As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival
North Korea’s launch last week of a missile from a naval destroyer elicited an uncharacteristically prosaic analysis from the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The launch was proof, he said, that arming ships with nuclear weapons was “making satisfactory progress”.
But the test, and Kim’s mildly upbeat appraisal, were designed to reverberate well beyond the deck of the 5,000-tonne destroyer-class vessel the Choe Hyon – the biggest warship in the North Korean fleet.
His pointed reference to nuclear weapons was made as the US and Israel continued their air bombardment of Iran – a regime Donald Trump had warned, without offering evidence, was only weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.
they exist to prevent conflict at all because everyone knows the consequences of using them.
As I said to the other guy, I’m pretty sure the people in charge of the United States right now would happily let their people get hit by three nukes so they could new nuke you back. It’s a win win for them.
I’m not so sure about that since it’s still possible for them to hit stuff and people they care about even though they may not care about the country or its people in general.
And no doubt the S&P500 would tank so there’s that. Seems to be the one thing Trump cares about more than anything else.
With the administrations effort to collapse the value of the US dollar, I think we may be getting to the point where they stopped caring about the stock market gains too. Which would make them irrational actors. They already own most of the stock market anyway. They can crash the market and still control the companies.
Well as soon as oil prices surged and markets dipped, Trump switched from “war could go on forever” to “almost done”. I guess it remains to be seen if it is only a rhetoric switch but if that was the case it wouldn’t help for long. The less certain thing is whether Trump can even get the strait to reopen by withdrawing at this point.
Ya I mean he’s making a lot of money moving markets with his tweets. That’s the side gig. But eventually manipulating markets, makes people get suspicious and step away. You don’t want people losing faith in your faith monetary system.
I’m not sure if it’s shortsightedness and greed or an actual plan to collapse and consolidate but I don’t think he really cares about the health of the stock market. I think it’s just being useful to siphon money away right now.
I mean, we just had the strangest situation with the oil prices and the European Union dumping its oil reserves. The whole world declared an emergency because the oil speculators managed to get the price up to 120 a barrel for 30 whole minutes. I don’t think anyone seriously cares about markets anymore.
They only prevent conflict if you have enough to annihilate your enemy. We have a full nuclear umbrella over the globe so no matter how many nukes you throw at us we are still going to be around to throw them back at you. 3 nukes won’t save you. 3,000 might?
There’s still a significant deterrent effect even if you’d “only” lose a few major cities worth while others stay around. There’s also potential for extended responses by other nuclear weapons states that further increase deterrence for such a scenario.
I’m trying to think of how Ukraine acquiring nukes would work with Russia? Do you think Ukraine having a nuke would deter Russia or would it make them an existential threat and have Russia nuke them? Let’s look at this from two different countries stand points and take the USA out of it for a second.
That would depend on the details of the hypothetical. Certainly if Ukraine was able to develop a credible threat with first strike survivability before Russia became aware I would expect Russia to be forced to move towards de-escalation and diplomacy because their major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg which Putin has tried to shield completely from all effects of the war would be in danger.
Lacking that and with a credible ability to eliminate the nuclear weapon completely with a pre-emptive strike Russia would probably do it even if it meant nuclear strikes against Ukraine.
That’s basically how I have it gamed out, although I think the situation would be wildly unpredictable. Throw some bad intel and paranoia into the mix and it gets quite messy. I’m obviously just some dude from America, but if I was Ukrainian I would be really nervous about the results of going nuclear. Personally I’d like my country to get rid of more nukes and stop encouraging the world to build more. I understand the perspective, but I think it’s short sighted and dangerous. I hope the people freely advocating for it on the Internet, have thought through it as much as you have.