against Red China when it comes to thwarting the North Korean threat.
Sickest of all, it is how this same claque of submoron EU apparatchiks will likely acquiesce to the identical UN strictures that deal with “immigrant” quotas and similar bull hocky.
The violence to counteract this sort of insanity almost supersedes a nuclear war.
JOhnny may be right but Obama’s 8 years of surrender have placed us in a position of either surrendering to China, Russia and the EU or to fight. We really don’t have any other choice. War is the last option but we have reached the last option, we can surrender or we can fight.
If we stopped Chinese imports – or slowed them to a crawl – we could ruin China ourselves in no time flat. They depend on the US market more than they do on the combined total of the rest of the world.
Thank you, yucki.
Even the threat of Communist China “selling off” all the American treasury notes they hold is totally useless. For one thing, many of them are YEARS away from maturing, for another, dumping them on the market would kill their value to the tune of major percentages.
You are so right to say that, “If we stopped Chinese imports”, their entire economic house-of-cards would fold like artisanal Japanese origami.
We can also stop paying the interest on the debt, this will interrupt their ready cash income, they count on that money to help keep their nation going. They would have to sell our bonds and part of their gold reserve, they don’t want to do either because doing this would deflate the value of the bonds and selling the gold would cause the price to drop.
With a Businessman running the US they are discovering the validity of the following statement: If you owe someone $10,000 and can’t pay you have a problem, If you owe someone $1,000,000 and can’t pay they have a problem.
While I would love to see us do both a creshing Chinese economy will not prevent us having to attack North Korea. It will probably cause a world wide crash (one that is coming anyway) and probably prevent China and Russia from interfering when we take out North Korea. Ir would/will mess up Russia’s plans in the Middle East and Europe and stands a good probability of forcibly changing the governments of the European nations that are aiding the Islamic invasion.
I can see PT-45 crushing China economically, incrementally, till they squash their pet insect themselves.
That way he can be in charge. It seems more his style than messing with military measures.
“I can see PT-45 crushing China economically, incrementally, till they squash their pet insect themselves.”
This is the most optimal path. Even if the North Korean brass wanted to, they would not dare risking Beijing’s wrath. More importantly, this sort of Chinese intervention would preclude any attacks on South Korea.
It also could represent an extraordinary opportunity for the Politburo to demonstrate that it can be a responsible global party instead of the seriously destabilizing influence it has been for many decades.
Anything less from the ChiComs will brand them as visibly dishonest players on this world’s political stage. Trump would do very well to thrown down the gauntlet and, one way or the other, make Beijing out itself about what it really stands for.
It would be too easy and too cynical to talk about, “not letting a good crisis go to waste”. It’s long overdue for Communist China to show its true colors for all the world to see.
A central question needs to be addressed. North Korean artillery represents one of the greatest threats for the following reasons:
• Just north of the DMZ are positioned 1,000s of dug-in artillery field pieces
• The South Korean capital of Seoul is within their “throw” range
• North Korea’s inventory of chemical and biological rounds
• Some estimates say this artillery could obliterate the city in less than two hours
• There is speculation that Seoul could be hit by over half-a-million shells in under an hour
Balance the previous items against the following:
• Artillery shells have a “shelf life” which can be around 10 years
• Each shell can cost hundreds of dollars
• Both the field pieces and their ammunition require regular testing
• Half-a-million shells could cost around $250MM (million)
• Rotating field pieces out for calibration, test firing, and certification gives away their locations
• There is very little reporting about North Korea testing all of these weapons
Finally, there are reports that “The North’s forces are mostly comprised of decrepit Soviet hardware from the 1950s and ‘60s.” This does not bode well for barrel life (i.e., number of shots before replacement). Nor does it reassuringly bespeak anything about accuracy—not necessarily a major concern when flattening a large city—or, more importantly, issues about jamming, misfires, breech detonations, or a host of other problems that superannuated Soviet-made weapons are famous for.
Furthermore, it’s a well-established fact that the design and testing of both nuclear weapons and ICBMs is a very expensive pastime. All of this contributes to a general impression that a lot of the materiel situated near the DMZ may be well-past its “best by” date.
The same goes for artillery shells that are intended to deliver chemical weapons. In certain cases of poorly manufactured toxins (e.g., “mustard” or chlorine gas), reactivity can reduce the lifespan of artillery shells to just a few weeks.
Again, this promotes justifiable conjecture that North Korea’s functional stores of these unconventional weapons may be far less than what traditional estimates calculate. In addition there also remains another crucial “decision gate”. America has what is known as a, “response in kind” (or “Schlesinger Doctrine”—part of America’s SIOP [Single Integrated Operational Plan]).
It means that, if American troops or cities are attacked with unconventional weapons of any sort, the USA is entitled to deploy unconventional retaliation—be it in the form of NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) reprisal—as part of ensuring the unqualified demise of lunatic foes like North Korea.
The moment that North Korea fires a single chemical or biological shell at South Korea, there exists the unquestionable chance that Pyongyang (along with much of North Korea) vanishes in a nuclear haze—or just an epidemic-based or chemically reacted cloud of toxic agents that capacious rectal cavities like Kim Jong-Un (and his ancestors) have been threatening Western powers with for decades.
What could possibly go wrong? Especially for North Korea.
Your response is a lot more reasoned then that of most of the talking heads. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the North Korean artillery ammo uses stabilized nitro as a propellent? With the shells just setting there the nitro settles out of the stabilizing material and collected near the detonator, this isn’t good for the life expectancy of the people firing the piece.
This is why you shouldn’t dive on wrecks near Hawaii, most of them are WWII wrecks with live ammo still on them and back then we were mainly using stabilized nitro for a propellant.
“Your response is a lot more reasoned than that of most of the talking heads.”
Thank you, Richard. From you, that is high praise.
Why is it that nobody wants to analyze the REAL capabilities of North Korea?
If all that they’ve got is a few questionable nukes, then it’s long overdue to call for a showing of hands and see if they’re willing to risk being vaporized over their threats of peninsular war.
Sadly, South Korea’s (and four different American administrations’ complacency, especially 0bama’s) refusal to act has come to a rather nasty head—and even the world’s most densely populated city (i.e., Seoul) means very little when it comes to backing Psycho Fat Boy into his (currently) ill-equipped corner.
After all, what’s the alternative? Letting this megalomaniac poodle-turd become a credible power that might cripple (e.g., via an EMP attack) North America?
This obese, smug little shite has no compunction about proliferating nuclear and ICBM technology to Iran, much less destabilizing the entire East Asian quadrant.
Either we flat-line this POS right away or risk letting him become a player at the global casino where he has no right to do anything more than sweep up stale cigarette butts.
Either we flat-line this POS right away or risk letting him become a player at the global casino where he has no right to do anything more than sweep up stale cigarette butts.
You got it, we have no choice but to take out Kim and the nuclear capabilities of North Korea, as you and I showed in a comment train above this one China is in a very poor position to stop us from forcibly reuniting Korea. China and /or Russia will only act if they are ready to touch off WWIII which they stand a good chance of losing. They are use to thinking in the long run and will probably be willing to lose this round so they can keep playing the long game.
I don’t see Russia as an actor here. Unless everything blows up, then he’ll pick up snacks after the ground cools. He knows everything that’s happening in China in real-time. Intelligence built-in every which way.
Xi has a lot to lose here. Everything. He just has to be persuaded. He hates us, but his game is to make China a truly global power. No short-term revenge play, no Mahdi-bs end-game. He’s got the longest timeline of the would-be empire builders.
India is watching with mild interest as well. She has her own troubles, but likes to keep an eye on the neighbors.
“Xi has a lot to lose here. Everything. He just has to be persuaded. He hates us, but his game is to make China a truly global power. No short-term revenge play, no Mahdi-bs end-game. He’s got the longest timeline of the would-be empire builders.”
Really well said, yucki (your entire comment, actually). I will even go so far as to contritely admit that I did not anticipate you having such unexpectedly deep (and shrewd) insights about the typically impenetrable mare’s nest of Asian geopolitical culture. Please pardon my inexcusable underestimation of your perspicacity and know that you just sauntered into an exclusive inner circle of mavens that rarely receives many newcomers.
Few people truly appreciate how the Middle Kingdom has been at this Game of Thlones for several thousand years. While, as a relative newcomer, the jury is still out on Xi, that’s no excuse not to put a vise-like squeeze on his family jewelshim right away.
If he is serious about rectifying Communist China’s comprehensively embedded culture-of-corruption—a tapeworm that both India and China have gnawing at their innermost economic guts—then let’s give this chap every opportunity to distinguish himself as a genuine leader and not just another parasitic opportunist adventurer like all who have preceded him.
Now, toss into this noxious slurry of centrally planned command-economy toxins how the Mainland’s entire financial infrastructure is rapidly ballooning into a soon-to-burst bubble. It is a self-inflicted (and classically Communist) crisis that more-than-dwarfs The Great Depression of 1929, America’s 1980s savings and loan crisis, the 1990s “Asian flu”, and the Great Recession of 2008 COMBINED—and the magnitude of Communist China’s vulnerability, along with its potential role in crashing almost all global markets, snaps into vivid needle-sharp focus.
Should Xi find it within himself to responsibly settle this looming conflict in North Korea, such actions could buy him and The Mainland a substantial amount of international goodwill that just as easily might vanish when Beijing’s economic chickens come home to roost. Let’s, all of us, hope that he possesses such profound wisdom.
ty
I’m humbled by such praise from you, Mr. Radish.
…..
Corruption in vast, complex countries like Russia, China, and India may be impossible to eradicate.
Add to that an honor/shame ethos that?s so very flexible, the individual has options that would paralyze us with guilt.
But the level of corruption can be reduced by analyzing patterns and closing off opportunities. Simplifying the bureaucracy would be a giant step. Not easy, though. Just look at our own Swamp and how it defends itself.
Back at’cha, gel. You’ve always been one of my favorite responders here at Vlad Tepes Blog. Please know what a pleasant surprise it is to see all of that ratchet up a notch or twelve.
Especially in the course of parsing one of this planet’s most torturous and pressing “diplomatic” minefields.
Yer pal,
NorseRadish
“…China is in a very poor position to stop us from forcibly reuniting Korea.”
As I have noted elsewhere at this site, the strongest opposition to “forcibly reuniting Korea” is South Korea itself. The peninsula’s miserly chaebol has over $52 billion invested in Red China.
There is no way that these niggardly cutthroats are willing to forego millions-of-dollars PER DAY in profits so as to engage in the supremely thankless (and totally unprofitable) task of rebuilding the North’s super-crappy Soviet era infrastructure.
Please recall that reunited Germany and the Korean peninsila are (approximately) equal in size. Now consider that low-ball estimates of how expensive Germany’s reunification were registered in the TRILLION DOLLAR range. Less conservative assessments hovered around THREE TRILLION DOLLARS.
Then, plug in the respective GINI coefficients that contrast East versus West Germany’s not-too-shocking earnings differential (in terms of per capita income), as compared to the astronomical economic disparity between North and South Korea’s average household earnings, and the magnitude of reconstruction expenses slowly begins to become clear.
Regardless of these economic factors, reunification of the Korean peninsula represents one of this modern world’s most agonizing and imperative moral obligations. Be sure to fetch a box or three of Kleenex before watching the following video clip:
Were there the slightest chance of setting aside North Korea’s nuclear threat (which is not even remotely possible) the cruelly cynical manner in which Pyongyang stage-manages these heart-wrenching family reunions amounts to crimes against humanity that Kim Jong-Un deserves to be executed for (repeatedly, if that were doable).
A few years of regularly scheduled and agonizing torture would not even come close to what the entirety of North Korea’s political leadership deserves for orchestrating these pitiless manipulations of siblings and relatives that have been forcibly estranged for DECADES.
[/rant]
I ran out of sympathy for the SorKs long ago.
They are shameless: I’d leave them to the cannibals upstairs if they were the only ones threatened.
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As I have said before if we hit North Korea now the causalities will be in the hundreds of thousands, if we wait until they mate a nuclear warhead to an ICBM before he are forced to hit him the causalities will be in the millions maybe the tens of millions. We fight them now or we fight them later hundreds of thousands or tens of millions. Take your choice.
Maybe NK is a massive trap for the U.S. set by China. Maybe NK is a sacrificial lamb. Maybe China wants the U.S. to attack, using the war as catalyst to world reserve currency change. Maybe China knows that said change will reverse the polarity of wealth in the world, given that Fort Knox may be empty, China has been the #1 world gold producer for years, and China is more productive. Maybe this is all fallacious nonsense, but I usually find some credence in the money side of arguements.
“Maybe NK is a massive trap for the U.S. set by China. Maybe NK is a sacrificial lamb. Maybe China wants the U.S. to attack, using the war as catalyst to world reserve currency change.”
You are dangerously correct, Johnnyu.
Like Iran, North Korea probably is a “honey pot” of monumental proportions.
For that reason, any sanctions against North Korea should include identical ones against Communist China. Sadly, too many of the world’s other “industrialized” (NOT ANY MORE) countries likely will be unwilling to support penalties against Red China when it comes to thwarting the North Korean threat.
Sickest of all, it is how this same claque of submoron EU apparatchiks will likely acquiesce to the identical UN strictures that deal with “immigrant” quotas and similar bull hocky.
The violence to counteract this sort of insanity almost supersedes a nuclear war.
JOhnny may be right but Obama’s 8 years of surrender have placed us in a position of either surrendering to China, Russia and the EU or to fight. We really don’t have any other choice. War is the last option but we have reached the last option, we can surrender or we can fight.
If we stopped Chinese imports – or slowed them to a crawl – we could ruin China ourselves in no time flat. They depend on the US market more than they do on the combined total of the rest of the world.
Thank you, yucki.
Even the threat of Communist China “selling off” all the American treasury notes they hold is totally useless. For one thing, many of them are YEARS away from maturing, for another, dumping them on the market would kill their value to the tune of major percentages.
You are so right to say that, “If we stopped Chinese imports”, their entire economic house-of-cards would fold like artisanal Japanese origami.
We can also stop paying the interest on the debt, this will interrupt their ready cash income, they count on that money to help keep their nation going. They would have to sell our bonds and part of their gold reserve, they don’t want to do either because doing this would deflate the value of the bonds and selling the gold would cause the price to drop.
With a Businessman running the US they are discovering the validity of the following statement: If you owe someone $10,000 and can’t pay you have a problem, If you owe someone $1,000,000 and can’t pay they have a problem.
While I would love to see us do both a creshing Chinese economy will not prevent us having to attack North Korea. It will probably cause a world wide crash (one that is coming anyway) and probably prevent China and Russia from interfering when we take out North Korea. Ir would/will mess up Russia’s plans in the Middle East and Europe and stands a good probability of forcibly changing the governments of the European nations that are aiding the Islamic invasion.
I can see PT-45 crushing China economically, incrementally, till they squash their pet insect themselves.
That way he can be in charge. It seems more his style than messing with military measures.
“I can see PT-45 crushing China economically, incrementally, till they squash their pet insect themselves.”
This is the most optimal path. Even if the North Korean brass wanted to, they would not dare risking Beijing’s wrath. More importantly, this sort of Chinese intervention would preclude any attacks on South Korea.
It also could represent an extraordinary opportunity for the Politburo to demonstrate that it can be a responsible global party instead of the seriously destabilizing influence it has been for many decades.
Anything less from the ChiComs will brand them as visibly dishonest players on this world’s political stage. Trump would do very well to thrown down the gauntlet and, one way or the other, make Beijing out itself about what it really stands for.
It would be too easy and too cynical to talk about, “not letting a good crisis go to waste”. It’s long overdue for Communist China to show its true colors for all the world to see.
A central question needs to be addressed. North Korean artillery represents one of the greatest threats for the following reasons:
• Just north of the DMZ are positioned 1,000s of dug-in artillery field pieces
• The South Korean capital of Seoul is within their “throw” range
• North Korea’s inventory of chemical and biological rounds
• Some estimates say this artillery could obliterate the city in less than two hours
• There is speculation that Seoul could be hit by over half-a-million shells in under an hour
Balance the previous items against the following:
• Artillery shells have a “shelf life” which can be around 10 years
• Each shell can cost hundreds of dollars
• Both the field pieces and their ammunition require regular testing
• Half-a-million shells could cost around $250MM (million)
• Rotating field pieces out for calibration, test firing, and certification gives away their locations
• There is very little reporting about North Korea testing all of these weapons
Finally, there are reports that “The North’s forces are mostly comprised of decrepit Soviet hardware from the 1950s and ‘60s.” This does not bode well for barrel life (i.e., number of shots before replacement). Nor does it reassuringly bespeak anything about accuracy—not necessarily a major concern when flattening a large city—or, more importantly, issues about jamming, misfires, breech detonations, or a host of other problems that superannuated Soviet-made weapons are famous for.
Furthermore, it’s a well-established fact that the design and testing of both nuclear weapons and ICBMs is a very expensive pastime. All of this contributes to a general impression that a lot of the materiel situated near the DMZ may be well-past its “best by” date.
The same goes for artillery shells that are intended to deliver chemical weapons. In certain cases of poorly manufactured toxins (e.g., “mustard” or chlorine gas), reactivity can reduce the lifespan of artillery shells to just a few weeks.
Again, this promotes justifiable conjecture that North Korea’s functional stores of these unconventional weapons may be far less than what traditional estimates calculate. In addition there also remains another crucial “decision gate”. America has what is known as a, “response in kind” (or “Schlesinger Doctrine”—part of America’s SIOP [Single Integrated Operational Plan]).
It means that, if American troops or cities are attacked with unconventional weapons of any sort, the USA is entitled to deploy unconventional retaliation—be it in the form of NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) reprisal—as part of ensuring the unqualified demise of lunatic foes like North Korea.
The moment that North Korea fires a single chemical or biological shell at South Korea, there exists the unquestionable chance that Pyongyang (along with much of North Korea) vanishes in a nuclear haze—or just an epidemic-based or chemically reacted cloud of toxic agents that capacious rectal cavities like Kim Jong-Un (and his ancestors) have been threatening Western powers with for decades.
What could possibly go wrong? Especially for North Korea.
Your response is a lot more reasoned then that of most of the talking heads. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the North Korean artillery ammo uses stabilized nitro as a propellent? With the shells just setting there the nitro settles out of the stabilizing material and collected near the detonator, this isn’t good for the life expectancy of the people firing the piece.
This is why you shouldn’t dive on wrecks near Hawaii, most of them are WWII wrecks with live ammo still on them and back then we were mainly using stabilized nitro for a propellant.
“Your response is a lot more reasoned than that of most of the talking heads.”
Thank you, Richard. From you, that is high praise.
Why is it that nobody wants to analyze the REAL capabilities of North Korea?
If all that they’ve got is a few questionable nukes, then it’s long overdue to call for a showing of hands and see if they’re willing to risk being vaporized over their threats of peninsular war.
Sadly, South Korea’s (and four different American administrations’ complacency, especially 0bama’s) refusal to act has come to a rather nasty head—and even the world’s most densely populated city (i.e., Seoul) means very little when it comes to backing Psycho Fat Boy into his (currently) ill-equipped corner.
After all, what’s the alternative? Letting this megalomaniac poodle-turd become a credible power that might cripple (e.g., via an EMP attack) North America?
This obese, smug little shite has no compunction about proliferating nuclear and ICBM technology to Iran, much less destabilizing the entire East Asian quadrant.
Either we flat-line this POS right away or risk letting him become a player at the global casino where he has no right to do anything more than sweep up stale cigarette butts.
Either we flat-line this POS right away or risk letting him become a player at the global casino where he has no right to do anything more than sweep up stale cigarette butts.
You got it, we have no choice but to take out Kim and the nuclear capabilities of North Korea, as you and I showed in a comment train above this one China is in a very poor position to stop us from forcibly reuniting Korea. China and /or Russia will only act if they are ready to touch off WWIII which they stand a good chance of losing. They are use to thinking in the long run and will probably be willing to lose this round so they can keep playing the long game.
I don’t see Russia as an actor here. Unless everything blows up, then he’ll pick up snacks after the ground cools. He knows everything that’s happening in China in real-time. Intelligence built-in every which way.
Xi has a lot to lose here. Everything. He just has to be persuaded. He hates us, but his game is to make China a truly global power. No short-term revenge play, no Mahdi-bs end-game. He’s got the longest timeline of the would-be empire builders.
India is watching with mild interest as well. She has her own troubles, but likes to keep an eye on the neighbors.
“Xi has a lot to lose here. Everything. He just has to be persuaded. He hates us, but his game is to make China a truly global power. No short-term revenge play, no Mahdi-bs end-game. He’s got the longest timeline of the would-be empire builders.”
Really well said, yucki (your entire comment, actually). I will even go so far as to contritely admit that I did not anticipate you having such unexpectedly deep (and shrewd) insights about the typically impenetrable mare’s nest of Asian geopolitical culture. Please pardon my inexcusable underestimation of your perspicacity and know that you just sauntered into an exclusive inner circle of mavens that rarely receives many newcomers.
Few people truly appreciate how the Middle Kingdom has been at this Game of Thlones for several thousand years. While, as a relative newcomer, the jury is still out on Xi, that’s no excuse not to put a vise-like squeeze on
his family jewelshim right away.If he is serious about rectifying Communist China’s comprehensively embedded culture-of-corruption—a tapeworm that both India and China have gnawing at their innermost economic guts—then let’s give this chap every opportunity to distinguish himself as a genuine leader and not just another parasitic opportunist adventurer like all who have preceded him.
Now, toss into this noxious slurry of centrally planned command-economy toxins how the Mainland’s entire financial infrastructure is rapidly ballooning into a soon-to-burst bubble. It is a self-inflicted (and classically Communist) crisis that more-than-dwarfs The Great Depression of 1929, America’s 1980s savings and loan crisis, the 1990s “Asian flu”, and the Great Recession of 2008 COMBINED—and the magnitude of Communist China’s vulnerability, along with its potential role in crashing almost all global markets, snaps into vivid needle-sharp focus.
Should Xi find it within himself to responsibly settle this looming conflict in North Korea, such actions could buy him and The Mainland a substantial amount of international goodwill that just as easily might vanish when Beijing’s economic chickens come home to roost. Let’s, all of us, hope that he possesses such profound wisdom.
ty
I’m humbled by such praise from you, Mr. Radish.
…..
Corruption in vast, complex countries like Russia, China, and India may be impossible to eradicate.
Add to that an honor/shame ethos that?s so very flexible, the individual has options that would paralyze us with guilt.
But the level of corruption can be reduced by analyzing patterns and closing off opportunities. Simplifying the bureaucracy would be a giant step. Not easy, though. Just look at our own Swamp and how it defends itself.
Back at’cha, gel. You’ve always been one of my favorite responders here at Vlad Tepes Blog. Please know what a pleasant surprise it is to see all of that ratchet up a notch or twelve.
Especially in the course of parsing one of this planet’s most torturous and pressing “diplomatic” minefields.
Yer pal,
NorseRadish
“…China is in a very poor position to stop us from forcibly reuniting Korea.”
As I have noted elsewhere at this site, the strongest opposition to “forcibly reuniting Korea” is South Korea itself. The peninsula’s miserly chaebol has over $52 billion invested in Red China.
There is no way that these niggardly cutthroats are willing to forego millions-of-dollars PER DAY in profits so as to engage in the supremely thankless (and totally unprofitable) task of rebuilding the North’s super-crappy Soviet era infrastructure.
Please recall that reunited Germany and the Korean peninsila are (approximately) equal in size. Now consider that low-ball estimates of how expensive Germany’s reunification were registered in the TRILLION DOLLAR range. Less conservative assessments hovered around THREE TRILLION DOLLARS.
Then, plug in the respective GINI coefficients that contrast East versus West Germany’s not-too-shocking earnings differential (in terms of per capita income), as compared to the astronomical economic disparity between North and South Korea’s average household earnings, and the magnitude of reconstruction expenses slowly begins to become clear.
Regardless of these economic factors, reunification of the Korean peninsula represents one of this modern world’s most agonizing and imperative moral obligations. Be sure to fetch a box or three of Kleenex before watching the following video clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYjdUeYT49c
Were there the slightest chance of setting aside North Korea’s nuclear threat (which is not even remotely possible) the cruelly cynical manner in which Pyongyang stage-manages these heart-wrenching family reunions amounts to crimes against humanity that Kim Jong-Un deserves to be executed for (repeatedly, if that were doable).
A few years of regularly scheduled and agonizing torture would not even come close to what the entirety of North Korea’s political leadership deserves for orchestrating these pitiless manipulations of siblings and relatives that have been forcibly estranged for DECADES.
[/rant]
I ran out of sympathy for the SorKs long ago.
They are shameless: I’d leave them to the cannibals upstairs if they were the only ones threatened.